An ongoing series about my experience with depression and medication. Because sometimes it’s hard to just think positive thoughts.

 Part 2: In which I’m reminded that a simple movement upwards with my mouth can make quite the difference. Click here to read Part 1. 

A little over three months ago, my mother watched me as I gulped down 5 mg of Cipralex. It left an acidic taste and a chalky feel in the back of my throat. A few minutes later, I emailed the guy I consider to be my soulmate, just not in this lifetime, to tell him the news. He emailed me later congratulating me for making such a big step, one that many others are too cowardly to get out of their heads to face. It all felt super solemn and dramatic, considering I was taking a dose of meds, which my best friend later noted, that was the same amount his cat was taking.

But still. Depression was really getting in the way of my life despite the fact that I had tried my best to go at it on my own without them.  I worked out regularly, volunteered, owned a pet, listened to my breath. Nothing seemed to do the trick. There had been way too many times when the couch had conquered in the battle against productivity. As hard as I was working on myself, I needed the kind of help that came with a prescription.

And my stars, how that prescription has helped. Although the first two months were a bit touch and go, the downer days were starting to turn into the minority. The weight of dread started to lift when I woke up the morning. The non-stop thoughts— dense with anxiety and hopelessness and self-hatred—started to ease up. In short, I’m here. Now. Present. And life is way more manageable—and, dare I say, enjoyable—as a result.

I listened to the advice of my doctor and shrink and waited till the meds had fully kicked in to make any big decisions. The second they felt like they did, I sublet my place in Vancouver and moved to Toronto. My family was there, as were my oldest friends, and if I was going to reboot the chemical balance of my brain, I might as well do it where my safety net was thickly padded.

In the time since I took my first prescribed anti-depressant, the number of downer days I’ve experienced can be counted on one hand. When they do hit, however, they feel no different than how I remember them. And just like the bitter winters in the East after moving out West, the feeling of those downer days are so easy to forget.

But with all these changes that have happened, this renewed appreciation for living and being alive, I am still a hardened shell. I still scowl at men who I catch checking me out. I still get curiously infuriated when someone who I’m not attracted to asks me out on a date. I still percolate with rage when I see Facebook photos of new relationships that my ex-boyfriends are in. I still feel things. Deeply.

Like when I was I was lucky enough to snag a seat on crowded subway recently. A woman, perhaps in her late 40s, stood in front of me and stared as if to say “You know the rules. Get up.” I have no problem doing this if the person is a) an elder b) disable c) pregnant or d) carrying a shitload of bags, but if you’re in good health, that seat is fair game. However, this woman wasn’t going to let up. Her glare was enough to ruin my day but I’ve never been stubborn so I gave in and got up, walked to a different part of the subway car, without looking back. She took my seat and I felt pissed. I stood in the crowded subway, angry that I’d given in so easily to someone who didn’t deserve that seat. Then I looked up, and on a reflective mirror, looking back at me, was a smiley face sticker.

And right then, I made a rule to smile, especially if I saw the sign. Because, just like the meds, it made things a lot easier.

And so now, every time I see a yellow smiley face, I see it as a sign to smile. At least once a day I’ll see one; as a patch on a teen’s backpack or on a take-out bag. Have a nice day. Each and every time I come across that basic happy face, I  take it as my cue to smile. I now look forward to seeing them.

But I’m human. I get in moods. I feel things. Like last week, while riding the subway at night in New York. I armed myself with a tough exterior, as a way to detract unwanted male attention, which is inevitable if you’re a woman in the city. As I started to walk up the stairs at my subway station, I could feel myself being checked out by a man walking down. I looked straight in front of me. He passed on my left side.

“Smile,” he said, and kept on walking.

And since I’d been practicing a lot, with a little bit of help, it wasn’t so hard to do.

Hi reader. Send me photos of smiley faces or tell me about your experiences on meds. Leave a message below or email me at write@eliannalev.com

An ongoing series about my experience with depression and medication. Because sometimes it’s hard to just think positive thoughts.

Part 1

In which cartoon faces speak to me and say “Go on meds already, you moron.”

While on the island the other week, I packed a booklet of Yoshimoto Nara postcards with the intention of writing to a few friends. At the top of the pack was a portrait-style painting of a cartoon girl’s face. She had thin, curved-lined eyes closed downwards and a slight, peaceful smile, in a moment of serenity. The painting was titled “Well” and it made my heart lurch.

That was how I wanted to feel. Unfortunately, I was far from it.

Rather than live with that fact, as I have for a loooooong time, I decided it was time to do something about it.

