Interview with MH
MH, Ana Chen
MH, Ana Chen
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Ana: Ok so thank you so much for joining me [name]. umm I was wondering if you could talk a bit about yourself and your story with mental health with an Asian-American identity and basically your thoughts about mental health during this time or just like outside or within the context of COVID-19.
MH: Yeah absolutely, first thank you so much for having me. Ummm it’s such an honor to have an opportunity to speak on all those topics that you just brought up. In terms of myself, so I am Chinese-American umm my family grew up predominantly in Atlanta, Georgia in a pretty suburban area. I’d say that my awareness about mental health in the way that it’s perceived in the Asian-American community really began when I was pretty young – |
More or Less Moral-Less
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[cont] I’d say probably around the age of 5 or 6. Umm and this kind of accumulated umm and different events that you attend you know like with your family members umm and friends seasons, different holiday seasons. Spending a lot of time with other families and just really observing the way not only that the children of first-generation Asian-Americans communicate with one another and about themselves and parents address different topics that come around their children. I think what I saw a lot when I was younger was that around mental health they were not addressed in the sense that a I was something that you were not allowed to talk about or b it was something that if it was brought up it was a kind of pull yourself up by the bootstraps kind of mentality. Umm I don’t think that I ever really had or heard a conversation where mental health was discussed as something that ummm could be uncontrollable could be a result of multiple different things other than maybe laziness or things that I think are very or maybe not related at all to the concept of mental health itself and what we're coming to understand as today. Umm and so that was really the beginning of my experience and my awareness of the way that mental health was addressed in our community. And I grew older, I continued to see these trends and I only umm when I kind of entered High School and so at the age of 14 I moved to Florida and I was taken out of a primary Asian-American area or Asian-American community and more emerged in a predominantly white community. I saw that you know my parents and different relatives addressed the issue of mental health you know like not being open to it in conversation or being addressed as something that you can control and you can fix and if you don’t want to then it’s your fault. Umm and so these topics were open but even so was like outside outside of our community itself still considered taboo and still viewed in those similar lights. In terms of my own journey with mental health, I think the reason I became a little more aware you know when I moved from Georgia to Florida was that I was kinda coming to my own understand in the ways that I was dealing with my mental health. I think a lot of childhood circumstances and childhood experiences including the fact that my parents had a very very very tumultuous relationship and because of that my relationship with my siblings or relationships with other family members were also affected. I think that has really affected the way I have built my own defence mechanisms, the way that umm that I view different issues and a lot of things along those lines of my own self-esteem and who I was as a person umm and so right around that age of 14 when I started become aware of those things I began to kind of understand myself better as well. And I understand that you know that I was dealing with issues that were related to mental health and because I had never had that opportunity to have that conversation or if I were ever to introduce that conversation it was kind of taken in that slight of you know everything is fine and you know you're doing well, you have everything you could ask you for you know why would you be contemplating, complaining, or *distorted* or feeling with sadness or contemplating struggling. Because you're not struggling, we’re giving you everything, your environment is so substantially prepared for you umm and so that was when I started to realize of course that those issues just like you know how we have an understanding of them today are not the same things. Those issues are not you know necessarily how you know whether or not you're doing great in school, whether or not you're putting on a front for your friends – you're a happy person, you're a funny person, you’re the comedic person you know all of those things are you know not connected to your mental health issues and you could still be struggling and still be dealing with all of those issues while you are acting happy or doing well in school and all these things. And so I think like that’s kind of my experience on how I grew up in different area and how I was taught different things in mental health and my own kind of coming of age and how I began to understand more the issues that I was dealing with.
A: Thank you so much and I could totally relate to a lot of what you were saying. I was really curious about your talk of two topics: one of them was intergenerational relationships and how kids from a younger generation talk about or talk with themselves and my other umm point of curiosity was your discussion of defence mechanisms. I was wondering if you could elaborate or either or both of those topics.
