What a large number of factors constitute a single human being! How very many layers we operate on, and how very many influences we receive from our minds, our bodies, our histories, our families, our cities, our souls and our lunches! I came to feel that my depression was probably some ever-shifting assortment of all those factors, and probably also included some stuff I couldn't name or claim. So I faced the fight at every level. I bought all those embarrassingly titled self-help books (always being certain to wrap up the books in the latest issue of Hustler, so that strangers wouldn't know what I was really reading). I commenced to getting professional help with a therapist who was as kind as she was insightful. I prayed liked a novice nun. I stopped eating meat (for a short time, anyway) after someone told me that I was "eating the fear of the animal at the moment of its death." Some spacey new age massage therapist told me I should wear orange-colored panties, to rebalance my sexual chakras, and, brother—I actually did it. I drank enough of that damn Saint-John's-wort tea to cheer up whole a Russian gulag, to no noticeable effect. I exercised. I exposed myself to the uplifting arts and carefully protected myself from sad movies, books and songs (if anyone even mentioned the words Leonard and Cohen in the same sentence, I would have to leave the room).

每一个人是由多少的因素所构成的呀！我们在如此多种的层面上运作，而我们经受来自我们的心理、身体、历史、家庭、城市、灵魂，甚至是吃下的午餐多少影响呀！我觉得自己的抑郁或许来自这些变幻不定的种种因素，或许还包括我无从指名道姓的东西。因此我面临每个层面的搏斗。我买了所有那些书名教人难堪的励志书籍（总不忘把书用最新一期的《好色客》（Hustler）杂志包起来，以免让陌生人得知我真正读的东西）。我开始接受治疗师的专业协助，她和蔼可亲而且具有洞察力。我像见习修女一样祈祷。我停止吃肉（反正时间不长），因为有人告诉我，我“吃下动物临死前的恐惧”。某个古怪的新时代按摩师告诉我，我该穿橘色内裤，以重新调整性脉轮——唉！我竟真的做了。我喝了许多该死的圣约翰草茶，其分量足以让一整团苏联劳改营开心起来，却不见任何成效。我运动。我让自己接触令人振奋的艺术，小心避开哀伤的电影、书籍与歌曲（倘若任何人在同一个句子里提及李欧纳与科恩［Leonard Cohen］这两个字，我就得离开房间）。

I tried so hard to fight the endless sobbing. I remember asking myself one night, while I was curled up in the same old corner of my same old couch in tears yet again over the same old repetition of sorrowful thoughts, "Is there anything about this scene you can change, Liz?" And all I could think to do was stand up, while still sobbing, and try to balance on one foot in the middle of my living room. Just to prove that—while I couldn't stop the tears or change my dismal interior dialogue—I was not yet totally out of control: at least I could cry hysterically while balanced on one foot. Hey, it was a start.

我极力抵抗永无休止的哭泣。我记得某天晚上，我蜷缩在那同一个旧沙发相同的一角，因相同的悲哀思绪，又一次泪眼盈眶时，我自问：“小莉，这样的场景有没有任何你能改变的地方？”而我所能想到的，就是站起身来，试着在客厅中间单脚站立，虽然仍不时抽泣。这只为证明——尽管无法停止哭泣或改变内心的悲伤对话——我尚未完全失去自制力：至少，在我哭得歇斯底里的时候，还可以单脚站立。嘿嘿，这就是一个开始。

I crossed the street to walk in the sunshine. I leaned on my support network, cherishing my family and cultivating my most enlightening friendships. And when those officious women's magazines kept telling me that my low self-esteem wasn’t helping depression matters at all, I got myself a pretty haircut, bought some fancy makeup and a nice dress. (When a friend complimented my new look, all I could say, grimly, was, "Operation Self-Esteem—Day Fucking One.")

我过街走在阳光下。我依靠我的支持网络，珍惜我的家人，培养最具启发性的友谊。在那些好管闲事的妇女杂志不断告诉我，低自尊无助于忧郁症时，我去剪了个漂亮的发型，买了时髦的化妆品和一件美丽的洋装。（一位朋友称赞我的新造型时，我只狞笑着说“这是自尊心作战计划——他妈的第一天。”）

The last thing I tried, after about two years of fighting this sorrow, was medication. If I may impose my opinions here, I think it should always be the last thing you try. For me, the decision to go the route of "Vitamin P" happened after a night when I'd sat on the floor of my bedroom for many hours, trying very hard to talk myself out of cutting into my arm with a kitchen knife. I won the argument against the knife that night, but barely. I had some other good ideas around that time—about how jumping off a building or blowing my brains out with a gun might stop the suffering. But something about spending a night with a knife in my hand did it.

与哀伤搏斗将近两年后，服用药物是我的最后尝试。容我在此加入自己的意见，我认为药物应当是你的最后尝试。就我的情况而言，决定走上服药之路，是在某天晚上过后；那一晚，我在卧室地板坐了几个小时跟自己说话，极力尝试阻止自己拿菜刀割腕。当晚我虽然战胜了菜刀，却只差之毫厘。当时我还有其他好主意——跳楼或举枪自尽以求解脱。但手握菜刀过了一夜却让我解脱开来。

The next morning I called my friend Susan as the sun came up, begged her to help me. I don't think a woman in the whole history of my family had ever done that before, had ever sat down in the middle of the road like that and said, in the middle of her life, "I cannot walk another step further—somebody has to help me." It wouldn't have served those women to have stopped walking. Nobody would have, or could have, helped them. The only thing that would've happened was that they and their families would have starved. I couldn't stop thinking about those women.

隔天早晨太阳一升起，我打电话给我的朋友苏珊，求她协助我。在我的整个家族史中，我想没有哪个女子曾这么做过，曾这么坐在人生的半途，说：“我一步也走不动了——哪个人来帮帮我吧。”这些女子停下脚步也没用。没有人愿意或能够帮忙她们。唯一可能发生的事情，就是她们和家人饿肚子。我不断想起这些女子。