I’m currently taking a journey into the land of balanced serotonin levels. After nearly 32-years, two diagnoses, and more downer days than non-downer days, I’ve decided to go on meds. I really have done everything I could to not go down this path, but I was quickly unraveling. There’s nothing more frustrating than being a physically healthy adult and not having the power in you to get off the couch because your head is too clouded with thoughts of your demise.

The reason I’m choosing to be open about this is because hardly anyone else is. So I’ll take a chance and be that girl.

Here’s an unscientific anecdote: I have a friend who goes into rich people’s houses and reorganizes their space. He says 99 per cent of clients he deals with own a) sex toys b) pot and c) meds. There we go. We’re all stoners, we all have sex and we all deal with depression.

Yet, when I wanted to talk to someone in-depth, aside from my doctor, about the idea of starting, I was hard pressed to come up with many people.  I wanted to know what to expect every step of the way and what were the benefits and the downfalls. Kind of like those pregnancy trackers, but for my brain on meds.

The Internet didn’t offer up the help I was looking for. Every time I searched for antidepressant forums, outdated message boards in Comic Sans font would come up with poorly worded responses and waaaaay too many sad emoticons for my taste.

I finally caved in to the idea of meds when my depression started to affect my work. As a freelance writer, everything comes down to me. And the idea of relying on myself lately had been way too much to handle. I lost my drive, my ambition and my goals. Basically, I was losing myself. If my life were a soap opera, this is where the distractingly dramatic music would come in.

On July 29^th, I took my first antidepressant. It’s a low dose, half of the lowest dose available, so I got a complimentary pill cutter from the nice pharmacist. My mother, who had flown out from Toronto to coddle me for a few weeks, watched me swallow it down.

“Feel any different?” she asked, the second I put my glass of water back on the kitchen table.

The first day, I suspect the placebo effect kicked in. I felt clear-headed, inspired to write (about depression) and managed to get out of the house to look for tops.

At my favourite consignment store I came across an oversized white t-shirt with a clown’s face on it.

His eyebrows are slightly raised but his eyes are dead. His mouth is a thin line, a lazy, slight sneer inside a smile-shaped red triangle. There was a lot going on with this clown and none of it was good. I could totally relate.

I bought the shirt to symbolize what I intend to outgrown on my new journey…er, adventure…way of life? I’m not sure what to call it. All I know is that I want to leave the disturbing clown face behind and grow into something more along the lines of “Well”. Wish me luck.

Hey reader! Please send this along to someone you know who might benefit from this kind of chatter. Also, if you’re on meds (and I know you are), let’s talk. I’d like to hear your experience. Leave a message below, if you’re feeling bold, or email me at write@eliannalev.com

I had a Spadling Gray moment recently and it didn’t involve me being behind a desk.

When I got home from a visit to the island last week, I called my friend who had met up with me for the getaway.

I told him that when I got on the ferry to go home, I felt so dark inside I’d imagined what it would have been like if I’d jumped off the side of the giant boat. In my head, it was a beautiful image. Me, floating down slowly, with my hair cascading behind me. For some reason I imagined myself wearing a flowing white dress. It’s a beautiful image, something out of a Swedish fairy tale or something. My imagination stopped, though, before I hit the water.

My friend is no stranger to darkness. As a teen, he lost his parents in a car crash and had to identify their bodies. Then, in the last few years, his (now ex) wife told him he was pregnant, with her lover’s child. He’s not had it easy.

So I was completely surprised to hear that he’d never had these kinds of thoughts before, not even remotely.

“I don’t think like that,” he shrugged. “Because no matter how bad things get, you can always, I dunno, go get noodles or something.”

Though he lacked some serious empathy, I got what he was saying. No matter how bad life is, there’s always something worth living for. Even if it’s only noodles.

The problem is, I was having a hard time seeing it that way. And I have a long list of things in my life that I’m grateful for:  My supportive and loving family, a remarkably cute dog, top shelf friends, a head of spectacular, voluminous hair.  I am often told by people I admire that I’m a talented writer with a big future. And sometimes it really feels that way.

But despite all of this and more, there’s a darkness inside of me that seems to get in the way. It makes me incapable of feeling good things about everything I have in my life, which is where the jumping off the ferry thoughts have come in.

I try to do everything I’m supposed to do to be a happier person – I volunteer, exercise, write lists, go to therapy. Sometimes I force myself to be social, even though connecting with people is increasingly difficult.

Despite it all, I still feel so dark inside.

While telling this to my friend, he bluntly pointed out to me that I’m having suicidal thoughts. They were just images in my head, I argued. I didn’t genuinely see myself taking my own life.

“It will get to that if you don’t get help,” he said and made me promise I would.

I agreed and then started to cry.

