“I find that taking things one step at a time is the best way for me to deal with stress, which can be the cause of a lot of mental health issues. Deep breathing is surprisingly helpful, and so is taking a step back and looking at the big picture. Just keep moving forward and don’t get too bogged down over the little things.”
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
“How do you connect with your roots when you have always felt like an impostor? That is the question I have stood face-to-face with time and time again, not knowing how to answer. Over the years I have been caught in an endless struggle over my heritage. Do I embrace it or reject it? Sometimes my roots have been shackles, dragging me down beneath the topsoil into a suffocating, earthy grave. And yet they are such an integral part of who I am, I find I cannot bear to sever myself from them. For the complexity and diversity of my roots is what has allowed me to blossom into who I am today.
I am a biracial woman from a multicultural background; my father a Taiwanese immigrant, my mother an American of Scotch-Irish and German ancestry. It was far from a traditional Chinese household, but my parents encouraged me to embrace my heritage. We celebrated Chinese New Year and the Mid-Autumn Festival. My brother and I would help my grandmother make tang yuan, little colorful balls of rice flour. In addition to the standard Elementary school courses, we would attend Chinese school on the weekends, spending long hours reading and writing in Mandarin during the week. Yet despite these efforts, I quit Chinese school after a few years. And so the sensation that I was disconnected from Chinese culture began to pervade my life.
In school, I was often the only student of Asian descent in my classes. My peers, out of curiosity and ignorance, would pepper me with questions. And there were moments when I enjoyed the attention, moments when I enjoyed sharing a bit of Chinese culture. But all the while, I felt like an impostor. Around other Asian students, I felt like a fake. I feared that I wasn’t “Asian enough”. When visiting my relatives, I would always feel too American, too white. They would converse in Chinese, while I sat in silence, ashamed that I could not remember more than “Ni hao” and “xie xie ni”. Next to them, I wished that I looked more Asian. With my pale, freckled skin I stuck out like a sore thumb. Often I felt confused, not knowing whether to say I was Chinese or Taiwanese, especially considering the complicated history between the two countries. And even then, there was the European side of my heritage to consider. I was not sure what I could call myself, except perhaps an outsider. I was tired of the looks of disbelief, of people doubting that Taiwan is actually a country, of the remarks that I look “so white”. Of backhanded compliments, of my Asian relatives telling me I’m fat. Of feeling like I was lesser than my cousins. I was tired of people treating me as whatever made me the most different from them. As if what I look like defines me. As if part of my heritage doesn’t matter. But I have made efforts to reconnect with what I have lost in the flood of cultural confusion. I began re-learning Mandarin Chinese. Then, a couple summers ago, I went with my father, grandmother and brother back to Taiwan. We visited where my father had grown up in Taipei. His old school, the building where he lived. We rode through the subways and walked through crowded streets in the humid, sub-tropical heat. And although in Taiwan I learned a lot about my family and where I come from, I know that the path ahead in coming to terms with my roots will be a long one.”
- Emma Chang (Longview, WA)
I am a biracial woman from a multicultural background; my father a Taiwanese immigrant, my mother an American of Scotch-Irish and German ancestry. It was far from a traditional Chinese household, but my parents encouraged me to embrace my heritage. We celebrated Chinese New Year and the Mid-Autumn Festival. My brother and I would help my grandmother make tang yuan, little colorful balls of rice flour. In addition to the standard Elementary school courses, we would attend Chinese school on the weekends, spending long hours reading and writing in Mandarin during the week. Yet despite these efforts, I quit Chinese school after a few years. And so the sensation that I was disconnected from Chinese culture began to pervade my life.
