Tag: mental health

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Depression & Suicide

“[K]eep it in the family”

Creators:
Reeva Bhandal ਰੀਵਾ (she/hers)
Tracy Ngo 吴雯娜 (she/hers)

It is not a secret that Asian diaspora face particular challenges when it comes to mental health, particularly dealing with depression and suicide – both from within their cultures, and outside their cultures. From outside their cultures, they have to deal with a lot of racism, prejudice, and discrimination. Within their cultures, there is also a lot of conservatism and misunderstanding about mental health that prevents effective usage of mental health support. These complex problems require multi-faceted solutions – solutions that can greatly benefit from enough State-level financial support. In this letter to their Member of Parliament, Reeva and Tracy lay out the problems in detail, followed by impressively in-depth and well-researched solutions that they request from the government. Are there any other solutions not on the list that you’d like to see – whether from the government or from Asian diasporic communities?

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ASD in Asian Diasporic Children

A practitioner assessing an Asian child for ASD must be culturally sensitive

Creator:
Rue Adler (she/they)

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) refers to a range of manifestations of neurodivergence, for which there seems to be a lot of cultural variability in terms of diagnostic and prevalence rates. While the reasons for this might be highly varied, one issue that warrants special attention is whether the diagnostic criteria for ASD are sufficiently culturally sensitive. In other words, the criteria for ASD were created in a Western cultural context, with particular cultural assumptions baked in; but those cultural assumptions might not hold in other cultures, like Asian cultures. Rue’s paper delves into some cultural issues that may pertain to the differential diagnostic rates of ASD, specifically involving Asian diaspora. What kinds of cultural differences do you think may interfere with current diagnostic efforts of ASD among Asian diasporic communities?

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Emotional Damage – EEAAO

The model minority myth adds another layer of complexity to our understanding of intergenerational trauma

Creator:
Meagan Ng 吳曦琳 (she/hers)

Media representation is an important factor for how people understand themselves – who they are, what their identity is, and how to think about their experiences. For cultural minorities in society, they are often left with stereotyped roles that both leave a small space within which individuals can imagine themselves, and never really accurately portray their cultural experiences. Throughout Asian Canadian/American history, few media productions have been able to do justice to Asian diasporic experiences; but Everything, Everywhere, All At Once shattered barriers and allowed the Asian diaspora to really see themselves and their experiences be portrayed effectively in Hollywood. In her paper, Meagan delves into how the movie deftly portrays the cultural nuances of sensitive themes like intergenerational trauma and mental health stigma. If you’ve watched the movie, how did you feel about the movie’s portrayal of cultural themes?

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Take care of me when I’m older

[H]ow can filial piety be a double-edged sword in the context of caregivers’ mental health?

Host:
Eunice Lai 黎孝詩 (she/hers)

In this podcast submission, Eunice dives into the concept of filial piety within the context of a Hong Kong Canadian family. In particular, filial piety entails expectations about intergenerational caregiving from someone from a younger generation to someone from an older generation, with common interpretations of it requiring an immense level of self-sacrifice at the expense (or disregard) of one’s own well-being. This kind of caregiver role strain becomes compounded when the caregiver themselves is having to manage other issues and demands on their cognitive capacity on top of caregiving tasks. In Eunice’s case, her father took on a caregiving role for his father; but the stress of that role became exacerbated by her father’s own concerns and emotions surrounding the Hong Kong protests in 2019-2020. How does one navigate such an emotionally difficult situation?

Downloadable file here
Transcript here

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量太麻烦了 – It’s too much trouble to measure ingredients

The same dish, a slightly different taste every time, but always with the same love, care, and intent on healing

Creator:
Sorella Zhang 张筱媚 (she/her)

Medicine isn’t just about curing diseases and ailments – it can also be able preventing diseases and ailments, and maintaining good health. This kind of perspective about health is characteristic of a various traditional systems of medicine, whether it’s traditional Mongolia, Iranian, Indigenous, or Chinese medicine, amongst others. By seeing medicine as preventative rather than reactive, this allows edible items with medicinal properties to be incorporated into food that can nourish and heal people on a continuous basis. Sorella presents a cookbook filled with recipes involving ingredients that are known to have various medicinal properties in Traditional Chinese Medicine; but it also is filled with a lot of love. The central them is certainly food; but one can see/feel/sense the love and intimate connections that emanate from these recipes. How can we all incorporate traditional medicinal ingredients into our food in a responsible manner?

Click on the following to reveal (first) the cookbook, and (second) the creator’s notes (Note: PDF viewer not compatible with some mobile platforms; but it is available for download or to view via mobile PDF viewers)

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Finding the “Myself”

When was it that I became aware of my drowning?

