An Honest Conversation about Mental Health among Asian American Women
“It’s easy to forget about depression when you’re so used to telling your story without it.”
Ophelia Chen + Raissa Xie for Bobblehaus
(TW: Self harm, depression)
Ophelia Chen, co-founder and CEO of Bobblehaus, and Raissa Xie, MFA student at Parsons School of Design, have an honest exchange about their journeys with mental health. As fellow Chinese-American women, the two met while Ophelia was a freshman and Raissa was a sophomore at Washington University in St. Louis.
In this conversation, we reflect on past experiences embracing our identities as Asian American women and how our identities relate to our mental health. We share our individual reflections, recognizing the financial privileges that allow for the treatment; we discuss therapy, which is an expensive and often inaccessible method for many people. However, we believe that mental health in Asian American communities is not discussed enough, and hope to continue this discussion by sharing our personal narratives.
The following conversation is edited for brevity and clarity, and taken from a 60-minute conversation over a socially distant glass of wine at Ophelia’s countertop in New York City.
Raissa: So, Raissa and Ophelia drink some wine and talk about mental health. Let’s do this.
Ophelia: Since we’re talking about the past, we can start with sharing our experiences growing up: where we’re from, where we’ve lived, and then go from there.
Raissa: Do you want to start?
Ophelia: Sure. I was born outside of Shanghai in a little town called Shaoxing, before my family moved to Shanghai when I was 6, and then Joplin, Missouri, a very small town, when I was 13. There was a huge culture shock because I went from one of the biggest cosmopolitan cities to such a little town, and the language was a barrier as well. I spent the entire year of eighth grade trying to fit in. Let me bring out the rest of the bottle of wine actually.
It wasn’t until after college, or even not until I started Bobblehaus that I found my voice — this is what I have experienced and this is what I have to say, as an Asian American woman. I didn’t realize that there were people so similar to me until I came to New York. I think that’s the best way to describe it. In college, I wasn’t comfortable to explore that. Being from WashU — and you can pitch in as well, is that — it’s not that the environment excludes us from anything. It’s us being [too] uncomfortable and self conscious to seek out that kind of subculture.
Raissa: For sure. There’s definitely a dominant narrative at WashU and many other schools. There are also stereotypes associated with spending time with other Asians.
Until we can walk into a room and bond with a social group knowing exactly what we have experienced and what we bring to the table, what our voices are, we will feel like outcasts.
Ophelia: Yeah, I think it’s intimidating to be in any single social group until you have your narrative down. Until we can walk into a room and bond with a social group knowing exactly what we have experienced and what we bring to the table, what our voices are, we will feel like outcasts. A friend once brought me to an Asian American formal. It was really fun. But at that moment, I honestly didn’t consider myself an Asian American then. I considered myself an American, because that’s who I wanted to be and that’s how I thought I had to blend in, to take away that other individuality.
Raissa: Yeah, we kind of operate on that default until we better understand our own identities.
Ophelia: I always felt like an outcast, from [the] music that I listened to, [to] TV shows that I watched, books I read, to artists that I like. I have playlists on my phone with almost 2500 Chinese, Korean, and Japanese songs that I started since the first day I came to America that I still haven’t shared with anyone. Some of those memories I can talk about with my Chinese childhood friends [… but]. I hadn’t found anyone until I came to New York where I was pleasantly surprised — oh my god, you listen to those songs too? It was as simple as that.
Raissa: I really like what you said too about how once you get a hold of your own sense of identity that you can walk into a room and know what value you bring. As Asian Americans, many of us grew up trying to mold into so many different things, wanting to be chameleons: the good daughter, the good student at home, then you go to school and you try to fit in as much as you possibly can. There were just so many different rules to live by. I feel like that sensitivity is kind of detrimental to your own sense of identity because you don’t know who you are and you try to mold into different things. I ended up in toxic friendships and relationships because I was so used to being little, and molded to fit whatever shape.
Ophelia: A sense of conformity.
Raissa: Yeah. Conformity is a good word. It’s hard for me to not care and not be sensitive to this stuff because we were just building up a habit over a lifetime of signals and hints from family and friends.
Ophelia: Our surroundings, yeah. There are those psychological social experiments about conformity. And it’s always the outlier that conforms, whether it’s an elevator or a survey. But imagine that in a social context, exaggerated when you are a young adult, just because we look different.