In school, I was often the only student of Asian descent in my classes. My peers, out of curiosity and ignorance, would pepper me with questions. And there were moments when I enjoyed the attention, moments when I enjoyed sharing a bit of Chinese culture. But all the while, I felt like an impostor. Around other Asian students, I felt like a fake. I feared that I wasn’t “Asian enough”. When visiting my relatives, I would always feel too American, too white. They would converse in Chinese, while I sat in silence, ashamed that I could not remember more than “Ni hao” and “xie xie ni”. Next to them, I wished that I looked more Asian. With my pale, freckled skin I stuck out like a sore thumb. Often I felt confused, not knowing whether to say I was Chinese or Taiwanese, especially considering the complicated history between the two countries. And even then, there was the European side of my heritage to consider. I was not sure what I could call myself, except perhaps an outsider. I was tired of the looks of disbelief, of people doubting that Taiwan is actually a country, of the remarks that I look “so white”. Of backhanded compliments, of my Asian relatives telling me I’m fat. Of feeling like I was lesser than my cousins. I was tired of people treating me as whatever made me the most different from them. As if what I look like defines me. As if part of my heritage doesn’t matter. But I have made efforts to reconnect with what I have lost in the flood of cultural confusion. I began re-learning Mandarin Chinese. Then, a couple summers ago, I went with my father, grandmother and brother back to Taiwan. We visited where my father had grown up in Taipei. His old school, the building where he lived. We rode through the subways and walked through crowded streets in the humid, sub-tropical heat. And although in Taiwan I learned a lot about my family and where I come from, I know that the path ahead in coming to terms with my roots will be a long one.”
- Emma Chang (Longview, WA)
“Ignat Ka is a Tagalog phrase which means ‘take care,’ used as a goodbye greeting, often when we leave parties. In this piece, I describe a family gathering during a boxing match on TV (think Manny Pacquiao) and the way that every part of the scene is connected to our culture. I reference colonialism and language as on ‘roots’ of Filipino identity, as well as the Western media's lasting impacts on self-esteem. Alluding to my father is more personal, as his health is often the topic of discussion at family gatherings and has shaped the role I play in my family.”
- Kate Hizon (Southern California), about her poem Ignat Ka
- Kate Hizon (Southern California), about her poem Ignat Ka
"Though I spent years learning about mental health issues and continually advocated for greater awareness around the subject in my community, it wasn’t until I was binge-watching Netflix at 1 AM that something hit me: I wasn’t exactly doing okay, but beyond that I was struggling with mental health issues myself. The catalyst for my realization was a caricatured skit from the TV show One Day At a Time, where mental health issues and the stigma surrounding the subject are discussed frequently. While I had clearly observed how the general immigrant family’s perception of mental health affected how those impacted by the issue reacted to their struggles, only after seeing the dramatically slow and comic reenactment of an anxiety attack did I realize that I had had similar experiences and stresses, and that I wasn’t alone in discovering and understanding them. I had always assumed that every time I was sad or anxious for a longer period of time, it came from a stressful life event like moving, parents fighting, difficulty with relationships and friendships at school, or a huge test or project coming up. If a friend had expressed feelings of being extremely fatigued, depressed, or anxious to me, I know I would have seen to it myself that they received the support they needed from myself, professionals, or counselors. Yet when they were my own feelings in these area, I brushed them off, ignoring any potential warning signs and simply discounting them as different types of stress. As I progressed through high school, I mustered the courage to talk to some counselors about things that were bothering me, but I never seriously considered the idea that I might have had my own mental health issues to acknowledge and take care of. Mental health always seemed like an off-limits subject in my family and when I finally did bring it up, I was told to be strong instead of weak, to quit stressing and to look at the bright side, and to simply be happy. Even though I was frustrated, I began to eventually sweep my own anxiety attacks under the rug, accepting them as a part of my life that I wouldn’t share with people. Only recently after reading pieces from It’s Real and recognizing similar struggles in other media areas have I realized that beyond simply opening up the conversation on mental health, it’s important to consciously look inward to understand and acknowledge where we’re all at, and we can’t let anything — not internalized stigma or sometimes even a less sensitive culture — get in the way of us taking care of our own mental health and empowering others to do the same."
- Sowmya Kannan (Greenwood Village, Colorado)
- Sowmya Kannan (Greenwood Village, Colorado)
“I wrote this piece as a way to work through the stigma within the South Asian community about love marriage, divorce, and being raised by a single mother. At the same time, I aimed to document the impact that the rest of the adults in my family had on me as I was growing up and becoming aware of this.”