*

Last December, a restaurant near my house called Sha Lin caught on fire. Their specialty was handmade noodles and it was a regular spot for myself and the majority of my friends. We’d regularly go there in groups. Or just as often, I’d go alone. Aesthetically, it wasn’t anything special. The walls were speckled in grease and the florescent lights were unflattering. Giant red poster boards lined the walls with pictures of dozens of the dishes on their extensive menus. The food itself was greasy and not terribly big on flavour, but it was hearty and plentiful, comforting and fun.

Children would press up against glass-windowed kitchen and watch as the cooks expertly made the noodles. It was a spectacle. Sometimes they’d swiftly pare slabs of dough, sending finger-thick pieces diving into a boiling pot. Other times they’d pull the slabs through their fingers, and stretch it back and forth like it was wiggly strands of yarn.

So when news of Sha Lin’s demise hit nearly eight months ago, I felt it in my heart. It was the only thing in my life, aside from my dog, that consistently brought me joy.

I’d walked by it often in the past months to check in. Newspapers lined the windows and its ceiling was mangled. There was no notice saying what had happened or when, if ever, it would reopen.

Last Saturday, my neighbour texted me to say she’d heard rumblings that Sha Lin had reopened. I had forced myself to get out of the house that day to check out a street festival. Turns out, nearly every person in the city who I had a bad or awkward history with was also there and I left a few hours later, feeling disconnected and numb.

As I walked home, I was overwhelmed by sadness. Something was going to have to change within me, but I had no idea what. It was hard to think of the future. Everything in my life just felt uncertain. I wondered how much further I was going to have to unravel until I was going to change.

It also didn’t help that I was hungry.

Since I skipped lunch, I decided to see if the rumours were true, and walked by Sha Lin.

The door was open, and a sandwich board with the restaurants’ name stood outside. I peaked inside. The space was the same, except brighter, with a fresh coats of paint covering the grease-stained walls, and brand new tables and chairs. I walked in and was cheerily greeted by three waiters who were standing at the back. They looked anxious to get to work. I took a seat.

I ordered my usual – fried cutting noodles with veggie and tofu and a side of onion pancakes. I thought to text a few friends to join me but decided not to. I wanted to experience this alone.

I watched as groups of families and friends slowly filled the place up, all ecstatic that their joint was back. Everyone, including the staff, was so happy to be there.

When my dish arrived, I covered it in vinegar and got to work. It tasted exactly how I remembered it. Thick, greasy noodles, with bits of spongy tofu, crunchy broccoli and sprouts. I was comforted.

In the middle of my meal, I looked out the window. A bus had stopped and on its side was an ad for a Honda dealership. On top of a pile of sad faces, a bright yellow happy face was winking at me.

And that’s when it hit me.

No matter how bad life is, there’s always something worth living for. Even if it’s only noodles.

Statically, I know I’m not the only one who thinks and feels this way. I wanna hear your stories on how you cope. Leave me a message or email me at write@eliannalev.com

I had a moment with Ron Sexsmith the other day. It was at the Toronto premier of Love Shines, a documentary about his life. It was the first time I’d left my parents’ house that week ‘cause I hadn’t really been feeling like myself. I’ve retreated to Toronto during a pretty slow time with work, which in turn has allowed me too many hours of self-reflection about where I am with my career as a writer, and where I want to go. So far, the answer isn’t clear and it’s frustrating. So frustrating, in fact, that I often find myself thinking about how much easier it would be if I didn’t exist. But not in a suicidal kind of way. Just in a depressed person kind of way. (My depressed brothers and sisters will relate. Everyone else will probably feel weird reading that.) Ron Sexsmith is an unknowing leader for a legion of depressives. A miserable messiah who’s still around, doing his thing, despite his perpetually grey outlook on life.

I went to his documentary looking for hope.

Before the film started, I went to empty my tiny bladder. On my way to the washroom, I passed Sexsmith, who was being interviewed by a documentary crew. I did my best not to stare or listen in, and carried on my way. As I made my way back to the theatre, he was still chatting with the camera crew. Underneath his tornado of frizzy curls, his heavy-lidded eyes briefly made contact with mine. I heard him answer the interviewer: “Well, it’s opened a lot for doors for me.”

That quick snippet was a nice endnote to the film I was about to watch. It gives the history of Sexsmith as a person and musician, in that order, and his struggle to make it into the mainstream. A good chunk of the film chronicles his recording session with hotshot producer Bob Rock, who, unlike Sexsmith, is cool and confident like Chester Cheetah. The goal for Sexsmith was to make an album that would make him the musical star he never was. Or at least, the musical star he never believed himself to be.