M: Definitely umm so talking about the first topic that you kind of brought up in terms of how we speak to one another or how we speak about ourselves – I think one big thing that I think has kind of been a facet or kind of been very pervasive on my life has been this idea of humility and I think humility is kind of important that is that is very valued and rightly so. But the way that it’s addressed I think is incorrect in the sense that humility does not equal degrading yourself or degrading your accomplishments or degrading the things that you’re dealing with and I think I’ve seen that continually reflected in different conversations. I think this is a thing that has gradually gotten better and I think that this uhhh we’re being taught more and more to place values on ourselves and as who we are as individuals in society but I think that a lot of things bleed into that and one of that is the way that your parents or relatives may or may not address you or may or may not address the things that you’ve done, the issues that you;re dealing with in terms of mental health. I’ve heard many times you know my uh my child’s so lazy you know she or he is uhh maybe like made a bad grade or struggling in this certain area or they just won't’ do exactly what I want them to do, they won’t do it exactly on time, they won’t do it exactly in this way that I would perceive it to be correct. And so I think that instead of look at the root of why someone is struggling or looking at the root of why they’re dealing with a difficult circumstance. Umm the idea is kind of to umm take away a little of what could be a supportive stance uh in that environment, in that circumstance and kind of degrading them and I think that when your parents speak to you in this way, when your parents speak about you in this way, this then is bleeds into the way you reflect upon yourself subconsciously and that’s the way you communicate that image with yourself and to others. And I think it’s incredibly important to kind of develop these levels of support not only with your family but within your community and kind of learn how to rectify the things that may have been wrong in the past and kind of build upon one another and kind of stand strong together umm because again while I don’t think that umm every case of mental illness can be addressed the same, in no way do I think that at all. I do think that high levels of support are going to be incredibly beneficial to individuals who are dealing and struggling with those circumstances. I think that we have to kind of change that tone and those conversations are brought up and addressed with one another and that was kind of what I meant in terms of speaking to one another, speaking with yourself and having that effect from your family and umm from other adults, that you're kind of shaping your childhood perspective. Umm and then could you remind me again of your second thing, it was defence mechanisms, correct?
A: *nods*
M: Ok. So in terms of defence mechanisms, a lot of this comes back to childhood and generational issues can bleed into it and affect the way that you address it umm and affect the way that you build these within yourself. And umm you know a lot of reflection in terms of what is beneficial and what is not, speaking purely on an individual basis in terms of my own defence mechanisms, I think that umm living in a circumstance where there was a lot of chaos and a lot pressure as a young child to retain peace within a household and retain this kind of amicability between not only your parents but your siblings and your parents, umm and to kind of balance all those things kind of taught me how to please people, to be that kind of happy face of how I talked about prior to be umm the kind of person who was adaptable and switch in a kind of single second a conversation, who can change the tone or mood of a room and that while that while those traits could be beneficial they also teach you that your the way that you think about yourself, your mentality, your wellbeing are not as important as everybody else’s. It teaches you that in order to defend yourself or in order to make people happy, you have to constantly please them, you have to constantly be the one who has to direct the way that the conversation is going and constantly be sure that everything is okay. And so again when you get older, you kind of realize that ok I’m dealing with these issues and I am struggling and I feel this heaviness this heaviness is pushing down on me so much that sometimes it’s hard for me to get up, sometimes it’s hard for me to do my work, sometimes it’s hard for me to be the person that I want to be. But deep down because the way that I was raised and because of the environment that I grew up in, I don’t believe that that matters, you know? Just because I’m dealing with all of these all of these difficult issues, I should still be able to put on a happy face, I should still be able to be that person and make sure everyone else is happy and make sure everyone else is taken care of and I think that that was something that I started to realize as well. Like if there was a day where I could barely move and I am just incessantly crying crying crying and feeling such such a darkness and lowness about myself - lowness is not a word sorry - and such a darkness about myself in the way that I’m dealing with all these contemplations and these critiques and these insults and this hypersensitivity to all the things I don’t like about myself and feeling like I don’t have and adequate worth to keep going forward. But I’m still thinking of taking care of other people and I’m still thinking about doing all these other things, then maybe there’s an issue that I need to address and that’s an issue that I was never asked to address or asked about to address in the past. And I do think that this might be similar sentiment that a lot of other people could share you know this idea that why why would I value my issues when I could take care of other people’s issues but I think that it’s so important to kind of take a step back and be like what are the defence mechanisms that I’ve built up since I was young, what are ways they affect me, what are the ways they affect umm my mentality and everything that I’ve been dealing with and how can I change them to better help me going into the future?
A: Thank you so much I, that was very wise and honestly that blew me away thank you *[name] laughs* and I was wondering like just could you discuss a bit about how you came to be aware of these issues and your journey to umm self-recovery and to and to self-awareness and what coping mechanism you use today in your journey for mental health.
