I have been getting a lot of calls recently from new clients who have just moved to Los Angeles and are having difficulty adjusting.  Some of these people moved in two days ago, and some moved here two years ago, but regardless, a recurring theme that being new to LA is taking its toll.

Here’s the good news: After living for periods of time in Massachusetts, Georgia, New York, Ohio, and London, I can state unequivocally that Los Angeles, where I was born and raised, is my favorite place!  I’m so pleased that you’ve decided to join us, and I really do think you’ll like it a lot!

The downside is that Los Angeles presents a unique batch of challenges to newcomers.  Of course any new city brings with it a period of adjustment – learning the geography, making friends, settling into a new home.  But there are some things you should know, specifically, about LA.

As a native Angelino, as well as someone who has relocated to new cities on several occasions, I have a window into what makes Los Angeles unique.  Some might say these things make LA special; others might say it makes it particularly difficult.  And as a therapist, I also have the privilege of insight into how each of these things can impact a newcomer’s mental health.

And so without further ado…

 

5 things to know about Los Angeles… and how to manage them

1. Traffic

Let’s get the obvious one out of the way.  Just recently, the LA Times posted an article telling us something we already know: Los Angeles has the worst traffic in the country.

Beyond the fact that it causes us annoyance, traffic taps into our most raw existential quandaries.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone lament that they waste two hours of every day in a traffic-ridden commute.  When you really think about this – as people who can do math in their head and have two hours of sitting unproductively in a car are wont to do – you realize that this means you’re spending 8% of your life waiting for other cars to move!

So during that 8% of your life, you fidget.  You look to your left and see that the guy in the car next to you is looking at his phone.  “Ugh,” you think, “it’s idiots like that who cause car accidents that cause this kind of traffic in the first place!”  You fiddle with the radio and find it unsatisfying.  You look at the clock and worry that you might be running late.  You pick up your phone and skim your emails.  You glance to your right and see that the person in the next car over is looking at you with raised eyebrows.  “Judgmental jerk,” you think, “I have important stuff to do.”

And it’s true!  As you sit, bumper to bumper, waiting for everyone to collectively press the gas pedal, you start making a “to do” list in your head.  You’re very important, and your time is very valuable.  The indignity of this traffic is sucking your life away, one hour at a time, just like that machine from The Princess Bride.  And so you start to get a little anxious and ask questions without answers: “What’s the point of sitting in traffic?”  “What’s the point of anything, really?”  “What is the meaning of life?”  “Someday I’m going to die, and when that day comes, how will I feel about having spent 8% of my life waiting for other cars to move?”  “AHHHHH, I SHOULD NEVER HAVE LEFT TULSA!!!”

There’s no way to change this – it’s a fact of life in LA.  You can mitigate your daily commute, but you will eventually find yourself sitting in rush hour traffic that makes a trip from Downtown LA to Studio City take an hour and a half.

But here are some things you can do to make it easier:

  • Live close to work.  Not everyone has this option, of course, but it’s the easiest way to spend less time in traffic.
  • Barring that possibility, live close to good public transportation.  We don’t talk about this enough in LA, but as someone who isn’t originally from here, you have a leg up on this.  Use the subway – if it goes where you’re going, it’s amazing!  The light rail is also wonderful, as it’s not subject to traffic.  Bring a book, sit back, and relax.
  • Make good (safe) use of the time spent in your car.  Audio books are awesome for this.  NPR has an app that you can use to keep up on the latest news.  Anything that requires your ears and brain but not your eyes is a good choice.
  • Plan for traffic.  If your doctor tells you they have appointments available at 9 or 11 AM, pick 11.  There will still probably be traffic.  (Spoiler alert: There’s pretty much always traffic.)  But there will be less than during rush hour.  If you do have to travel when things are extra busy, leave yourself plenty of time.  Traffic is much more stressful when you’re running late.

 

2. Sprawl

Person 1: “Hey there, love your pic!”

Person 2: “Thanks!  Where do you live?”

Person 1: “Calabasas, you?”

Person 2: “…um… I meant to swipe left.”

 

It’s almost 70 miles from Moorpark to Long Beach, and both of those things are technically in Los Angeles.  I lived in New England for a few years, and in that number of miles, you can drive from Nashua, New Hampshire, through all of Massachusetts, to Woonsocket, Rhode Island!

What this means is that two people who live in Los Angeles may have to go very far out of their way to get together.  Even without traffic, it can take an hour to get somewhere in LA from where you are, already in LA.  This increases the cost/benefit element of deciding whether to go somewhere.  For people who don’t know the geography well, it’s easy to commit to something and then find yourself in a car for over an hour.

Here are some tips to manage this:

  • Google Maps is your friend.  Before agreeing to go to something, check how far away it is.  If it’s something particularly important to you, the location may not matter, but it’s still helpful to have all the information before setting out on your way.
  • Don’t assume something is in your neighborhood.  There are a lot of different parts of the city with “Los Angeles” in their address.  Some of these are around the corner, and others are really far away.
  • Cultivate an identity that is related to your town, not just your city.  If you live in Sherman Oaks, or Culver City, or Topanga, or Echo Park, get to know that area intimately.  Attend Meetup groups in your area, seek out things that support your interests near your home, and become the expert of your town’s restaurants.  One of the best things about LA is that you can find an area that suits just about any personality.

 

3. Seasons

This is one of the reasons people move to Los Angeles.  People love to talk about how we don’t have seasons here, and to a large degree, that’s true.  It only rains a few days out of the year, and it almost never snows.  With a fair amount of predictability, the weather is blue skies and sunshine.  Lewis Black even did a bit about how being the weatherman in Southern California is the easiest job there is.  (Link NSFW).