That’s one thing that’s hammered home, over and over again in Love Shines. Sexsmith is incapable of seeing how much he’s accomplished and how much he means to his fans, which include Feist (!) and Elvis Costello (!!) His wife talks about how he’s “special”, how he’ll never be able to see or truly understand his impact on others. It all sounded familiar.

At one point in the movie, Bob Rock is having a pep talk with Sexsmith, who is clearly anxious about what will happen next.

“Success is on the other side of fear,” Rock tells him, to which Sexsmith simply shrugs.

Unlike Sexsmith, that line immediately brought me some much needed clarity and comfort. I felt something shift inside and surprisingly enough, it didn’t scare me.

I’m not exactly going to spoil how the movies ends – all you just have to do is look at the charts or turn on the radio to figure that one out. Sexsmith is still not a household name, nor a radio staple.

However, if I heard correctly before the movie, doors are opening for him and his career seems far from over. If fear is what pushes him along, then I, and countless other artists, certainly relate. I hope for his sake, he’ll finally get to see what’s on the other side.

I know for my sake, I’m beyond curious to find out what’s there.

Holy man of war, I am a scattered mess these days. Allow the following blog entry to prove this point clearly or not so clearly. This is my mind on messy cracked egg yolk.

To wit, my life recently:  One moment I’m freaking out about what may or may not be coming, whether that’s complete failure in my career and relationships or a gigantic, overdue earthquake and tsunami.  The next moment, I am back in the present, flatlining my brain in a peaceful and meditative state.  And when I’m not feeling either extreme anxiety or deep calm, I am completely numb. It’s my new way of coping, I guess, after a long succession of failures in the last year or so.

It’s a baffling place to be. Neither here, nor there nor anywhere. Like a Dr. Seuss story but not as one-dimensional as the pages it lives on. There’s a lot of crazy shit going on, and the story arch is far from predictable. It can be exciting but it can also be scary, like walking a plank, blindfolded into a pool of either milk or molasses.

If my life had a soundtrack, it would consist of two tracks: Oh What a Beautiful Morning and I Just Don’t Know What to do with Myself. And this song.

So in other words, nothing that new, really. Things just seem a little sped up.

Since I’m working on a pilot segment for CBC Radio 3 called “Three Good Points with Elianna Lev,” I’m going to start practicing the format here. Here are Three Good Points I’m focusing on while I try to achieve some semblance of balance during this surreal and hard to grasp time in my world. And the world.

1. Delude yourself to the point of success

As much as I work on building my selfesteem, worth, love etc during a point in my career where I seriously can’t afford to be doing anything otherwise, I’m still not buying it.  So, I’ve decided to look to Kanye West as my saviour. I spend enough time on Wikipedia researching mood and personality disorders to confidently know Mr. West is a textbook case narcissist, and that’s all right by me. Look at everything he’s accomplished. There’s no doubting he got where he’s at by being completely delusional.

So I’ll take a whopping dose of what he has and run with it. Maybe it’ll finally take me where I long to be.

2. Accept the darkness

This site brings me a lot of love, but I won’t feel like I’m doing my job right until I start getting hate mail. It will come I’m sure and I’ll be ready for it.

In the meantime, the closest thing I have to hate mail right now is my bad-energy neighbour. He lives just around the corner, looks identical to a male version of the woman from the Twits, always sits on his porch, and horks up phlegm every time I walk by. I assume he’s an alcoholic, as he has about four Paps in front of him by 8:30 a.m. I’ve become very self-conscious when I walk by his house, and I’ve become very aware of this fact.

When I first moved in the neighbourhood and noticed this man’s weird energy, I used to grin widely and furiously wave, in an attempt to appear defiant and obnoxious. When he stared back at me without looking away first, I got scared and gave up.

Next, I tried horking loudly after I walked by, but only after he’d horked first. This was a decent plan until I got a nasty look by another dogwalker, whose pooch ran over to lap my phlegm on the pavement.

These days when I walk by his house, I notice the shift energy, keep walking and pretend to act as normal as I can. I try to revel in the fact that this frightening man at least keeps things interesting.

3. Let the silt settle

My good friend Louise Burns (whose album is dropping on April 5th) is an expert when it comes to dolling out Taoist quotes in times of sheer clusterfuckerydom. Here’s one that is permanently ingrained in my brain: If you let the silt settle, the water will be clear. Malcolm Gladwell said successful entrepreneurs all have one thing in common: It isn’t their appetite for risk. It’s their ability to see a sure thing. Nothing seems sure to me right now. NOTHING. Which means that nothing is going to be clear until there is clarity. Who knows what it’ll take to get there. I suppose that’s all part of this on-going, never-ending process.

Hi reader. Just thought I’d say hi. Leave me a message below or email me at write@eliannalev.com because I love you so very much.