M: Absolutely so um I don’t think this is good so I’m just going to put that out there! So um awareness came out of necessity, so awareness came out of this increasing build and this increasing crescendo of kind of bad events of events where I was dealing with a lot of the emotions that I was sacrificing about prior where it was a culmination of days where I could barely function. Umm and this occurred primarily I’d say during college so this was like around the age of probably like like 19 I want to say. I’m 21 now, just for reference. But like I said, I first became aware that these issues were predominantly in my life around the age of 14, and I didn’t address them, deal with them in any sort of mechanism to function with them or deal with them until I was basically forced to, until I was basically like ok this is getting so bad that I need to, I need to figure out something umm not talking about it, holding it all in is obviously not working. Umm and I just remember there were days where I would just be walking to class so I would have 15ish minutes between classes and I would just be like ok this is the only time during the day that I would have to cry and I would just be bawling bawling bawling on my way to class which I probably looked like a crazy person but um and also– Just a quick side to that if you’re dealing with these issues and you feel like you look a certain way to the outside world, who cares? You need to address what you need and you need to address what’s going to benefit you. So I made that joke because I used humor as a coping mechanism umm but I just want to make that point before I continue. So I just think that dealing with that and getting to that age and seeing that it was holding back from investing in the relationships that I really care about because I didn’t want them to see me in this way, I didn’t want them to see me being vulnerable, I didn't want them to see me as being “weak” because that’s what I had been taught a mental illness was or that’s what I had been taught that these feelings I had been having were associated with were - weakness. Umm laziness, a bunch of other negative adjectives you know I decided that I want to take better care of myself. I want to say be better but I think that you know that dealing with mental illness that’s a day by day thing you know you can’t just snap your fingers and make yourself feel great, you can’t just snap your fingers and pull yourself out of it sometimes but I think that I decided that in order to progress and in order to basically take better care of myself I needed to focus more on what I needed. And so a lot of things have helped umm I can easily say that in this point in my life I am the most balanced that I have ever been umm and again it’s because I- I- I don’t want to say I hit rock bottom because I think that’s synonymous with with a lot of other things but I want to be pretty succinct because I was able to deal with those low points and realize that I that I am lucky enough that I can change them, I was able to implement a lot of things in my life. The first one is that I have vulnerability in conversation. That doesn’t mean, obviously, vulnerability with every single person that comes by because a you don’t owe that to everyone and b not everyone deserves your vulnerability. So open conversation with people that you trust and for me that was your peers, specific peers in college, having the opportunity to discuss with them the things that I was feeling umm and really seeing the way that I was pretending or fronting and that wasn’t the way that was going to help me. So being more open, being more vulnerable with people that I knew I could trust, whether that be for someone else, a select few or a great number of people, that can definitely vary on individual to individual basis and then also, figuring out what the things are in my life that I put value in that make me feel good and I think this is really important too. I know that this can be really specific too to a respective individual but I think it’s so so important to really think about what am I doing every day for different people and what am I doing for myself, is there a balance to that, is there an imbalance to that and how can I provide more for what I need. So for me that is exercise, so I like power lifting a lot but I also like running, for me that is journaling, I know that is pretty cathartic for a lot of different people, um and also doing creative projects so whether that be film-making, writing creative poetry, umm just creating different art that I either share or I don’t those are things that have all been beneficial to me because they are for me, they’re not too satisfy the needs of someone else, they’re not to add something onto a resume. I’m trying to think of different examples of things are done that are done in our day to day lives that are for other people. And I think this is also something that is kind of, maybe not prioritized in our community in the sense that the things that you do are to impress people, to umm maybe add something that your family can speak on or speak about or brag about, humbly, you know at a dinner or something like that you know. Truth is you will have such a more full and whole you know feeling about yourself and about your life in general when you have an opportunity to take a step back and look at the things you are doing for other people versus the things that you are doing for yourself. And again I do know that this is a form of privalize absolutely that a lot of people have tons of accentuating circumstances that affect their ability to do this. But umm if you have the capacity to, I think that this is so so pivotal and I think that this was really like the turning point for me in terms of finding more stability and balance moving forward. I, in no way, want to take away from the experiences of other people because again I know that this is very individual and as I’ve said your experience can be mitigated by the individual circumstance you’re in and what accessibility you have to change these things in your life but I do think that it’s incredibly important if you can.
