Most of Me (2 page)

Radio 3 is the most laid-back work environment there is at
CBC
. It's like a dingy basement hangout for teenagers. The lights are dim, the dress code is casual, and the focus is music—new, independent Canadian music. Here, we play songs, talk to musicians, and cover concerts, festivals, and other music-related events. Fun stuff. It sure beats slugging it out in the pressure-cooker newsroom or on current affairs programs—chasing politicians, filing numerous stories, racing against the clock. Which is why I can't understand what's wrong with me, why I'm so frustrated and anxious.

I'm starting to wonder if something is
really
wrong. More than just premenopause, which is what I suspect I have been going through these past few years. I'm only forty-one, but it's possible. I have many classic symptoms: irregular periods; trouble sleeping at night; muddled thinking and problems concentrating; inexplicable aches and pains, muscle and joint stiffness, and fatigue; and terrible mood swings and bouts of depression. I've been taking vitamins and Chinese herbs to regulate my hormones. They seemed to help in the past. But not anymore. Now, the only thing that really helps me cope is sleep. Thank goodness I have no trouble napping in the daytime. At home, I just crawl into bed, pop in a pair of earplugs, and doze right off. At work, I sneak away to the yoga room when it's empty, assemble a makeshift bed with yoga mats and blankets, turn off the lights, and disappear. As far as career coping mechanisms are concerned, it's a real skill, which I'm proud of—it ranks right up there with secretly throwing tiny tantrums in the soundproof room or crying my eyes out alone in the ladies' washroom.

By the time my coworkers trickle in, I have written the script and left a copy of it on the host's desk. Later, he takes me aside and says, “Thanks for the script. It's great. Could have used it last year, when the band came in to promote their previous album. I guess you didn't notice they have a new release?”

“Oh, shit. I'm sorry. Do you want me to rewrite it?”

“Nah, I already did.”

He walks away. I am crushed by the weight of my ineptitude and slump down into my chair. I am torn between needing to scream and needing to cry. But there's no time to do either—the boss is about to give his morning pep talk. So I take some deep breaths, swivel in my chair, and suck it up, all the while saying to myself, “Things will get better. Things will get better.”

The next two months are a blur of work and sleep. My thoughts are becoming more agitated and jumbled; my body is starting to feel battered and shaky. Like I'm being bounced around in a rock tumbler. I'm also dropping things. Pens. Cutlery. A coffee cup. And today at work, I stumbled on the stairs. Something is definitely wrong. Or maybe I'm just going crazy. I should probably go see my doctor again. Maybe I'll call him later.

First, it's time to call my dad. We speak on the phone every day. He hasn't been feeling well for a while—he's been slowing down, having difficulty walking, and losing his balance. And even though I know he's been undergoing tests and seeing specialists, I am shocked when he tells me he has just been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. After I hang up, the thought that he's afflicted with this devastating illness is too much for me to bear. Whatever flimsy mechanism is holding me together suddenly snaps. I take refuge in a private recording booth and cry me a river of turbulent tears.

I HAVE A CONFESSION:
I have a Cry Lady living inside me. She makes me choke up anywhere, anytime, with anyone—at the drop of a hat, the stub of a toe, the hurl of an insult, or the hint of bad news. Fortunately, I'm one of the few middle-aged women who look attractive with puffy red eyes, blotchy skin, and a snotty nose, so my public outbursts don't bother me. They don't seem to bother my colleagues either—at least not the ones that scuttle away like cockroaches when my lower lip starts quivering and my eyes start leaking. This has been going on for weeks now, ever since my dad told me he has Parkinson's.

I've never cried so much in my entire life—though I have had plenty of practice. I've cried over broken toys, broken bones, broken hearts, broken dreams. It helps that I've been blessed with
PMS
and an artistic temperament. It's no wonder my repertoire of tears is so extensive—ranging from infantile to crocodile and everything in between. I was built to bawl. I was built to do a multitude of other things too—laughing being one of them. But I can't even crack a smile these days, let alone laugh. I'm afraid my joy is in jeopardy of becoming extinct. I need help. I need therapy.