There’s a bank of good feelings I reach into when I’m experiencing a downer day.  It’ll usually be one of those days where I find myself on the couch, and it will likely be grey and rainy out. No one will have emailed me for hours, and the phone is certainly not ringing. I’ll have already taken two naps, eaten leftover pasta, and will have found myself on the couch again, preparing for yet another nap. I will quickly sink into questioning my talent, and myself wondering ‘what good am I worth?’ and “what’s the point of it all?” But before I sink too deep, I try to retain moments that once made me feel valid and good. This is one such moment:

I was in my last year of the writing program at the University of Victoria, circa 2002. Writters Overloade, the weirdly named writing collective I was part of, had organized a non-fiction reading at a small coffee shop. The place was packed with students and teachers, along with some famous, established writers. One of those was Patrick Lane, a Governor General Award-winning poet.

I’d seen him once before, in my first-year poetry class, a class that was mandatory for me to take in order to complete my writing degree. It was a class I really didn’t enjoy because it required too much from me. Too much abstract thinking and feeling and not enough understanding. I realized quickly that I didn’t want to be a poet. Who would want to commit themselves to a genre that not only pays nothing, but, let’s face it, has the reputation of making you look like you have your head stuck way far up your ass? Think about it. I’m a poet. Ick.

But when Patrick Lane came into my class that one day, my perspective of poetry quickly changed. He was a badass, the opposite of fey. There was a strong and serious darkness to him, one that made you sit still in his presence. When he read us one of his poems, his voice projected across the room so strongly, it pinned me to the wall. He wasn’t in it to hear his own voice. He was in it because he had lived.

I was completely compelled.

The non-fiction reading at the coffee shop was the first time I’d presented my work in front of a crowd. I read a piece about feeling stupid, and the audience laughed at all the right parts. I felt like I was doing something right. At the end of the night, as the crowd made its way out the door, Patrick Lane came up to me and said something along the lines of “I’ve never heard of you before. That was good stuff.” He almost seemed amused.

Despite it being nine years ago, that brief interaction stuck with me. I had managed to compel someone who’d managed to completely compel me.

On a recent downer day, though nearly incapacitated by depression, I decided to find Patrick Lane online, and send him a note in an attempt to feel productive. I wrote to him saying that our brief interaction meant a lot to me and that I hold it close to my heart on days when I don’t feel like I’m doing anything right. To my surprise, he wrote back a few hours later. (Reprinted with permission.)

How very kind of you to not only remember, but to take the time to drop a note to me. I do remember the moment. The piece was good and showed real promise as I remember. I don’t always do that, only when the writer seems worth it to me.

Downer days are occasions to dive deep inside and value the moments where we can feel anything that much. I’ve had few tough days in my life. Remember once passing out on Hiway 16 five miles east of Hazelton. It was 1967, I think, and I was unhappy.

I lay on my back and pulled off my boot and discovered the twenty dollar bill I’d tucked into the toe for emergencies was gone, likely stolen by the girl who’d left me the night before, or far more likely spent by me in the bar, or fed to a moose or bear as a joke.

I remember lying there on my back and thinking that when I got up I’d go whatever direction my feet had been pointing towards. It happened to be east and I ended up in New York City two weeks later with time on my hands, a bit of money in my pocket, and a remarkable lady who cared enough to let me share her bed and board.

Sometimes bad days can point us toward small paradises.

You keep well. I hope you’re still writing.

His response helped fill up my bank of good feelings to the point where it’s overflowing. In turn, I now feel like a millionaire.

—

I want to hear about what you store in your bank of good feelings. Leave me a comment below or write me an email at write@eliannalev.com

I love hearing from you. It totally makes me feel rich.

In Grade 12, my class took a day trip to Guelph University for their campus orientation day. I had no intention of applying to Guelph but wanted to take the day off to get out of town for a day trip. They took us to different parts of the campus for information sessions about each faculty. I remember sitting in an auditorium with other students from schools all over Ontario for a presentation put on by the student union. The purpose was to address concerns high school students might have about campus life. They did this by reenacting possible scenarios about safe sex and asked the audience to get involved by shouting what they thought the characters should do in each situation. I remember being completely floored that the students from other schools were shouting out as if they were in the audience of Jerry Springer. I was too old for this shit and made it clear, to no one in particular, that I was seriously unimpressed.

That’s exactly how I felt while attending a conference last week. Except I wasn’t only unimpressed with the conference itself, but I was unimpressed with my reaction to it.

I was covering it for a website I write for and went in with as few expectations as possible. (Keeping expectations low is something I’ve really been working on since becoming a freelancer because the rollercoaster of emotions involved with this job is exhausting. Regardless, whatever bar I’d set was still too high.)