A: Thank you so much and I’m glad that you’re vulnerable right now like it’s it’s really great to hear words, to hear a voice on this issue, and you’ve brought up so many wonderful points. And I was wondering if you could talk a bit about COVID-19 and mental health under these circumstances, whether for you or for the rest of the Asian-American community.
M: Absolutely. So isolation I think is something that we’re not meant to do umm especially just humans are very social just by nature, by evolution by need. Umm so I think that if you have access to technology like we do right now, just by staying in contact with the people that you value is really important. Umm I know it’s hard sometimes because when you're isolated you can kind of be marinating in a sense in a myriad of your own thoughts and when mental health is added into that picture it’s not always beautiful or pretty in the way that way that you know reflection can be seen. Umm but I think that the more that you take this time to kind of like I said to figure out you know, in those busy times where you had everything open and whether or not you were going into your job in person or your internship in person and balancing all your classes and other things and what were the things you were doing for yourself and what were the things you were doing for others. I think that it can this time can be pivotal to create that image going forward so while you’re in isolation staying in contact with the people that you value a lot can balance out that feeling or that sitting alone with your thoughts a lot and also figuring out the things you want to take out of this going forward. You know, what can you change, what were things that were working, what are things you can pull, what are things you can switch up on real quick in your life and basically reflecting on all the ways that you know you can help yourself going forward. Take this time to yes you know support the people that you love, of course, and sup- uh support your family if you have strong bonds with them ect. umm but also be a little bit selfish. That would be my advice to anyone that is struggling with mental illness especially during this time. Umm be a little bit selfish and focus on yourself and think about the things that could best benefit you going forward because if you have the opportunity to, this is a time you are not going to get back again. Umm for those who maybe don’t have that luxury or don’t have that capacity I think remember that you’re not alone and that there are a lot of different resources that I think are incredible that are still available at this time you know. Whether that be crisis lines, whether that be something social media based like Reddit or Instagram, something where you can continue to find a sense of community and something where you can continue to build that sense of you know that I am not the only one that might be going through this. Even if that’s you know reading this magazine and finding yourself in someone else’s words or someone else’s art. All of those things I think can really be beneficial. You are so incredible and I think every single person needs to understand that all these experiences that have built you up to be who you are make you incredible. They’re so individual, the intricacies and the delicacies that have built you up to this point and though you may be you know struggling with these issues you know building that sense of community and this idea that you’re not alone going through it or that you can find joy in different things and different activities in this time is crucial. And I think that the more that we can create this sense that you are not alone like I said before whether that be establishing or working on a strengthening your relationship with other people, strengthening your relationship with yourself and if you don’t have it yet, establishing a sense of community. All of these things can be very beneficial in this time umm and I would really hope that everyone who might may or may not be struggling umm could have the opportunity to do those things.
A: Thank you so much that was really inspiring. I was wondering if you could tell me one or two things that are giving you hope during this time?
M: Absolutely umm so I think that the space to be creative and the time to be creative that's something that I definitely do not take for granted. I think that umm at least in my own individual case having the opportunity to write, having more opportunity to create films, having more opportunity to dive into music that touches my soul, touches my heart, touches my brain and all these things that I wasn’t really immersing myself in as much when the schedule of life was much busier and my day to day looked a lot different. Umm this is something that has given me so much hope, has given me so much more balance. Also having the opportunity to explore different avenues again that I might find to be beneficial, one of them being meditation. Umm all of these things have given me so much in this time and have given me so much hope and so I think that umm to kind of like sum it up – the space to like explore art, to explore creation, to create my own umm to create my own works has done so much for me.
A: Ok I think that was the last question and your responses have totally blown me away. Thank you so much for your vulnerability and your wisdom and it was like such a pleasure to talk with you and to hear your thoughts about your mental health journal. I just want to say thank you again, you’re extremely strong and umm this interview has just like given me hope so thank you so much.
A: Thank you so much and I could totally relate to a lot of what you were saying. I was really curious about your talk of two topics: one of them was intergenerational relationships and how kids from a younger generation talk about or talk with themselves and my other umm point of curiosity was your discussion of defence mechanisms. I was wondering if you could elaborate or either or both of those topics.
