Summer Intern Reflections: Michelle Liao

"My mental health journey began when I was young, but at the time, I did not know it yet. At the tentative age of 15, I viewed mental health as a monolith — one I knew was important, but in a vague, impersonal way. I felt deeply for those struggling with their mental health, but seemingly failed to realize it could apply to myself. Now, looking back at that version of myself, I feel a mixture of both fondness and exasperation. She may have been happier, but happiness tastes almost sweeter when earned — and with the aftertaste of the bitter challenges that came before.

It didn’t help that, as a Chinese American with two immigrant parents, mental health was heartbreakingly stigmatized. My parents had entered a new country with nothing but two suitcases’ worth of possessions and dragged themselves from the ground up with broken and dirtied fingernails. They ate 25-cent ramen and put themselves through graduate school with scholarships and took used furniture off the streets just to live the life we’re living now. It felt selfish to be unhappy. Even more so, when I realized that all of my life’s difficulties combined made up only a fraction of the challenges my parents faced. I told myself that even the luxury of being able to feel sad was just more proof of my entitlement.

My mom was and still is my favorite person on earth, yet even she struggled to apply the concept of mental health challenges to those closest to her. She viewed mental health in the same way 15-year-old me did; she simultaneously believed that the mental health epidemic existed and that conditions like depression or anxiety would never affect me. Statistically, it would. I remember later how my mother would sympathize with my confessions of loneliness and melancholy, but remind me how I was still “different from those other people who really struggle with their mental health.” How we managed to hold seemingly contradictory beliefs for so long remains a mystery.

In my first year of college, everything changed. I went from my small hometown with family and familiarity to a university with over 30,000 undergraduates. Despite meeting many new people and making friends, I felt trapped by the endless meaningless “Where are you from?” and “What are you studying?” questions. I was desperately lonely. I threw myself into commitment after commitment, honors class after honors class, unwilling to recognize that the sight of just one hour of free time in my schedule — where I had no one to see, nothing to do, forced to sit with only my thoughts for company — filled me with unspeakable dread. It’s something that, to be completely honest, I still struggle with today — how to find my own value without measuring it by how many people recognize me on campus, how many times I scored the highest on an exam in class, or how many clubs I become president of. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t see the meaning behind anything I was doing. For the first time in my life, I was struggling with my mental health, and nothing anyone had told me in the past prepared me for something I thought I was immune from feeling.

What I hadn’t realized then was that I had been simply lucky. While everyone else was going through the trials and tribulations of middle and high school, I was happy, and more importantly, lucky enough to not have to think about my mental health. I was living a simpler life; one where my moments of sadness had a cause and my baseline emotion was a state of peace. In college, I had to face the fact that this was not my reality anymore.

This summer, as a rising junior, I interned for NAAPIMHA. There, I met people equally committed to advancing mental health and wellbeing. Among the various components of my job description, I researched the state of AANHPI mental health, conducted outreach for a youth training program, and created a fact sheet for a national bill to promote mental health awareness. Working with the NAAPIMHA team, I gained a more nuanced view of mental health that supplemented my existing lived experience. Together, we discussed how mental health differs according to cultural circumstances and, as a result, the crucial nature of always keeping those circumstances in mind and implementing programs that are culturally relevant. As I wrap up the internship, I remain thankful for what the experience taught me about both working in the mental health sphere and how to have conversations about my own mental and emotional wellbeing.

Now I realize how important it is to have these conversations. To throw myself off the edge and let myself free fall, even if there won’t be an abundance of understanding and compassion to cushion my landing. I try to be the person that you can talk to about anything, the person I needed freshman year when I was sick of social norms and would’ve given everything I had for one genuine conversation. I believe in honesty more than anything. I think I’d tell anyone anything if they asked, even if only to prove that no, I’m not perfect, and no, none of these topics should be stigmatized. Now, as an incoming junior, I’ve realized I’m mostly happy. And even when I’m not, I’ve learned to be okay with that."

Learn more about Michelle here.