my mental health journey

It was the first day of my first big girl job when I felt myself shaking and feeling extremely anxious for the first time. It was the midst of COVID 2020 and I was sitting in front of the computer in my quarantine hotel, attending the company’s first virtual onboarding program ever.

Because of COVID, a lot of companies laid off their new employees, rescinded job offers, and delayed start dates for up until a year. My company, however, decided to continue with their original timeline and have us start regardless of COVID and what that could mean for our personal health.

I packed up my bags and I moved to the big apple with my then ex-boyfriend. It all looked and sounded like a dream, but on the inside, I was so terrified.

I just followed my plan. It was my “dream” job, and something I was trying to get since I was a kid in high school. Even though I felt extremely scared for my health and well-being, I placed my confidence in the company that I would be safe (do not be stupid like me, the company you work for, even if it is your dream job, will never care about your well-being. this is an objective fact: you will always be a expense number on a sheet, unless of course, you’re on a managerial/executive level).

When it came to my professional or academic career, I always planned ahead for every little meeting, task, and deliverable I had to do. I wanted to account for every possible mistake that I could’ve make, because there was no chance that I would slip up in front of my superiors. Even when I was resting, I would worry about work. I was constantly feeling tired and stressed out.

I was so scared of failing that I strived for perfection in every way. Since I was a little kid, I was awarded for As and gold stars and received awards for my achievements. The first award I remember winning was when I was in pre-school and I won the “best handwriting” award. I started to believe that “great” isn’t good enough, and that perfection is actually attainable.

I learned that because I always validated myself through my job and academics, I always felt like I had to please others and it was difficult for me to say no, especially to my parents, teachers, and superiors.

With that mindset, I worked long hours and took on too many projects as a “learning experiences."

It wasn’t too long until I realized that the way I was thinking - constantly overanalyzing, overthinking, and dwelling on past mistakes were reasons for the way I was feeling. I was constantly feeling anxious, tired, sad, and hopeless. I would give myself a lot of negative self-talk and I thought I was never good enough even though I was excelling.

Not only did I struggled with my job, but I also struggled with my relationship.

When my relationship ended, it honestly felt like as if I was going to die. Logically speaking, it was the first time my body was experiencing these type of emotions beause it was my first break-up. The pain I felt in my heart was so unbearable and I cried for days when it first officially happened. When it first happened, I couldn’t accept the fact that the man I thought I was going to marry, was going to no longer be in my life.

We were in a relationship for 3 years, 2 of them were long-distance. We were in love, but the reality of living together, paying rent, COVID, and our jobs, became too much for us to handle. I was extremely depressed, anxious, and burnt out to the point I physically and emotionally couldn't handle it anymore, and I decided to quit and leave my relationship within two weeks of each other. At the time, even though I actively made the decisions to leave, it felt like I lost both of them.

It wasn’t until after my quitting my job and break-up, until I realized some of the reasons why I struggled so much was because of my communication skills and the way I grew up.

Growing up in an Asian-American household, I kept in a lot of my feelings and I didn’t know how to ask for help when I needed it. I was taught to not ask for help, I was criticized for making mistakes, and I had extreme expectations placed on me to succeed. When it came to conflicts, I didn’t know how to communicate my feelings that I was struggling so instead of asking for help, I would always try and figure out the problem on my own.

In my relationship, I didn't know how to communicate my feelings to him in a way that made him understand how he hurt me. I was taught vulnerability is a weakness and I learned to handle all my problems on my own. When we fought, I would just yell at him what he was doing wrong, instead of telling him what I was feeling. I would try to solve our fights by telling him what to do, but I realized I should have told him how I was feeling so he could understand how his actions hurt me.

From his perspective, he couldn't understand the way I was feeling because I was yelling at him. If I put myself in his shoes, I would constantly feel criticized. He was conditioned to always feel like he was doing nothing right in our relationship because I was constantly yelling at him. Even though I thought I was telling him my feelings, the way I was communicating them didn't translate well. I didn't learn about these things about myself until we broke up.

I also realized that because I was taught to handle all my problems on my own growing up, it conditioned my body to feel like I needed to be alone to process my thoughts and emotions. When we fought, I always needed to leave the room so I could calm down. I could never talk about the problem and needed time to process. I realize now how much was going on in our fights in the moment, that our relationship was bound to break-up because we didn't know how to solve these fights.

There was so many things I didn't know how to do, but was trying to do in the moment. In our fights:

• I didn't know how to tell him how he made me feel

• I was trying to tell him what to do to in the future so he wouldn't do it again to hurt me

• I was telling him what he did wrong and why it is wrong

• I was defending my actions and why I was right

• I was crying, yelling, repeat.

A level of these communication problems I had in my relationship carried into my work, and I didn't know how to tell my superiors that I was struggling on the inside, even though I was excelling on the outside.

Two years later, I feel like I have grown so much from the person I was. For the first time in my life, I learned to uncouple my value from my job and career and started to live my life more carefree and unapologetically me. I stopped worrying and stressing as much, and I realized how important my time was.

Mental illness is something that I've learned that you can definitely overcome if you try but is a challenge. You are re-wiring parts of your brain that you've conditioned for so long to think in a certain way, parts of your brain that were taught from your parents or from your up-brining.

My depression and anxiety entered my life when I was a young teenager, but I would not understand these emotions as depression and anxiety much later. I interepet is a heartbreak, nervousness, tiredness, and body self-loathing. It wasn't until I moved back home after I quit my job and relationship that I saw my mental illness quietly abiding beneath and I was able to name it.

Moving forward, although I have anxiety and depression, it's definitely not something I want to define myself by. I was taught to handle problems on my own, and I see that my parents also have the same set of conflict resolution tools that were taught to them by their own parents. I see that they have led their lives in similar ways and have normalized the feelings of depression and anxiety for themselves because they lived during a time where mental illness was not talked about. I see how normal "mental illness" is and it's something you learn to overcome, manage, and not define yourself by it.

If you are reading this and you’ve made it here, thank you for reading my story 😊 There is a lot more that I plan to share, so please follow my socials if you’re interested in following along in my wellness journey!