M: Definitely umm so talking about the first topic that you kind of brought up in terms of how we speak to one another or how we speak about ourselves – I think one big thing that I think has kind of been a facet or kind of been very pervasive on my life has been this idea of humility and I think humility is kind of important that is that is very valued and rightly so. But the way that it’s addressed I think is incorrect in the sense that humility does not equal degrading yourself or degrading your accomplishments or degrading the things that you’re dealing with and I think I’ve seen that continually reflected in different conversations. I think this is a thing that has gradually gotten better and I think that this uhhh we’re being taught more and more to place values on ourselves and as who we are as individuals in society but I think that a lot of things bleed into that and one of that is the way that your parents or relatives may or may not address you or may or may not address the things that you’ve done, the issues that you;re dealing with in terms of mental health. I’ve heard many times you know my uh my child’s so lazy you know she or he is uhh maybe like made a bad grade or struggling in this certain area or they just won't’ do exactly what I want them to do, they won’t do it exactly on time, they won’t do it exactly in this way that I would perceive it to be correct. And so I think that instead of look at the root of why someone is struggling or looking at the root of why they’re dealing with a difficult circumstance. Umm the idea is kind of to umm take away a little of what could be a supportive stance uh in that environment, in that circumstance and kind of degrading them and I think that when your parents speak to you in this way, when your parents speak about you in this way, this then is bleeds into the way you reflect upon yourself subconsciously and that’s the way you communicate that image with yourself and to others. And I think it’s incredibly important to kind of develop these levels of support not only with your family but within your community and kind of learn how to rectify the things that may have been wrong in the past and kind of build upon one another and kind of stand strong together umm because again while I don’t think that umm every case of mental illness can be addressed the same, in no way do I think that at all. I do think that high levels of support are going to be incredibly beneficial to individuals who are dealing and struggling with those circumstances. I think that we have to kind of change that tone and those conversations are brought up and addressed with one another and that was kind of what I meant in terms of speaking to one another, speaking with yourself and having that effect from your family and umm from other adults, that you're kind of shaping your childhood perspective. Umm and then could you remind me again of your second thing, it was defence mechanisms, correct?
A: *nods*
M: Ok. So in terms of defence mechanisms, a lot of this comes back to childhood and generational issues can bleed into it and affect the way that you address it umm and affect the way that you build these within yourself. And umm you know a lot of reflection in terms of what is beneficial and what is not, speaking purely on an individual basis in terms of my own defence mechanisms, I think that umm living in a circumstance where there was a lot of chaos and a lot pressure as a young child to retain peace within a household and retain this kind of amicability between not only your parents but your siblings and your parents, umm and to kind of balance all those things kind of taught me how to please people, to be that kind of happy face of how I talked about prior to be umm the kind of person who was adaptable and switch in a kind of single second a conversation, who can change the tone or mood of a room and that while that while those traits could be beneficial they also teach you that your the way that you think about yourself, your mentality, your wellbeing are not as important as everybody else’s. It teaches you that in order to defend yourself or in order to make people happy, you have to constantly please them, you have to constantly be the one who has to direct the way that the conversation is going and constantly be sure that everything is okay. And so again when you get older, you kind of realize that ok I’m dealing with these issues and I am struggling and I feel this heaviness this heaviness is pushing down on me so much that sometimes it’s hard for me to get up, sometimes it’s hard for me to do my work, sometimes it’s hard for me to be the person that I want to be. But deep down because the way that I was raised and because of the environment that I grew up in, I don’t believe that that matters, you know? Just because I’m dealing with all of these all of these difficult issues, I should still be able to put on a happy face, I should still be able to be that person and make sure everyone else is happy and make sure everyone else is taken care of and I think that that was something that I started to realize as well. Like if there was a day where I could barely move and I am just incessantly crying crying crying and feeling such such a darkness and lowness about myself - lowness is not a word sorry - and such a darkness about myself in the way that I’m dealing with all these contemplations and these critiques and these insults and this hypersensitivity to all the things I don’t like about myself and feeling like I don’t have and adequate worth to keep going forward. But I’m still thinking of taking care of other people and I’m still thinking about doing all these other things, then maybe there’s an issue that I need to address and that’s an issue that I was never asked to address or asked about to address in the past. And I do think that this might be similar sentiment that a lot of other people could share you know this idea that why why would I value my issues when I could take care of other people’s issues but I think that it’s so important to kind of take a step back and be like what are the defence mechanisms that I’ve built up since I was young, what are ways they affect me, what are the ways they affect umm my mentality and everything that I’ve been dealing with and how can I change them to better help me going into the future?