- Suvali Dhanak, about his poem dhanamdhanyampadevadet
- Suvali Dhanak, about his poem dhanamdhanyampadevadet
“I had a pretty great childhood. I didn’t think there were any problems in my life, on the surface or underneath. When I moved to Colorado, this thought persisted. But it was just my mom that came with my sister and me. My dad stayed behind. She said it was for work stuff, since my dad owned a company. But a year or two passed and he was still in Maryland.
When he finally moved, I found out that the company went under and that my parents are separated. Not only was our only source of income cut off, but I also felt lied to. I adjusted to the situation, so this wasn’t a big problem. The big problems happened later. So my mom and dad are separated. My mom lived in a rented house in Cherry Hills Village and my dad in an apartment in Southglenn. I stayed with mom during the week because she lived in the school district and visited my dad on the weekends. I absolutely loved to visit him because not only did he live in such an active, exciting place and give me and my sister lots of freedom, I was such a daddy’s girl. I idolized my father. I looked up to him more than any other person in the world. I took after him, and he practically formed my personality.
So when my mom got evicted from the CHV house, since we lost all our money, I was okay with living with my dad full-time. I would visit my mom living with my grandmother every once and a while and live full-time with my dad. It was great. At first. Eighth grade came along, and you know how middle school is, but that wasn’t the biggest of my problems. For my history class, I had to interview somebody who lived during 9/11 and write about it. My dad was the perfect candidate. He worked at the NSA the day it happened, and he worked under the stress that one of the planes, the one the passengers took back, was headed straight for him.
Instead of asking him the questions like in a normal interview, I just gave him the sheet of questions and asked that he write his responses. It took him days to finish. I didn’t think anything of it. I did not know that I was digging up a traumatic experience and asking my dad to live though it again for days. I just wanted to share to my class the things my dad experienced because I was so proud of him. Later his mental health declined, and rapidly. Turns out he was using alcohol to dull the pain and PTSD he got from the Marines and the NSA, and this was the time he realized it. And I realized my dad was an alcoholic.
That wouldn’t have bothered me that much if he didn’t completely fall apart afterwards. But he did. He shut himself up in his room. I never saw him eat or do his laundry. He only stayed in his room, played on his computer, and drove me and my sister around. I had to become the adult, quick. I took over the job of cleaning the house, taking care of the dog, doing the dishes, doing the laundry, getting the groceries, and making sure my sister was happy. A 12 year old girl should not have all of these responsibilities. My grocery shopping led to me and my sister being nutrient deficient. My dad didn’t do anything. The man I looked up to for so long did absolutely nothing, and it was abuse. He never hit me or touched me, even in times I thought he would, but it was abuse nonetheless. It’s called child neglect. It wasn’t his fault though. He couldn’t even take care of himself, so how could he take care of his kids? I remember having to wake him up in the morning so that he would be able to take me and my sister to school. My sis and I would take turns with who would wake him up, but his room started smelling so much like weed that my sister refused to go in there.
I remember when he randomly came out of his room and asked me to watch a movie with him. He put his arm around me, just like he did when I was little, but it was extremely uncomfortable. He was a stranger. I remember when he had a panic attack and was keeled over, supporting himself with the couch. He told me that he was going to try and sleep and that if he didn’t wake up, to call 911 and say that he smoked one dole of pot. I remember these things most vividly than any other memory.
