A friend of mine sent this to me called “Understanding Depression in Young Asian-American Women.”  Nothing in the article really surprised me except this: “…young Asian American women ages 15-24 having some of the highest rates of suicide across all racial groups.” I am not an expert….but I wanted to share because part of being the solution is talking about it. 

While I often felt angry at my mother, my times of depression happened when I didn’t know how to fit in.  My experiences of social gaffes were probably not very different from any other teenager growing up, but because I was Asian, it would feel more acute…like the shock of “is this how everyone really sees me?”, or “I will never be accepted for who I am because everyone already has a preconceived notion of who I am!” and just feeling inside like that person who has no one to have lunch with.

In high school, I did well, yearbook, Model UN, tennis….by all appearances I looked fine. But I once had a one time make out session with a blond, preppy senior in high school, and went through the agony of being ignored the next day. Nothing special. But it took on a whole new meaning when I looked at his high school picture, which had senior “ditties”…and one of them was “one night stand in Chinatown.”  I knew it was me….and worse, others did too.

When you couple these experiences with the pressures of a culture which has high expectations (“what do you mean you didn’t get a 100?”, fierce competition “Suzie’s mother said Suzie is the valedictorian/got into Harvard”, relentless criticism, and the constraints of not being able to talk back (it’s justifiable homicide to be killed if you talk back in Korea…I’m kidding), things can easily become overwhelming. I didn’t understand mothers who told their daughters they were beautiful and brilliant.  That’s not what I had.  And as a result of my upbringing, it was hard for me to maintain friendships because I was afraid of getting hurt, especially by women, so I’d be a bad friend just to test if people would stick by me. And guess what, they didn’t and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

All joking aside, let me say that if you are thinking about hurting yourself, talk to someone. It probably won’t be a family member (I once went to my mother in tears because my best friend in junior high stopped speaking to me, and she just looked at me and said “what do you want me to do?” I just walked out of the room.)  There are other people who are more equipped to help you.  Find them. Because as bad as things seem, believe me,  the world is a better place for having you in it.