A: Thank you so much I, that was very wise and honestly that blew me away thank you *[name] laughs* and I was wondering like just could you discuss a bit about how you came to be aware of these issues and your journey to umm self-recovery and to and to self-awareness and what coping mechanism you use today in your journey for mental health.
M: Absolutely so um I don’t think this is good so I’m just going to put that out there! So um awareness came out of necessity, so awareness came out of this increasing build and this increasing crescendo of kind of bad events of events where I was dealing with a lot of the emotions that I was sacrificing about prior where it was a culmination of days where I could barely function. Umm and this occurred primarily I’d say during college so this was like around the age of probably like like 19 I want to say. I’m 21 now, just for reference. But like I said, I first became aware that these issues were predominantly in my life around the age of 14, and I didn’t address them, deal with them in any sort of mechanism to function with them or deal with them until I was basically forced to, until I was basically like ok this is getting so bad that I need to, I need to figure out something umm not talking about it, holding it all in is obviously not working. Umm and I just remember there were days where I would just be walking to class so I would have 15ish minutes between classes and I would just be like ok this is the only time during the day that I would have to cry and I would just be bawling bawling bawling on my way to class which I probably looked like a crazy person but um and also– Just a quick side to that if you’re dealing with these issues and you feel like you look a certain way to the outside world, who cares? You need to address what you need and you need to address what’s going to benefit you. So I made that joke because I used humor as a coping mechanism umm but I just want to make that point before I continue. So I just think that dealing with that and getting to that age and seeing that it was holding back from investing in the relationships that I really care about because I didn’t want them to see me in this way, I didn’t want them to see me being vulnerable, I didn't want them to see me as being “weak” because that’s what I had been taught a mental illness was or that’s what I had been taught that these feelings I had been having were associated with were - weakness. Umm laziness, a bunch of other negative adjectives you know I decided that I want to take better care of myself. I want to say be better but I think that you know that dealing with mental illness that’s a day by day thing you know you can’t just snap your fingers and make yourself feel great, you can’t just snap your fingers and pull yourself out of it sometimes but I think that I decided that in order to progress and in order to basically take better care of myself I needed to focus more on what I needed. And so a lot of things have helped umm I can easily say that in this point in my life I am the most balanced that I have ever been umm and again it’s because I- I- I don’t want to say I hit rock bottom because I think that’s synonymous with with a lot of other things but I want to be pretty succinct because I was able to deal with those low points and realize that I that I am lucky enough that I can change them, I was able to implement a lot of things in my life. The first one is that I have vulnerability in conversation. That doesn’t mean, obviously, vulnerability with every single person that comes by because a you don’t owe that to everyone and b not everyone deserves your vulnerability. So open conversation with people that you trust and for me that was your peers, specific peers in college, having the opportunity to discuss with them the things that I was feeling umm and really seeing the way that I was pretending or fronting and that wasn’t the way that was going to help me. So being more open, being more vulnerable with people that I knew I could trust, whether that be for someone else, a select few or a great number of people, that can definitely vary on individual to individual basis and then also, figuring out what the things are in my life that I put value in that make me feel good and I think this is really important too. I know that this can be really specific too to a respective individual but I think it’s so so important to really think about what am I doing every day for different people and what am I doing for myself, is there a balance to that, is there an imbalance to that and how can I provide more for what I need. So for me that is exercise, so I like power lifting a lot but I also like running, for me that is journaling, I know that is pretty cathartic for a lot of different people, um and also doing creative projects so whether that be film-making, writing creative poetry, umm just creating different art that I either share or I don’t those are things that have all been beneficial to me because they are for me, they’re not too satisfy the needs of someone else, they’re not to add something onto a resume. I’m trying to think of different examples of things are done that are done in our day to day lives that are for other people. And I think this is also something that is kind of, maybe not prioritized in our community in the sense that the things that you do are to impress people, to umm maybe add something that your family can speak on or speak about or brag about, humbly, you know at a dinner or something like that you know. Truth is you will have such a more full and whole you know feeling about yourself and about your life in general when you have an opportunity to take a step back and look at the things you are doing for other people versus the things that you are doing for yourself. And again I do know that this is a form of privalize absolutely that a lot of people have tons of accentuating circumstances that affect their ability to do this. But umm if you have the capacity to, I think that this is so so pivotal and I think that this was really like the turning point for me in terms of finding more stability and balance moving forward. I, in no way, want to take away from the experiences of other people because again I know that this is very individual and as I’ve said your experience can be mitigated by the individual circumstance you’re in and what accessibility you have to change these things in your life but I do think that it’s incredibly important if you can.