After a few months of this, dad finally decided to get some help. He went to hospitals and went inpatient and was in and out of rehab. He was getting help. And I should have been happy for him, but I didn’t forgive him for the months of neglect. When he moved out of the apartment, my mom moved in. She would do the dishes and do the laundry and make dinner and get groceries and just take care of me and my sister like an average mom. It was the most amazing relief. I thanked her for every little thing that she did because it lifted so much weight off of my young shoulders. I became very close to my mom. What happened to my father left a hole in me, and I used my mom to fill it. I also hated my dad. I hated him so much for so long for neglecting me, for doing nothing as I sat back and struggled. I struggled through a lot. Money was still an issue, so my mom got two jobs, one of them as a waitress. I was ashamed that the powerful CEO family I was in was reduced to this. We got poor enough that my mom applied for food stamps. Luckily we never had to use them. At least I don’t think we ever did. But I also struggled through middle school. My sociability was a little stunted. I wasn’t able to have close friends. I didn’t really have much empathy for anyone. My dermatillomania developed even more and started including my face (dermatillomania is a chronic skin picking disorder. I’ve had it all my life so it was never much of a problem until I started picking my face. Not the best thing for an insecure middle school girl). I thought I was crazy. I thought I was some sort of sociopath. This is the beginning of my mental health decline. I got depressed. At first it wasn’t too bad. I barely noticed the critical voice in my head bullying me. But because I never got help, it just got worse.
For three years my depression and anxiety developed. I couldn’t forgive myself for getting a B in physical science. I believed I was the stupidest person alive when I couldn’t answer a question. I hated myself for every single thing I did. There was no way I could win. I tried self-harm, but it feels the same as skin picking, so I wasn’t able to find relief even there. My family experience did not get much better either. Money was still a big issue, and my sister’s mental health was getting bad too. Also my dad tried to rebuild a relationship with me. And it was terrible. I still hated him. The only way I could bear being around him was by thinking that my father died and the man I saw was nothing more than a distant relative. All of this was happening, and at times I thought about talking about it and getting help. But I didn’t. I thought I didn’t need it or that I didn’t deserve it or that it would be too much of a burden on my family and other people. It’s very hard to start talking about your problems.
By junior year, my depression took over my entire self. Every single second of every day I would bully myself. Not only was I incapable of doing my homework and chores, I could not eat or sleep or literally do basic human activities. I was walking home from the bus stop once and just stopped walking because my depressed mind couldn’t even make my legs move. That was when the suicidal thoughts were the worst. I started making plans on how I would kill myself. Luckily none of them were followed through.
One night I had the worst panic attack in my life. My hatred for myself and the pain I was feeling was unbearable and I wanted it to stop so badly that I was gonna slit my wrists and bleed out. I am so incredibly fortunate that my mom was there to stop me and to talk to me and to love me. Without her, I probably would have gone through with it. It was only then, when I was staring death in the face, that I finally got help. It was only the terrible, extreme fear of myself and what I could do that motivated me to talk. Even with that motivation it was hard. I decided to talk to my mom first. I trusted her and loved her enough to open up completely (and still do). She was so incredibly kind and helped me continue talking to the people I needed to. I talked to my school counselor and then to psychiatrists and then teachers and then friends. Each time I had the conversation with someone, I was so scared. But after each time, the fear started going away. It got easier to talk about myself and my pain. Not only did these conversations get me into therapy and on medication, but they also relieved some of the burden I was putting on myself. And when you are in so much pain, any relief is a blessing.
I’m doing much better now. My critical voice is nearly gone, I have motivation to do things, I like hanging out with friends and I like doing fun things, and I am really very happy sometimes. I even forgave my father for my eighth grade experience, and I am rebuilding my relationship with him. Sometimes it gets bad and I am reminded of who I was and how my mind worked in the past. Money is still problematic. My motivation can still be variable. Sometimes I want to feel depressed again. But my God, life is the most amazing thing. I’ve realized that now, and I can’t ever take it for granted again. When I was suffering, it was impossible to see the light, to see any reasons at all to keep living. But even when all you can see is darkness, you need to believe that there is some light in order to be able to find it. It might take some time, and sometimes you might lose hope, but the light is always there, even if you can’t see it, just as there are always reasons to live, even if you can’t think of any at the moment. Even if you don’t believe this is true, please just keep it in the back of your mind. It might help you later. And please don’t let yourselves hit rock bottom, like me, before you decide to get help. The pain isn’t worth it, and the fear of talking goes away over time.
Suffering through your problems by yourself is not brave but arrogant, and wanting not to burden other people with your problems isn’t heroic but irrational. It is brave to talk about your problems to other people. Please be brave and save yourself, before it’s too late.”
