My Mental Health Story
Updated Links: September 29, 2022 at 9pm PT
This post contains sensitive material, including suicidal thoughts, and may be triggering. If you think you are having thoughts of suicide, please contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or your medical provider.
I tell my story in hopes that even one person won’t feel so alone.
Mental illness can be isolating. Silencing. A crushing force that knocks your senses out of you and keeps you down. At my lowest and darkest moments, I didn’t sleep, eat, or move much for days. During those days and the following weeks*, I experienced psychosis and dropped below 100 pounds.
Psychosis is a symptom, typically described as “a break with reality.” According to NAMI, National Alliance on Mental Illness, “as many as 3 in 100 people will have an episode at some point in their lives.” For me, psychosis came in the form of spiders everywhere. Sometimes psychosis looked like relatives, who I knew were somewhere else, showing up across the street. Other times, psychosis materialized as voices telling me, “It’s your fault,” or “Everyone would be happier if you weren’t around.”
Three months before I had my episode of psychosis, I made the decision to get help.
I was already having suicidal thoughts that came in the form of, “I just want to sleep. I just want to escape. I just want to pause reality for a while and take a break.” When I made my decision to get help, it was the last week of September 2015. School had already started in August, but I was home for a weekend. When it was time to board an early morning flight from Oakland to LA—a flight I had taken countless times—I couldn’t even get through airport security.
My legs felt like lead. I couldn’t breathe even after taking my inhaler. My chest felt so tight and heavy I thought it would collapse on me. Every cell in my body was suffocating.
Unable to board that flight from Oakland to Los Angeles, I found myself at Lake Merritt drawing the moon over the courthouse while I waited for the rest of the world to wake up. My boyfriend, who usually doesn’t leave until I’m through airport security, slept peacefully in the driver’s seat. When 9 a.m. came, I made the call.
“To continue in English, press 1.” The automated voice proceeded to list off a set of options. “To repeat this message, press 9.” I pressed 9 not once, but maybe three times before I found the right number to reach a care provider.
“I think I need to make an appointment,” I confessed to the human on the other end of the line when I finally reached the care team. Before I could make an appointment, I had to do a short phone screening. After the phone screening, I had to decide if I was going to go back to school or take a break before I could make an appointment.
I should have felt on top of the world. But I didn’t.
At the time, I was starting my fourth year in college. I was continuing my undergraduate degree in architecture while also starting a graduate degree in planning and public policy. I had a job on campus that was flexible and paid a slightly higher rate than other jobs on campus. And, I was elected for the position I wanted in my sorority. I was excited and nervous. On the surface, I should have felt on top of the world. But I didn’t.
When I returned to LA, I felt like I was stepping into a nightmare. Navigating the process of understanding my options—continuing the semester or taking a leave of absence—was exhausting. I was playing a balancing game I couldn’t win by myself. On one side, one department passed me over to another department and that department handed me over to another and another. On the other side, I struggled to keep up with school work in case I couldn’t receive a refund or couldn’t drop classes without negatively impacting my GPA.
At one point, I was so fed up with it all that I sprinted from the middle of campus towards a busy main street thinking, I’m not going to stop. I just want this to end. I went through the open gate at full speed and made a sharp left on the sidewalk. Cars whizzed by as I stood there in tears, gasping and shaking.
Healing is not a linear journey; there are ups and downs, U-turns and roundabouts.
That same week in October 2015, I left LA to focus on getting better.
In therapy, I learned that my experiences were panic attacks, anxiety, and depression. Things were starting to get better as I learned more about the body’s—my body’s—fight/flight/freeze response. As I doodled on printed cardstock my therapist used with kids who also liked to draw. As I started to exercise more. As I started to listen to my body and actually let myself rest—no school, no work, no extracurricular responsibilities.
Eventually, I went back to school. I graduated with my bachelor’s degree. I graduated with mf-ing honors and a post-grad job. Eventually, I chose to live, over and over again.
*I’m not ready to share what I call the Dark Days, but I am ready to share how I made it out alive and how I got help.
I’m sharing my mental health story now to destigmatize mental illness and in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, in honor of my healing journey as an Asian-American, and in hopes that even one person won’t feel so alone as they navigate their own path of healing.
If you're reading this, thank you for being alive today.
Be kind, always, and that includes being kind to yourself, too.
If you or a loved one are having thoughts of suicide, please contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988.