A: Thank you so much and I’m glad that you’re vulnerable right now like it’s it’s really great to hear words, to hear a voice on this issue, and you’ve brought up so many wonderful points. And I was wondering if you could talk a bit about COVID-19 and mental health under these circumstances, whether for you or for the rest of the Asian-American community.
M: Absolutely. So isolation I think is something that we’re not meant to do umm especially just humans are very social just by nature, by evolution by need. Umm so I think that if you have access to technology like we do right now, just by staying in contact with the people that you value is really important. Umm I know it’s hard sometimes because when you're isolated you can kind of be marinating in a sense in a myriad of your own thoughts and when mental health is added into that picture it’s not always beautiful or pretty in the way that way that you know reflection can be seen. Umm but I think that the more that you take this time to kind of like I said to figure out you know, in those busy times where you had everything open and whether or not you were going into your job in person or your internship in person and balancing all your classes and other things and what were the things you were doing for yourself and what were the things you were doing for others. I think that it can this time can be pivotal to create that image going forward so while you’re in isolation staying in contact with the people that you value a lot can balance out that feeling or that sitting alone with your thoughts a lot and also figuring out the things you want to take out of this going forward. You know, what can you change, what were things that were working, what are things you can pull, what are things you can switch up on real quick in your life and basically reflecting on all the ways that you know you can help yourself going forward. Take this time to yes you know support the people that you love, of course, and sup- uh support your family if you have strong bonds with them ect. umm but also be a little bit selfish. That would be my advice to anyone that is struggling with mental illness especially during this time. Umm be a little bit selfish and focus on yourself and think about the things that could best benefit you going forward because if you have the opportunity to, this is a time you are not going to get back again. Umm for those who maybe don’t have that luxury or don’t have that capacity I think remember that you’re not alone and that there are a lot of different resources that I think are incredible that are still available at this time you know. Whether that be crisis lines, whether that be something social media based like Reddit or Instagram, something where you can continue to find a sense of community and something where you can continue to build that sense of you know that I am not the only one that might be going through this. Even if that’s you know reading this magazine and finding yourself in someone else’s words or someone else’s art. All of those things I think can really be beneficial. You are so incredible and I think every single person needs to understand that all these experiences that have built you up to be who you are make you incredible. They’re so individual, the intricacies and the delicacies that have built you up to this point and though you may be you know struggling with these issues you know building that sense of community and this idea that you’re not alone going through it or that you can find joy in different things and different activities in this time is crucial. And I think that the more that we can create this sense that you are not alone like I said before whether that be establishing or working on a strengthening your relationship with other people, strengthening your relationship with yourself and if you don’t have it yet, establishing a sense of community. All of these things can be very beneficial in this time umm and I would really hope that everyone who might may or may not be struggling umm could have the opportunity to do those things.
A: Thank you so much that was really inspiring. I was wondering if you could tell me one or two things that are giving you hope during this time?
M: Absolutely umm so I think that the space to be creative and the time to be creative that's something that I definitely do not take for granted. I think that umm at least in my own individual case having the opportunity to write, having more opportunity to create films, having more opportunity to dive into music that touches my soul, touches my heart, touches my brain and all these things that I wasn’t really immersing myself in as much when the schedule of life was much busier and my day to day looked a lot different. Umm this is something that has given me so much hope, has given me so much more balance. Also having the opportunity to explore different avenues again that I might find to be beneficial, one of them being meditation. Umm all of these things have given me so much in this time and have given me so much hope and so I think that umm to kind of like sum it up – the space to like explore art, to explore creation, to create my own umm to create my own works has done so much for me.
A: Ok I think that was the last question and your responses have totally blown me away. Thank you so much for your vulnerability and your wisdom and it was like such a pleasure to talk with you and to hear your thoughts about your mental health journal. I just want to say thank you again, you’re extremely strong and umm this interview has just like given me hope so thank you so much.
On behalf of It’s Real, we would like to thank MH for their honesty and powerful words of encouragement. They have a podcast and publication; if you would like to learn more about either of these things, please DM us @itsreal.official.
Their works have been featured in our multiple of our issues.
Their works have been featured in our multiple of our issues.