- Zohreh Haycock (Littleton, CO)
When he finally moved, I found out that the company went under and that my parents are separated. Not only was our only source of income cut off, but I also felt lied to. I adjusted to the situation, so this wasn’t a big problem. The big problems happened later. So my mom and dad are separated. My mom lived in a rented house in Cherry Hills Village and my dad in an apartment in Southglenn. I stayed with mom during the week because she lived in the school district and visited my dad on the weekends. I absolutely loved to visit him because not only did he live in such an active, exciting place and give me and my sister lots of freedom, I was such a daddy’s girl. I idolized my father. I looked up to him more than any other person in the world. I took after him, and he practically formed my personality.
So when my mom got evicted from the CHV house, since we lost all our money, I was okay with living with my dad full-time. I would visit my mom living with my grandmother every once and a while and live full-time with my dad. It was great. At first. Eighth grade came along, and you know how middle school is, but that wasn’t the biggest of my problems. For my history class, I had to interview somebody who lived during 9/11 and write about it. My dad was the perfect candidate. He worked at the NSA the day it happened, and he worked under the stress that one of the planes, the one the passengers took back, was headed straight for him.
Instead of asking him the questions like in a normal interview, I just gave him the sheet of questions and asked that he write his responses. It took him days to finish. I didn’t think anything of it. I did not know that I was digging up a traumatic experience and asking my dad to live though it again for days. I just wanted to share to my class the things my dad experienced because I was so proud of him. Later his mental health declined, and rapidly. Turns out he was using alcohol to dull the pain and PTSD he got from the Marines and the NSA, and this was the time he realized it. And I realized my dad was an alcoholic.
That wouldn’t have bothered me that much if he didn’t completely fall apart afterwards. But he did. He shut himself up in his room. I never saw him eat or do his laundry. He only stayed in his room, played on his computer, and drove me and my sister around. I had to become the adult, quick. I took over the job of cleaning the house, taking care of the dog, doing the dishes, doing the laundry, getting the groceries, and making sure my sister was happy. A 12 year old girl should not have all of these responsibilities. My grocery shopping led to me and my sister being nutrient deficient. My dad didn’t do anything. The man I looked up to for so long did absolutely nothing, and it was abuse. He never hit me or touched me, even in times I thought he would, but it was abuse nonetheless. It’s called child neglect. It wasn’t his fault though. He couldn’t even take care of himself, so how could he take care of his kids? I remember having to wake him up in the morning so that he would be able to take me and my sister to school. My sis and I would take turns with who would wake him up, but his room started smelling so much like weed that my sister refused to go in there.
I remember when he randomly came out of his room and asked me to watch a movie with him. He put his arm around me, just like he did when I was little, but it was extremely uncomfortable. He was a stranger. I remember when he had a panic attack and was keeled over, supporting himself with the couch. He told me that he was going to try and sleep and that if he didn’t wake up, to call 911 and say that he smoked one dole of pot. I remember these things most vividly than any other memory.
After a few months of this, dad finally decided to get some help. He went to hospitals and went inpatient and was in and out of rehab. He was getting help. And I should have been happy for him, but I didn’t forgive him for the months of neglect. When he moved out of the apartment, my mom moved in. She would do the dishes and do the laundry and make dinner and get groceries and just take care of me and my sister like an average mom. It was the most amazing relief. I thanked her for every little thing that she did because it lifted so much weight off of my young shoulders. I became very close to my mom. What happened to my father left a hole in me, and I used my mom to fill it. I also hated my dad. I hated him so much for so long for neglecting me, for doing nothing as I sat back and struggled. I struggled through a lot. Money was still an issue, so my mom got two jobs, one of them as a waitress. I was ashamed that the powerful CEO family I was in was reduced to this. We got poor enough that my mom applied for food stamps. Luckily we never had to use them. At least I don’t think we ever did. But I also struggled through middle school. My sociability was a little stunted. I wasn’t able to have close friends. I didn’t really have much empathy for anyone. My dermatillomania developed even more and started including my face (dermatillomania is a chronic skin picking disorder. I’ve had it all my life so it was never much of a problem until I started picking my face. Not the best thing for an insecure middle school girl). I thought I was crazy. I thought I was some sort of sociopath. This is the beginning of my mental health decline. I got depressed. At first it wasn’t too bad. I barely noticed the critical voice in my head bullying me. But because I never got help, it just got worse.