I had been riding a wave of balance, and perhaps even happiness, since Halloween night, after spending several months in a k-hole of depression. I figured attending a conference all about inspiration and collaboration would only add to that wave.

I felt my mood shifting the moment I arrived and noticed this wasn’t a conference aimed at working professionals, but rather, students.

There is something in their energy –the purity of their excitement and enthusiasm towards the future – that I entirely can’t relate to. Call me jaded, cynical, elitist, depressed. Because guess what? I am all those things.

The rest of the day was spent listening to creative types give lectures about how they got to where they are today. While the crowd around me listened to each speaker, wide-eyed and enthusiastic, I felt myself quickly sinking back into my dark place.

When am I not where I want to be in life, the last thing I want to hear is about how people are where they want to be in life. It reminds me about all the things I’ve done wrong and distracts me from what I should be doing, which is working harder.

Between the lectures, there were several workshops, in which we had to do group exercises.  I was placed in a group with a fellow who wasn’t well versed in personal boundaries and slapped my hand away from my mouth as I was yawning. He told me to get a coffee and I snapped that I don’t drink caffeine.

When I dislike someone – whether they are annoying off the bat or have wronged me in the past – I have a very hard time faking how I feel about them. This is something I’m constantly trying hard to change.

With another 20 minutes stuck in a group with this guy, who owned an ad firm, I resorted to coping techniques I learned in therapy. What can I learn from this person? What is the good in this situation?

I was having a hard time coming up with answers, and I only felt worse, so I resorted to my usual behaviour when I’m uncomfortable and unimpressed. My walls came up and I became silent.

During the lunch break, I unloaded my frustrations to my friend Hilary, the editor of Granville. Frustrations with my behaviour, how critical I was, and my negative thought patterns. I told her how hard it was for me to change. I asked her how the hell I was going to succeed in the world when my brain was programmed the way it was.

Hilary listened empathetically and then told me about a Japanese custom she had observed in her time living there. When talking with one another, Japanese people constantly make grunt-like sounds to express that they’re on the same page. However, if one person is silent, that means they don’t agree with something the other person has said. The person talking, in turn, has to figure out what it was that they said that made the other person disagree, and what they can say to get them back on the same page.

“You being silent just means you aren’t impressed,” she said. “While it’s not always easy for other people involved, the world needs people like you to rethink how they do things, and maybe even raise the bar.”

I thought about what she said as I continued to fade through the rest of the afternoon. Was I okay being that person, the silent Japanese? I realized how I answered made no difference. It’s just who I am.

Later that evening, though emotionally spent, I made an effort to pop into my friend Randy’s art show, Age of Info(rmation). It’s a series of collages made up of images sliced from vintage magazine, sometimes arranged in intricate, almost mathematical, patterns. The gallery was packed and a crowd surrounded Randy, peppering him with questions about his technique and inspiration.

I watched as he guided the group from one piece to another, talking with serene confidence about his work. Seeing this artist entirely in his element, completely enveloped by his work and its payoff, made me feel something that I was worried I’d become too jaded, cynical, elitist, and depressed to feel.

For the first time that day, I was truly impressed.

–

I’m not sure what to ask to engage you in feedback this time around but I really truly love hearing from you. So leave a comment, or drop me a note at write@eliannalev.com…tell me about a time when you wanted to sink in a hole or smack someone’s hand away from their mouth when they were yawning. Tell me how I can stop being a bitch or tell me ways to accept that I am. Seriously. I want to hear from you.

My mother recently attended the baby shower for a family friend who used to be my roommate years ago. (Hi Maya!)  The mother-to-be approached my mum to tell her she read my stuff online and was a fan but was concerned about my well-being. She said I seemed really depressed.

I asked my mother how she responded.

“Well,” she said, “I told her you are single…”

Before my mother got any further, I quickly interrupted her with a loud “ack!” because if she was single-handedly trying to morph me from an independent, hard working freelance lady who uses her writing as a form of release for her underlying depression into a Cathy comic, she sure as hell succeeded.

For those of you unfamiliar with the iconic comic (not in a good way) I’ll set it up for you: Cathy followed the life of a single working lady and was syndicated in thousands of daily papers for about 30 years. Like many things published in daily newspapers, it was sanitized, eyeball-rollingly lame, and meant to appease a broad, vanilla audience, who obviously had a terrible sense of humour. Think Marmaduke for single women.

The themes of Cathy comics were usually the same: she couldn’t resist food, she couldn’t fit into a bikini, she couldn’t tell her mom to fuck off when she kept nagging her about marriage. (Ack! was her catchphrase). My mother doesn’t do this, thank fucking goodness, but I was still surprised to hear her credit my depression to being single.