Author:
Anonymous

CW: suicidal ideation in the author’s statement

Different genders are subject to different societal pressures. The author uses poetry to describe the struggle, the pain, the coping mechanisms, and the realizations he has wrestled with regarding being a Chinese man trying to live up to family expectations. Within a family, we are often many things – we are ourselves with our own aspirations; but we are also a cultural being, and we are children of people with aspirations for us. When these identities clash, it can create an immense burden on the individual in question. These are all issues that the author has had to deal with, all issues that the author has sought escape from. His poem details his pain as he plays one question over and over in his mind: What does it mean to be a man of Chinese heritage?

The Myself

You are a man. Never forget this.
You are Chinese. Never forget this.
You are a child. Never forget this.
You are not yourself. Never forget this.

Their voices, ringing in my head.
It hurt.
It hurt me to realize that I was never acknowledged.
This torturous isolation within a community; the common paradox.
Where could I go?
Those with muffled voices are no better off than those without.
There was no one that could hear me.

Home is where the hatred is.
Hell is where everyone else is.
Is there any escape outside of the bridge?

So I drank.
The nectar that set me free.
I can retreat into the paradise of my mind.
There are no voices left, except for my own.
Just forget.

As I watched everything I ever feared slip away, all I had was Myself left.
Not a single time I had been able to refute this horrible truth.
There was nothing there at all.

I was their child. A construct of their dreams.
I was Chinese. A construct of the millennia of accumulated stories.
I was a man. A construct of systems, societies, and those influential enough to control them.
I was a construct of a structure that needed me to fit my assigned identity.
That was all there was to it.
Do your job.

How could I come to terms with such a reality?
The decision was easy.
I returned to my refuge of half-empty bottles.

\

When was it that I became aware of my drowning?

When I realized that there was nowhere else to hide.

Only two places to find resolution; within yourself, or with God.

There are days where I have chosen God.

There are days where I have chosen to pick up the shattered glass and try to make something out of it.

\

Do you know where I found my paradise?
A horrible twist of irony.

.

The phrase my name was based on:
“”
“Everyone under the sky is happy.”

Funnily enough, the truth was always with me. This prescription of mine.

You know what?
I chose to live up to it.
Not everyone, mind you.
Everyone under my sky.
As much as I can do.
I’m not a hero by any means; I often find that I am the antagonist of my own stories.

That’s fine.
We all do our best.

Where exactly do I wish for this legacy of mine to endure?

Perhaps, in the journals of my friends?

Click on the following to reveal the author’s statement (Note: PDF viewer not compatible with some mobile platforms; but it is available for download or to view via mobile PDF viewers)

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Dear Hon. David Eby

Cultural competence is an essential asset for healthcare providers

Author:
Elisha Fu 傅羽佳

When your community is faced with a problem, it can be hard to know how to even begin to address and tackle it. Leveraging her own experiences, Elisha decided to take on the issue of the underutilization of mental health support services among Asian Canadian communities with this draft letter to her Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), the Honourable David Eby. In this letter, Elisha discusses the scope of the problem at hand, and the devastating impact it can have on Asian disapora in Canada. Through her research, she proposes several important recommendations that the government should consider to ensure that there is sufficient culturally safe mental health resources that Asian diasporic communities can feel comfortable accessing. If you are faced with a similar problem affecting your community, what would you say to your MLA or Member of Parliament?

Click on the following to reveal the paper (Note: PDF viewer not compatible with some mobile platforms; but it is available for download or to view via mobile PDF viewers)

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A Life Coloured by Expectations

Hidden Behind Colours: Art Piece & Reflection on the Impact of Cultural Identity on Mental Health

Artist:
Nichole Hui Ping Goh (she/hers)

Humans, being a social species, all live while subject to societal expectations; but the extent to which people are constrained in society by expectations are often indicative of their marginalization. This combination of repressive expectations, constraints, and marginalization can have strong negative impact on one’s mental health. Through her art piece, Goh uses different panels to speak to the multifaceted nature of the pressures that society places onto nonya/nyonya, an identity that places Goh (and others like her) at the intersection of Malaysian and Peranakan identities. Between societal pressures, family pressures, and internalized pressures, Goh’s piece speaks to the pervasive and all-encompassing nature of repressive societal expectations, and the damage that can do. This leads to a bigger question – how do we break this cycle?

Click on the following to reveal the artwork (Note: PDF viewer not compatible with some mobile platforms; but it is available for download or to view via mobile PDF viewers)

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