But here’s the unexpected flip side: Seasonal depression can still be a thing.  If you just moved here from New York or Detroit, you probably think you’re in the clear.   No grey, ominous skies for months on end, no digging your car out of the show… January is going to be a literal walk in the park and you’re going to spend it wearing a tank top on a beach!  (I’ve done that, by the way – it’s definitely an option.)

Seasonal depression, though, isn’t tied exclusively to the weather.  The days get shorter, and it’s dark when you wake up.  You still have Thanksgiving, the December holidays, the end of a year, the beginning of a new year, all the way through to Valentine’s Day… and each of these has the potential to bring up complicated feelings that have nothing to do with the sunshine outside.

The sunshine does help, and for some people, the winter blues are 100% cured by the complete lack of seasons in Los Angeles… but other people – especially those in their first year here – are shocked to find that they still struggle during these months.

Here are some things you can do if you find yourself succumbing to this:

  • Recognize that it’s a thing.  In other words, practice self-compassion and be kind to yourself.  Bears hibernate in the winter, and people – even when winter is 72 and sunny – often feel a compulsion to do the same.  Talk to others about it to normalize your experience.
  • Visit home.  When you get back to Los Angeles, the sunshine will be a welcome change.  Think of it like hitting a “restart” button.
  • Get a blue light to mimic sunshine, especially if you wake up in the wee hours when it’s still dark during winter.  This is something that a lot of people do in colder climates, and many people say that it mitigates their seasonal depression.  Even though you live in Los Angeles, this can still be helpful.

 

4. Body image

The above is an actual billboard I saw over Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley.  How’s that for distorted body image?

When I’ve lived other places, I’ve often quipped that the moment I got off the plane at LAX, I would gain 20 pounds.  It wasn’t true, of course – the gravity works the same way here in Los Angeles as it does all over the rest of the country.  But looking around me, indulging in the vice of social comparison, it felt true.

There is a lot of pressure in Los Angeles to fit a certain image.  You can see movies starring Megan Fox in any city in the country, but only in Los Angeles is it likely you’ll run into her at Starbucks.  Celebrity run-ins (and they do happen, but probably not as often as your back-home relatives would like to believe) reinforce the idea that the bodies to which most of the country aspires from afar are actually attainable.

And because of this, many laypeople are very workout-minded (note I didn’t say health-minded: they are related but different) which leads those who don’t have the self-discipline or genetic  pre-disposition to thinness, toned-ness, or bulging muscles to feel bad about their “failure.”  A lot of people struggle with body perfectionism.  (Let’s not forget: Brene Brown’s research tells us that perfectionism is shame’s cousin!)  They wonder, “why am I the only one in this pilates class who doesn’t have rippling back muscles?”

A million things have been written about healthy mindsets, but here are just a few tips to fight the tendency to be self-critical:

  • Cultivate a healthy relationship with food and exercise, whatever the size of your body.  If self-loathing were going to work, wouldn’t it have worked already?
  • If you decide you’d like to make a lifestyle change that will alter the shape of your body, choose a fitness program that empowers you rather than one that feels terrible.  When you’re moving your body, you should be thinking “I love how it feels to move like this,” not “ugh, this is horrible, it feels like I’m punishing myself.”  I really like Kit Rich’s “3 or 30” philosophy as a starting point.
  • Don’t make self-love conditional on looking a certain way.  Work towards whatever healthy goals you have, but also cultivate the ability to love yourself even while you’re a “work in progress”.  You will always be a work in progress in some way – learn to embrace it.
  • When looking at magazine covers, keep a balanced perspective.  If, as your full-time job, you had to maintain a perfect toned figure, you would find time to exercise every day.  You’d also use your sizeable income to hire a personal chef to make you delicious, healthy meals three times a day.  In all likelihood, this is not part of your job… but for the people on the covers of magazines, it is.  (Furthermore, they’re extremely Photoshopped.)

 

5. The “people are fake” myth

Conventional wisdom about people in Los Angeles is that everyone is incredibly superficial.  And, by and large, on the surface that’s true.  Many people who live in Los Angeles enjoy the trappings of success – expensive cars and houses, the latest fashions, and attractive or wealthy significant others.  But let’s dig a little bit deeper.

Los Angeles is a city full of people who have moved here from other places.  Some people come for the sunshine or the beaches, or perhaps the spontaneous excitement of earthquakes, but most come because they’re seeking some kind of success and leaving something less promising behind.

So people arrive, and they see what successful people look like: attractive, with expensive cars and houses, the latest fashions, and attractive or wealthy significant others.  They think to themselves, “I came here for success, and this is what success looks like!”  So those are the things these newcomers come to value and strive to emulate.  But with most of these people, if you take the time to chip away at their façade, you will likely find that, like an onion, they have many layers.

Here are some tips about how to do this:

  • As I recommended in an article a few weeks ago about making friends as an adult, go to places that foster your interests and hobbies.  People at a comic book convention know they’re surrounded by like-minded people and are less likely to hide who they are.  Folks at a Dodger game are more likely to let their guard down and allow their inner fan to reign supreme.
  • Be a genuine person, yourself.  People are much more likely to let their guard down around you if they sense that you’re being authentic.
  • As the old saying goes, “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”  There are millions of people in Los Angeles, and they fit every type and description you can imagine.   Your people are here somewhere, I promise.