Mental health as a first-generation Asian American was not easy. I often had a rough time engaging in sympathy or empathy with my mom because of the differences in growing up. My mother was a single mom, and she had my brother and I. As I grew up, I had a rough time being satisfied with myself. It started in about middle school, where I got bullied a lot for my race, and cheap clothing. I continued to struggle with this all the way up into high school, and it only got worse. My mother never really understood the discontent with myself, given she had done everything to give me a roof, food, and clothing despite our circumstances. I genuinely hated myself. My mother was a wonderful and faithful Christian lady, and generally shut me down by telling me to just pray. Rarely did she offer affection or words of affirmation, most of the times it was a feeling of being put to the side. When I got into high school, I had 3 suicide attempts and had been hospitalized more than 5 times due to my mental health. I was kicked out multiple times due to drug use, and bad relationships with bad people. I had lost myself in a crowd of people that I barely knew. I started to lose faith in God and lose faith of my dreams of being a lawyer. I was an over achiever and high school, but senior year was when I really thought my life was over. Senior year I was kicked out of my house for a year. I had lost contact with my mother, along with my brother. My heart ached as that was the only family I had. I understood though, I was a self-sabotaging mess, and my mother didn't want my brother to see my breakdowns and drug use. I began to fail my classes. I had a 4.1 with dreams of going to college with a scholarship, and later going to law school. After months of failing, and not seeing my mother, and living with an abusive significant other, I attempted. I woke up 2 days later, spent one week in the hospital and another in the psychiatric center. I was immensely depressed, probably the worst I had ever been at. I felt like a snowball just piling up and increasing in size over the years ready to just explode. And I finally did. I had a big revelation with God in the hospital, I felt his Prescence and began praying every day. Slowly I began to go to church as well as build habits that field positivity and peace in my life. My mental health challenges had frayed my relationships, my goals, career aspirations, and overall health. I’m glad to say I have overcome, and the experience has fueled me even more to be a lawyer. I want to protect others, enforce the law, and be representation to other struggling with mental health, as well as fellow Asian American, and women. I want to show them to keep going, because there is so much of life worth living, and that God is bigger than all of our issues in life.

My mom immigrated from the Philippines when she was younger. She had 4 children with different men and raised the two youngest my brother Derek, and me all by herself. She was a single mom, who I had a rocky relationship with my whole life. Growing up was rough, not only was I an Asian woman living in a primarily black neighborhood, but we were poor. I felt very different and left out. I wanted to be like the other Asian kids I went to school with. Both parents, in a house and, not an apartment…My mom made sure to never show us how poor we were. She did a great job of hiding the fact that we were tight on money. I always admired my mother. She was always misunderstood to be a promiscuous immigrant. But to me, she was broken and lost, and now she is like a flower blooming. She grew up homeless with no family, she was in foster care and struggled with money her whole life. She was called ugly because of her short hair and belittled most of her life. My mom eventually found herself and stability with God. I was raised in church, and my mom never hid her history or struggles from me. My mother constantly prayed and showed me what it was like to live not a religious life, but a spiritual and faithful life. She was a display of perseverance. Growing up, I did see where living a spiritual lifestyle and never giving up takes you. She wrote a book discussing her life and her troubles, and it humbled me. I learned a lot about my mother which grew my faith in God more as I grew up. Over and over I struggled with suicide growing up. I was in a black hole and saw no ending. After years I finally got out of the cycle of depression because I didn’t give up on my life anymore after trying to for so long. I did get through my life because of the values my mother, herself so strongly instilled in me. The values of spirituality, persistence, and faith. I used to hate the life lectures my mother would give me, but as I got older, it started to make more and more sense. Not only did my mom walk out her values all the time, but she always discussed them and reiterated them to me on the daily. She taught me how to always see the good out of everything, even the worst. I was taught how strong of a woman I am, and to never give up. In a way, sometimes I’m happy she was a single mom. It made her so strong, and she sculpted me to be the most independent, positive, and faithful version of myself.

The dream version of myself is someone who is confident in all aspects of themselves, with a continuous hunger to be a positive light to our communities.