The End of July Is Only The Beginning Of Mental Health Awareness

Denial is a helluva drug. And it’s a helluva drug when it’s the first tool you were ever given to deal with mental illness. Simply put: culturally, we just weren’t programmed to deal with this shit. Even though I witnessed it in various family members, I didn’t even know growing up that depression had its own name. Instead it was called “not trying hard enough,” “not working hard enough,” “not achieving enough,” “being lazy,” “lacking decorum,” “lacking pride,” “losing self-control,” “not caring enough about what other people think,” “embarrassing your family,” “selfish,” “rude,” “failure.” All of the language I heard to describe what I would only later understand to be mental illness made it clear you could always “work” your way out of it–alone, naturally, because you didn’t want to bother other people with your problems–and if you couldn’t, well, you had no one but yourself to blame.

Oh, there was some direct acknowledgement of it. But then it was called “crazy.” And crazy was permanent. Crazy was too far gone. Crazy was something terrible that had happened along the way (we don’t know what); crazy was let’s not ask too many questions; let’s speak in hushed voices about it, cluck our tongues, turn away our gazes, and then continue going about our business. It was always zero to crazy. You either were or you weren’t. There was nothing in-between. If you were crazy, you were beyond help. If you weren’t, you didn’t need it. End of story.

I think people who aren’t familiar with what it’s like to be Asian can be quick to assume that someone raised with such notions about mental illness was raised by the most unkind, uncaring, unfeeling wolves. I’ve met plenty of mental health care professionals who’ve jumped to that assessment. In my case, it wasn’t true. But I did inherit cultural values from my parents that they inherited from their parents that they inherited and so on and so forth that did not teach me how to live with depression.

And I’m not alone. In study after study, researchers have revealed the devastating effects of cultural stigmas–and other barriers to treatment–on the mental health of our community. Some un-fun facts:

• Suicide is the second leading cause of death among Asian Americans ages 15-34 [link]
• Asian American teen girls have the highest rates of depression across race and gender [link]
• Asian American women ages 15-24 have the highest rates of suicide among all races in that age group. [link]
• Asian American women over the age of 65 have the highest rates of suicide among all races in that age group [link]
• Asian Americans are almost two times less likely to seek mental health treatment than the general population [link]

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