Couple nights ago I was watching some TED talks about mental health, and how mental health diseases are very isolating diseases. I know, I'm one of the many who suffer from debilitating mental illness. I've been debating whether to make a post about mental health for a very long time now. After years of debating, I'm finally deciding to break my silence on what's been going on in my head.
I'm diagnosed with chronic depression called persistent depressive disorder as well as anxiety disorder. I've been suffering from this for as long as I can remember. I also had eating disorders since I was 11 and dealt with it on my own until I was 20. Not many people know this (mainly because I don't tell them) but my eating disorders were a major contributing factor to why I decided to study clinical nutrition in college. I was one of the lucky few that overcame and survived my eating disorder on my own thanks to my education background.
I come from a conservative Asian household that doesn't talk about mental illness and denies it's existence in our family. Instead, mental illness is stigmatized as being "crazy," and only those who are "crazy" see therapists and shrinks. So much so, that my parents looked down on my interest in majoring in psychology, because to them I would become one of the "crazies." My culture often plays down serious symptoms of depression and suicidal thoughts as "part of life" or "immaturity" or "selfishness."
The first time I wanted to see a therapist was somewhere in middle school. Those years were when my depression and anxiety amped up to extreme levels where I became very suicidal and self destructive for the first time. I also went onto develop anorexia. Despite the turmoil and the self loathing I was going through, I had to put on a mask everyday to fit in to normalcy. I couldn't talk to my school friends about what was really going on in my head because I knew that would freak people out and it wasn't normal. In fact my 7th grade bio class was where I learned that some of my symptoms have been developing and that my mental health status wasn't "normal" or healthy. The teacher, who was also Asian-American placed a more positive light about mental health which is why I embraced the idea of seeing a therapist.
The difficult part was bringing the idea of me seeing a therapist up to my parents. The more I thought about talking to them and asking for help, the more I down played my symptoms because that's what I learned to do. I did this for over a decade.
The thing about mental illness is that you can't gauge how bad it is, even when it's agonizing because it's not talked about too often. For many, it's too easy to down play your agony especially when some people tell you "you should be happy, there are children dying in Africa from starvation," or "you know you're being so selfish that you can't appreciate how good you have it." And for the most part, that's how society still sees depression and suicide.
And on top of it, companies and workplaces don't like it as they see these workers who have debilitating mental illness as a financial loss. Last year, I tried to apply for FMLA and ADA for my condition because my work had this ridiculously strict absence policy. I got this feeling from the company that they didn't like it too much that I was applying for this 6 months in to my job when some of my emails about ADA would go onto have no replies.
Luckily, the note on mental health and self care is slowly changing to being more accepted. When I hear the radio commercial about self-care come up on my drive, it's reassuring :)
When I first started seeing my therapist last April, I was going in secret after work. Only my close friends knew. I don't know if I did it out of shame or if I just wanted to avoid stirring the pot. Anyways, after several month of therapy and many revelations about my health status I brought up this sensitive topic to my parents. Obviously they were shocked and said all the things that blames me for my illness, but I was emotionally stable enough to bring it up to them. It also helped that I had my therapist as a backup support.
Fast forward to today, I'm doing much better and I feel like I'm starting to gain control of my life. Enough so that I started to make major decision and changes to reclaim my happiness. It's not to say that I'm all better now. I still have my rough episodes, but I'm improving, healing, and fixing my unhealthy coping mechanisms that I had developed for over a decade. For example, today I had a panic attack and for few hours everything felt like it was going out of control, but I was able to change my schedule putting my self care as priority with meditation and yoga. When these episodes happen I declare the rest of my day as "Anti-Anxiety Day" or "Anti-Depression Day."
I honestly consider myself lucky that I had the ability to change my career the way I did so I can be flexible to put my health as priority. It was tough, but the fact that I was able to do it will small repercussion and had some financial padding is a blessing. I understand that not everyone can change up their schedule like I can, but it's a matter of taking baby steps towards improvement and self love.