“It’s just that you always seem a lot happier when you’re in a relationship,” she said.

I guess she has a point but now that I’ve been out of a “serious” relationship for nearly a year, I’ve come to understand something very important: Being in a relationship often only suppresses the real issues going on inside. Sure, you’ve got something to raise your serotonin levels more often but that doesn’t mean your darker issues are going to go away.

And I know for certain this isn’t only me. Some examples?

*A lot of people I know in relationships regularly cheat. Whether it’s on Casual Encounters or Chatroulette or on a work trip, they secretly step out of their relationship to acquire something they can’t get – or at least can’t attempt to communicate on getting – within it. This isn’t news, right?

* A friend of mine who just ended a seven-year marriage, only to jump into another mostly sex-based relationship, convinced me he’s thrilled with the way things were working out for him. I totally believed him until he called me up last night completely shitfaced, blubbering about how he couldn’t stop listening to “I want you” by Elvis Costello, and that he was so completely obsessed with his new lady friend that he was doing all he could to refrain from calling her and telling her how much he was in love with her. It was icky.

* An older, wise woman who I occasionally talk to about my personal troubles recently told me that I’m lucky to be single. When I asked why, she said that when you’re depressed and in a relationship, not only do you have to worry about yourself but also the chance of bringing the other person down with you. Being single made things less complicated, which helps when you’re depressed.

It’s so easy to lose yourself in someone else and maybe that’s why I have not even the slightest desire to be in a relationship right now. I’m far too lost in myself. On the happy side, at least I have the (desperately strong) desire to be found again, and you know, start making my mother happy too.

“Be careful of the roads here, they can buckle beneath you at any time.”

I’m driving through Hollywood with my friend Enos. We speed over a fracture in the road and shift slightly in our seats. I look back at the giant crack and assume it got there as a result of an earthquake. Oh well, I think.  It’s my second day in town and I am feeling this city, cracks and all. I came here on an inspiration vacation and so far, it’s been entirely successful.

The night before I’d met up with my friend and writing partner Ayma, who’s joined me on this trip, and gone on a platonic double date with two strangers – an aspiring actor named Austin and his gym buddy Matt, who’s a writer for a magazine I had wanted to pitch. Synergy!

Ayma had met the aspiring actor’s dad in first class on her stopover flight to Phoenix, enroute to LA. He’s the CEO of a jewellery company and was taken by Ayma’s giant eyes and infectious charm. They talked about inspiration, aspiration and success – the things Ayma is coming to find on her trip to LA. He shares a valuable lesson he learned on a similar journey to get where he is today: the only difference between anxiety and excitement is the outcome you predict. Then, the CEO called up his son in LA and told him to take Ayma out. Which is what he does the next night.

Austin admits that his dad tries to set him up with random girls he meets all the time, but this is the first time the girl has followed through. We go to a vegan restaurant named Green Leaves, which is unimaginative save for the pink vintage guitars randomly hung on the walls.  We get over our awkwardness quickly and talk about the city and its endless opportunities. Matt gives me pointers on pitching to the magazine he writes for and we exchange email addresses. I go home feeling excited, which is what I’d initially come here to feel.

In LA, people are outwardly friendly. Men notice you and smile when you walk into a room. Everyone is working on an exciting project. Everyone is working towards something. Strangers seem to want to help you out. I’m addicted to the feeling of possibility and I know this city can feed that.

*

After Enos’ warning, I keep noticing cracks in the infrastructure. On the sidewalks, on the roads and even on the freeways.  These sinister gaps are everywhere. Sometimes the street is so unlevelled, it’s slanted half a foot above the rest of the concrete. I wonder why the city doesn’t put more effort into fixing these cracks, and how often people trip on this crumbling infrastructure, break a limb and sue. Or maybe natives to this city don’t even notice them anymore.

*

I am staying with Enos in his beautiful guesthouse, which is surrounded by lemon trees. I had originally come to spend time with his boyfriend, who is my best friend. But as Murphy’s Law would have it, his boyfriend is in Vancouver, working on a gig, staying at my apartment. Regardless, Enos is like my family and he treats me like so. He is not afraid to tell me like it is. In my time spent with Enos, he continues to lose his patience with me, with my constant moods, with my negative outlook on life. He wants me to go out and experience LA, while I want to lie under the lemon tree and write. I tell him it’s hard to change my moods but I’m working on it—I have been for the last year. Apparently I’m not working on it fast enough, because he continues to weigh in on me and I begin to crack. I begin to crumble.

*

It is my second last night in LA. Ayma and I are out with her new friends, as her unflappably cheery demeanour and openness never fail to attract people to her, particularly awe-inspired men. We are at an overly crowded bar and Ayma’s new friends are asking me what I want to drink. I tell them I don’t drink but they keep pressing.