For three years my depression and anxiety developed. I couldn’t forgive myself for getting a B in physical science. I believed I was the stupidest person alive when I couldn’t answer a question. I hated myself for every single thing I did. There was no way I could win. I tried self-harm, but it feels the same as skin picking, so I wasn’t able to find relief even there. My family experience did not get much better either. Money was still a big issue, and my sister’s mental health was getting bad too. Also my dad tried to rebuild a relationship with me. And it was terrible. I still hated him. The only way I could bear being around him was by thinking that my father died and the man I saw was nothing more than a distant relative. All of this was happening, and at times I thought about talking about it and getting help. But I didn’t. I thought I didn’t need it or that I didn’t deserve it or that it would be too much of a burden on my family and other people. It’s very hard to start talking about your problems.
By junior year, my depression took over my entire self. Every single second of every day I would bully myself. Not only was I incapable of doing my homework and chores, I could not eat or sleep or literally do basic human activities. I was walking home from the bus stop once and just stopped walking because my depressed mind couldn’t even make my legs move. That was when the suicidal thoughts were the worst. I started making plans on how I would kill myself. Luckily none of them were followed through.
One night I had the worst panic attack in my life. My hatred for myself and the pain I was feeling was unbearable and I wanted it to stop so badly that I was gonna slit my wrists and bleed out. I am so incredibly fortunate that my mom was there to stop me and to talk to me and to love me. Without her, I probably would have gone through with it. It was only then, when I was staring death in the face, that I finally got help. It was only the terrible, extreme fear of myself and what I could do that motivated me to talk. Even with that motivation it was hard. I decided to talk to my mom first. I trusted her and loved her enough to open up completely (and still do). She was so incredibly kind and helped me continue talking to the people I needed to. I talked to my school counselor and then to psychiatrists and then teachers and then friends. Each time I had the conversation with someone, I was so scared. But after each time, the fear started going away. It got easier to talk about myself and my pain. Not only did these conversations get me into therapy and on medication, but they also relieved some of the burden I was putting on myself. And when you are in so much pain, any relief is a blessing.
I’m doing much better now. My critical voice is nearly gone, I have motivation to do things, I like hanging out with friends and I like doing fun things, and I am really very happy sometimes. I even forgave my father for my eighth grade experience, and I am rebuilding my relationship with him. Sometimes it gets bad and I am reminded of who I was and how my mind worked in the past. Money is still problematic. My motivation can still be variable. Sometimes I want to feel depressed again. But my God, life is the most amazing thing. I’ve realized that now, and I can’t ever take it for granted again. When I was suffering, it was impossible to see the light, to see any reasons at all to keep living. But even when all you can see is darkness, you need to believe that there is some light in order to be able to find it. It might take some time, and sometimes you might lose hope, but the light is always there, even if you can’t see it, just as there are always reasons to live, even if you can’t think of any at the moment. Even if you don’t believe this is true, please just keep it in the back of your mind. It might help you later. And please don’t let yourselves hit rock bottom, like me, before you decide to get help. The pain isn’t worth it, and the fear of talking goes away over time.
Suffering through your problems by yourself is not brave but arrogant, and wanting not to burden other people with your problems isn’t heroic but irrational. It is brave to talk about your problems to other people. Please be brave and save yourself, before it’s too late.”
- Zohreh Haycock (Littleton, CO)
"It's easy to disregard or brush off mental illness; it's also easy to take it too seriously. I treat mental illness like physical illness: I don't think anybody is ever perfectly physically healthy (think colds, coughs, etc.), but not every physical health issue warrants a surgery, physical therapy, or even medicine. Of course, this analogy isn't to disregard mental illness. I just think we should acknowledge mental illness without taking it too seriously. But always seek help if you need it! You'll find that there are a ton of people willing to listen."
- Anonymous
- Anonymous