Raissa: Forget appearance even, it’s also all the things that our culture, such as the rules that our families had, it could be our clothes, habits, language -
Ophelia: All of the stuff that we eat.
Raissa: Exactly. So unlike you, I was born in the US but I think I experienced a lot of similar things. I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is a relatively diverse college town, but I definitely still felt a need to conform. I think the discrepancy of all the different aspects of my identity meant I had a quarter life crisis every two months because I just really didn’t know what was. That drove me into depression. I thought, I want to be like these people, but I also don’t, and I want to not care, but I do. Who am I? I go to Chinese school and play the piano but I hate math?
Ophelia: Wow depression, I didn’t even think about that, that was like my entire high school. I can’t believe I forgot about that.
Raissa: It’s easy to forget about depression when you’re so used to telling your story without it.
Ophelia: That’s so true. Continue.
Raissa: I was confused about who I was, like every preteen. But the identity thing really elevated it. In 7th grade, I switched schools. There were definitely more Asians at my old school, and at the new school I didn’t see many nonwhite people so I felt like an outcast. I think I showed up the first day of seventh grade with two pigtails, bangs, stretchy patterned pants from Kohl’s and a tie dye t-shirt.
Ophelia: That’s amazing.
Raissa: It was iconic, but, you know, like in the seventh grade when people at my new school cared more about what they dressed, and I had never experienced that before[…] it was tough. Then in college, I didn’t think that much about my identity, but I also remember staying away from all the Asian American things and international students. I just didn’t want anything to do with that. I wanted the complete opposite.
Ophelia: Yep, we were both in Greek Life in college.
Raissa: Yeah. I was always aware that I was an Asian-American woman, but I never really thought too much about it. Then when I moved to San Francisco, I for the first time experienced what it was like to be a majority. It made me fucking uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to do with the fact that I was so invisible. I remember going to a bar for the first time and looking around and feeling suffocated. I wasn’t that comfortable with the fact that I looked like everybody else and it’s ironic because I had always wanted to fit in, but also was used to being exoticized for looking or being different. I was talking to another Asian American friend and we were both like, why do we feel so uncomfortable being an Asian dominated spaces? I didn’t like being associated with all these other Asians, and I would try to play up the “American” side of me, whatever that meant, telling people I listen to country music and moved from Michigan to try to identify myself or something, which honestly is just hilarious now. Fast forward to moving to New York, and being in graduate school, I think being in design has forced me to reconcile my own identity more because you can ignore it all you want, but you have to know what you bring to the table — assumptions, biases, emotions, and all. I was also coming out of a tough breakup too. Those two things came together led to a severe amount of self reflection, and I finally got to the point of being more accepting of my own identity and recognizing that, I can be a minority and still and still have certain powers, privileges, and obstacles.
Ophelia: So what was your mental health experience like? When did you see that you needed mental health help?
Raissa: In middle school, for all the reasons that we talked about, I was constantly upset with myself, I didn’t like who I was. I just was like, why do I constantly hate myself? I remembered learning about being sad from movies and music. It was a shallow stereotype of what depression was. I listened to a lot of punk rock when I was in middle school, and when they sang about depression and sadness, I really started to resonate with some of the lyrics. 8th grade was the first time I tried self-harm. I wasn’t really sure why I was doing it, but I just felt so horrible, I think it was my way of expressing myself somehow. Then I did some rebellious things and it was not good, leading to a lot of fights with my parents. That was the first time I uttered the word to them about depression. I remember being, I’m depressed. And my parents were, no, you’re not.
Ophelia: You said that, out loud.
Raissa: I said to them, “I think I’m depressed.” But I didn’t know what to do about it because I didn’t want to scare them. I didn’t think they would believe it. I didn’t know how it worked.
Ophelia: How old were you?
Raissa: I was like fourteen, fifteen? I told them I thought about killing myself. I was so frustrated, I didn’t know what was going on. Then when I finally went to college, I took some psychology classes and that was where I started to have the language to talk about mental health. I thought to myself “Oh my God, there are words for this!”
Ophelia: When did you start looking, and how do you find your first therapist? What was he or she like?