DEPRESSION DESERVES DISCRETION
—that's why there's no sign on the clinic door. Just the address. I appreciate this gesture as I walk, unnoticed, inside. I also appreciate the steep staircase and what it offers—a hopeful climb toward a new beginning, or perhaps a hapless fall to a hopeless ending.

I'm here tonight to meet Theresa, a cognitive behavioral therapist who specializes in treating depression. She finds me in the waiting room, leafing through a
Reader's Digest.

“Are you Robyn?”

I nod.

“I'm Theresa. Come with me.”

I follow her around the corner, along the hallway, into a tiny office. We sit down opposite each other, me on the couch, she on the swivel chair. She smiles, takes a deep breath, then exhales slowly, loudly. Without intending to, I smile, inhale deeply, then exhale slowly and loudly too.

“Would you like to spend a few more minutes breathing together?” she asks.

I nod and follow her lead, and as we inhale and exhale in unison, a comforting intimacy overrides the awkwardness between us. Relaxed and alert, I take in her features: oval face, straight nose, stormy blue eyes, intelligent mouth, pale complexion, shiny shoulder-length auburn hair. She looks like she sprang from the same gene pool as Jodie Foster—a half-sister perhaps, or a first cousin. She probably thinks I sprang from the gene pool of a cosmetically challenged, hirsute cavewoman—given my frizzy brown hair, dark-circled bloodshot eyes, thick bushy eyebrows, and bleached mustache sandwiched between a runny nose and chapped lips. But we keep our first impressions to ourselves. After all, it's not the physical we're delving into, it's the emotional—that temperamental realm where once a week, in a tiny office, my Cry Lady confesses her life problems and emotional turmoil to a therapist with a compassionate heart, an intuitive intelligence, and an endless supply of Kleenex to mop up an endless supply of tears.

Thanks to Theresa's perceptive and skillful direction, our first therapy session is grueling—a real emotional workout. It starts with my telling her my abbreviated life story:

I grew up in Toronto in a typical dysfunctional middle-class Jewish family. I felt like the black sheep—the disobedient daughter who dated non-Jewish boys, who left the nest before getting married and moved to the other side of the country. My mom is fiery and flashy, spontaneous and demanding; my dad is laid-back and refined, cautious and accommodating. They have been married for forty-four years, and while learning to love one another they perfected the fine art of arguing, carrying grudges, giving each other the silent treatment, and blaming the other. They taught their children well. All three of us—me, my younger sister, and my baby brother. We spent much of our childhood embroiled in battles, tearing down trust, building up walls. It drove my parents crazy. Especially my mom. She had a short fuse, and her conflict-resolution techniques were often framed as questions. Sometimes she'd wait for an answer, like a
TV
game show host waiting for the contestant to make up her mind.

“Will it be curtain number 1? Or would you rather have what's behind curtain number 2?”

“Are you going to stop that crying, or do you want me to give you something to really cry about?”

“Will you apologize to your brother, or do I have to teach you a lesson that'll make you really sorry?”

“Can you and your sister stop that fighting, or should I bang your heads together and knock some sense into the both of you?”

Choices, choices, choices. It never really mattered who decided what—we usually got what we didn't want. And for me, the only thing worth getting was
away. Far, far away.

I made my escape in 1986, when I was twenty-two. I moved to Vancouver, to study at the University of British Columbia. One year shy of completing my undergraduate degree in psychology and fine arts, I left school and started my own successful art business, Robyn Levy Studio. I sold my original paintings, greeting cards, and T-shirts across Canada and the United States and even in Japan (where my company name was advertised as Lobyn Revy Studio). In 1991, I met Bergen; in 1994, our daughter, Naomi, was born. Six years later, I started working at
CBC
, in radio.

“And why are you here to see me?” Theresa asks.

“Because I can't stop crying. I've never been so depressed in my life.”

“Do you have any idea what might be causing your depression?”

“Probably lots of things,” I sob. “Wonky hormones from
PMS
and premenopause. Stress at work. Stress at home. Naomi is depressed. We're fighting a lot. And she's having trouble at school. You know, girl culture; girls can be so mean. She's different, and it's hard to fit in when you're different. Then there's our house. It's unfinished. Bergen is slowly fixing it up in his spare time, but it's taking forever. There are always power tools and messes everywhere. I hate it. But the worst thing is my dad was just diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.”