“Why not just for tonight?”

I am burnt out and irritated and majorly hormonal. I am in a mood. A mood I am very familiar with. A mood that is hard to fight.

These new friends try to talk to me, eagerly tell me I should give them my email address. I barely spit out one-word answers and slouch in a corner, visibly miserable. I remember what Enos, who’s lived in LA for six months and continues to master this town, told me the first night I got in: In Los Angeles, you always have to be on.

Okay then. I am failing miserably in this town.

I try to play a mood altering exercise with myself where I have to list five things that make me happy about the situation I am in. I look around the crowded bar, at Ayma’s new friends slinging back their drinks, clamouring to shower her with attention, and want to cry. There is nothing here that makes me happy and I hate myself for feeling this way. I truly hate myself.

*

I wake up the next morning feeling lower than I have in a long time. I feel completely depleted. My head is light and spacey and inside I feel black.

I’d come to LA to be inspired and I was about to leave feeling like a failure.

I choose to be kind to myself and spend the rest of the day lying under the lemon trees, napping, drinking water, and eating fruit. Ayma comes over and we do a bit of writing. I slowly ease back into myself. In the evening, we eat at a healthy restaurant called Tender Greens, point out names we recognize on the Walk of Fame and take photos in a photo booth. By night time, I feel okay again. Not quite inspired, but not quite eroded either.

*

Enos’ assistant arrives early the next morning to take me to the airport. We speed along the freeway, zipping over cracks in the Los Angeles infrastructure. Again, I imagine how they got there and how long it will take for them to be covered up. Or maybe, I wonder, they will just continue to crumble and eventually turn into something far worse.

If you’re afraid to fail, then you’re probably going to fail – Kobe Bryant

I’m going to be upfront here: I’ve been feeling like shit lately. I’ve been working hard, consistently, but it never feels like I’m doing enough. I have big dreams but they’re really taking a long time to transpire. So in turn, I feel like a failure.

When things move along at snail speed it’s easy for this big dreamer to get discouraged, take several days off to indulge in her vices and wind up curled up in bed next to her dog in the fetal position at 7:30PM for three consecutive nights.

Recently on the way to yoga, I came across a rusty, dismembered, discarded typewriter on the side of the road. It felt like the perfect metaphor for how I’ve been feeling. This beautiful piece of equipment once had so much purpose. Now it’s useless and worthless, destined for the trash.

Yeah, I’ve been feeling like shit. So I decided to call a few key people in my life to help me climb out this K hole of depression.

First I rung up my new friend Hilary Henegar, who’s an editor at Granville Magazine. She was a fan of my writing before we met in real life. Last week, she asked me out on a friend blind date and I said yes. We met up, clicked immediately and had a really fun time. We’ve talked on the phone every day since.

I called her in an attempt to boost my ego. Here’s a snippet.

Me: Tell me nice things about my writing.

Hilary Henegar: I really enjoy hearing people be really honest about where they’re at in their lives. So it works for me when you talk about why you gravitate towards things. And you seem like a real person. You seem like you’re not rah rah rah about anything but you’re not too cynical to shit on anything. I like the enthusiasm and realism.

Me: Wow. I love this.

Talking to Hilary helped but I wasn’t entirely cured of my bummed-outness. So, I decided I’d hit up my friend Matthew Finlason next. He’s busy blowing up in LA so he doesn’t appear to have much time to pick up the phone when I call. When I saw he was online, I asked him if he had any wise words about success. Here’s what he wrote:

“Ask yourself with every decision you make: is this one rung UP or one rung DOWN the ladder. Step up.”

Then he told me he’s really busy and signed out.

Finally I called my dear friend Bob Larson in New York. He’s an important TV producer and probably the most successful person I know. (He’s responsible for all these shows.)  He is also one of my most favourite people of all time because he is just so fucking positive. You hang out with him and immediately feel enlightened. It’s a treat. Here’s a bit of our chat, at least the part that’s relevant:

Me: So I feel like a failure. Please make it go away.

Bob Larson: Well, there’s the old Bob Larson Skippadee-dee-dee theory: It’s all about the journey. There’s some part of every day when you feel like you’re not getting there – there’s something there. There’s something in those crappy moments. It’s the good song that’s playing in the grocery store. Don’t ignore those moments. It’ll keep you on the right path.

Me: Thanks Bob. I actually really need to buy groceries.

I wish there was a way to summarize this whole experience up nicely. End it on the positive note. But honestly I can’t. I’m in a weird place and the only thing that makes me feel better, aside from the lovely and kind words from my friends, is the fact that I know this feeling won’t last forever.