Raissa: Luckily, I had friends with experience with mental health. I hadn’t come from a family where I could where I felt comfortable talking about anything, but my whole group of friends were so open. They encouraged me to see a therapist when they saw the depression. Our school had some free sessions. I went twice. It was not great. I couldn’t really connect to her, so I stopped. I think I thought that if I went, I would get better immediately, and didn’t know it doesn’t work like that. Then my brother got diagnosed with a mental health disorder, and that, I think, made my parents a lot more open, because what they saw were physical symptoms they could observe. When I graduated and started working, I just started to go to therapy. Eventually I would just slip it into my vocabulary. My mom would say, “A therapist? Is everything okay?” Eventually they understood that I was miles away, financially independent, and it was just something I chose to do.
Ophelia: How did you find your current therapist?
Raissa: I was pretty depressed my first year moved to San Francisco. A lot of things weren’t going well. I called 15 different therapists and only one called back. I thought, “Well, I’m desperate, can I come see you?” So I saw her a few times. I didn’t feel it was going that well, but after a few months, I was not as depressed anymore, so I stopped. It’s hard to measure yourself, but it felt like all we would talk about was family stuff, which felt so obvious to me, so I thought it wasn’t working.
Raissa: But then a year later, I started to feel really horrible again, so I went back to see her again. This time, I kept on seeing her and didn’t stop even when I felt like I was doing better, and was able to sort through a lot of aspects impacting me about my identity, as an Asian American woman and my family dynamic. It’s a soft depression where I was always able to stay afloat because I got so used to it. It only showed when it spiraled. Eventually, I got to the point where I decided to move to New York, and all of that identity stuff helped me realize what I actually cared about, why, and what authenticity could look like. I got better at knowing myself and patterns started to show up. That’s not to say that this will have the same effect on everybody at all, but it was nice that I started to process more and more by myself. I still see her, though not as often, but she helped me thread together all of that. Since I moved it’s been a convergence of my identity and my career. We live in a world that you can’t isolate your identity from your career, because what are you an expert in other than your own identity? So that’s why I think it’s really interesting that you kind of started a business that matches with your values, and I ended up in a grad program that is helping me bring that perspective into design — I don’t think it’s a coincidence.
Raissa: Tell me about your mental health journey.
Ophelia: Looking back, I have a very similar journey, it’s very funny. I knew something was wrong in high school, but I just didn’t know what it was. I didn’t even realize the word depression existed until college. I didn’t find my first long term therapist until I graduated college. The suicidal thoughts and the self-harm started in high school for me. I don’t know why I thought it was just, a release, like there is nothing wrong with it. I justified it so well that kept it to myself for the longest time. Until I think the scars were all over my arm, and I had to put bandages on half my limbs. People started asking questions. But I think that was the first conversation, senior year, when my first conversation with my parents about what’s wrong with me. But we didn’t know what it was. That word never even came up because it’s not in our vocabulary.
Raissa: How did you tell them?
Ophelia: I didn’t — that’s the thing. They knew what kind of scar it was, physically. I think I just kind of sat there and listened to them, and that was it. They got me a therapist in Joplin, but the therapist printed out two pages of “seven things to do to be happy.” So I thought, “well, this is a joke,” and I didn’t go back.
Raissa: You never went back again after that?
Ophelia: In college, WashU offered free sessions. I went once but — this is where the previously mentioned conformity comes in — I think both you and me are so sensitive that if we don’t have to show ourselves, we won’t. I realized I could be a certain type of “patient” or “student” for my therapist. Then I realized, this is absolutely no use to me then. I somehow got her talking for 30 out of the 40 minutes of the entire session. I would ask her questions because I didn’t want to talk about myself, and maybe she was trying to be vulnerable to show that I can be as well, but it didn’t work for me. College was not super great, mental health wise, but it wasn’t until after college that I took it seriously.
I used to test my therapists by asking them questions to test them. No one “passed” until I met my therapist today in August 2017 a few months after I graduated. When I asked her the questions, she said “no.” She refuses even to this day. Three years later, I still have no idea if she’s a mother, what age she is, her sexual orientation, where she’s from; I know nothing about her. But that’s also what made me able to be completely true to myself for forty five minutes in that little room. I don’t know who this person sitting in front of me is yet I can trust her 100 percent, and I don’t need to conform to any assumption or any stereotype. That’s what also made that forty five minutes so freeing.
Raissa: Right, it’s all about you!
Ophelia: Yes. And finally, we have no subconscious coming from conformity in any sort of social setting.
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