“Are you close to your father?”

“Very close. Always have been. I am so sad that he's sick, and I'm so far away. I wish I lived closer so I could be there, to help him.”

“How is he coping?”

“Not well. He's incredibly depressed and anxious. Can't sleep. Can't work. Losing weight. Slowing down. He can barely talk on the phone. He's having all sorts of adverse reactions to meds. It's like my dad has disappeared.”

Theresa nods, then says, “It sounds as if you are in mourning.”

“But my dad didn't die. He's still alive.”

“Of course he is. But given your dad's health, he may never be quite the same as the dad who raised you, the person you are used to. It's possible you're mourning the loss of your pre-Parkinson's dad.”

I let this idea sink in. Images of him from photos taken over the years flash through my mind: playing tennis, driving his vintage red convertible, hugging his three kids, napping on the brown couch, napping on the white couch, napping at the Blue Jays game.

Then a memory I'd long forgotten surfaces.

“I was in my early twenties, and my dad and I were walking on a path in a park. I had picked up an ordinary stick from the ground and was shifting it back and forth between my hands as we chatted. After a while, my dad wanted to see the stick. So I handed it over to him, and he casually asked, ‘Do you mind if we share it?' It was an odd but sweet request, and I must have nodded yes, because he snapped it in half, passed me one part, and kept the other for himself. Then we continued walking, neither of us mentioning the stick again.”

Theresa says, “Maybe nothing needed to be said. It sounds like the sharing was complete.”

Suddenly I feel my chest tighten, and I begin gasping for breath. Theresa crosses her arms, places her hands flat against her upper chest, and says, “Try doing this with your hands. And breathe deeply.”

I do, and within seconds I am overcome by grief—Theresa a witness to my weeping, my wailing, my Cry Lady crescendo, and the first of many mournful farewells to my aging, ailing father.

When I eventually calm down, I complain of a pounding headache and tingling in my left hand and left foot. The same tingling sensations that I've been experiencing on and off for weeks now.

“Would you like to do something to help relieve your headache and get rid of the tingling?”

“Are you offering me heroin?”

Theresa smiles. “Nope. Sorry, I'm all out of heroin. But I can teach some exercises that will help you feel better.”

So for the last part of the session I mirror Theresa's movements: self-massaging my temples and jaw and neck, deep breathing while moving my head from side to side, raising my arms up over my head and then flopping them down at my sides, and stomping my feet. Surprisingly, my headache disappears, and the tingling in my hand and foot is almost gone. But not quite.

Our time is up, and Theresa says, “You worked really hard tonight. Drink lots of water when you get home; your body needs it.”

After scheduling next week's appointment, I walk carefully down the steep staircase, out into the drizzling rain, and drive myself home—exhausted and cranky and thirsty as hell. I am thankful that Bergen and Naomi instinctively stay out of my way the rest of the night. Only Nellie, with her squeaky toy, dares to approach.

COME SUMMERTIME
, work conditions are perfect for a
TV
sitcom but pitiful for real life: poor management, tight deadlines, big egos, and hot tempers, and to top it all off, the entire
CBC
building is under construction. It looks like a war zone. The grounds are a wasteland of rubble and dust. Trees and shrubs lie wounded in piles. Parking lots are tunneled into massive graves—out of which will eventually rise the
TV
Towers condominiums and a world-class broadcast center—with an integrated multimedia newsroom, state-of-the-art technology, a performance studio, public spaces, and more. It's all part of
CBC
's Vancouver Redevelopment Project, which will take three years to complete.

Month after month, season after season, we toil away at our desks, despite the nerve-racking noise of dynamite blasting, pneumatic drilling, and jackhammering. We write scripts and edit tape in workspaces speckled in drywall dust and demolition debris while breathing in noxious fumes from paint, cutting oil, and glues. We conduct live on-air interviews with guests while construction workers make a ruckus above our not-so-soundproof studio.