Are You a Psychopath for Feeling So Low?

By Kyra Bautista / Spring 2023

On March 15, 2020, the United States declared a COVID lockdown. The world felt like it was put on a pause.

I find myself sitting in my room. The sun beamed through my shutters. I’m laying on my bed. I have nothing to do today. I finished my Zoom classes and I can no longer go to work in person. I don’t even know what to do in my free time. This pause is strange. Having to sit and have no other things in my schedule to do has been unfamiliar to me. Thoughts were slowly creeping around my head. Deep unresolved issues that have been brushed to the side are coming up.

All of a sudden this mandated lock-down has made it harder for me to fall asleep. My thoughts are starting to become a big dark cloud that is following me around. What’s wrong with me? Why is this happening, go away. I’m starting to have recurring nightmares. I don’t like this feeling. I don’t want to fall back asleep and experience the pain again. I’m sleeping 3 to 4 hours a day, I can’t rest peacefully.   

This ongoing issue of my physical health and well-being is going downhill. I called my cousin to help solve this issue and she recommended therapy. Therapy…how am I going to ask my mom if I can seek therapy.

***

Me: “Mom, I want to seek therapy. I need some help. I am stressed and I’m not okay.”

Mom: “Why?! You know that stress is a part of life. It’s normal to deal with school and problems, you just need to be strong. Are you some psychopath?”

Chapter 1: Shallow View

My mom’s reaction is not unusual. It’s something many of us, in this generation, hear from our parents. In this section, I want to explore the myths surrounding mental illness that have been handed down to us. The countless times I’ve heard my mom say that our struggles are our own problem to deal with stuck with me. My mom’s perspective in life is similar to most immigrant parents' mindsets. Various things she believes in like poor mental health is not a real thing. Seeking therapy is very foreign and very western culture. A person is weak if they reach out for help or open up to others. Someone with a mental illness means that there is something wrong with them and they are also incompetent and crazy. You must be insane in the head since you can’t properly deal with your problems. Parents think mental health is rare. But it’s more common than what people realize. To help us understand this point we can look at a scientific study by the World Health Organization (WHO). According to the WHO, “approximately 1 in 4 people worldwide will experience a mental health issue at some point in their lives” (Ministerie van Algemene Zaken). This study helps us see that this health issue the world is facing. Another thing my mom believes about mental health is taking medication for your health like antidepressants is a placebo effect and the doctors don’t know what they are prescribing you. Someone can easily control their emotions just by my willpower and attitude. If someone is sad they can simply snap out of it and people can be happy if they choose to be. Why would someone pay a whole ton of money for therapy? These are all myths and sayings my mom has told me over the years. The stigma with mental health among the Asian community is heavily present in older generations. Speaking about mental health to your parents is taboo talk.

Before I make assumptions and criticize our parent’s generation I must understand where they’re coming from. Although this frustrates me the amount of misunderstanding and hurt I get from her words about my mom’s side comments I need to take that deep breath and analyze why she thinks this way. I need to see the context deeper in terms of how she grew up and the struggles and worries she had to deal with. My mom came into the United States when she was 21 years old, at such a young age and carried different burdens at the same age as me. Leaving everything behind, friends, family, and home to be with my dad in the United States. I can’t imagine entering the unknown with barely any knowledge of the new country besides stepping onto the land of opportunity. To come to the United States meant giving up on your own personal hopes and dreams and making any type of sacrifice needed to live a better life. The enormous sacrifices that were made also implied having to accept that life is hard and we just need to move on. My mother’s generation is very different from mine because of different types of struggles. My mom never had the chance to process her feelings as she’s competing so hard to make money and provide all she can for the family. Starting with very little money into a new place and creating a safety net for the family was a strenuous challenge. My mom keeps repeating to herself, “I just have to be strong for us or else it’ll fall apart”. For her to deal with internal problems it’s all about mentality and pulling your own strength to get over it. Looking at my mom’s family she was also the eldest of 4 and her parents were never home since they were working out of the country. She had this mindset integrated into her at such a young age around 10 years old ever since her parents needed to make money to afford schooling in the Philippines. She had to prepare food, clean, watch over her younger siblings, and basically be the other parent in the family. Being trained to be independent and think of others before yourself requires mental strength. This all explains why my mother has a hard time believing that people are suffering from mental health.  Someone dealing with mental illnesses meant they were a flawed individual that didn’t know the ropes in life.

Chapter 2: Deeper View

Looking into a deeper view of why many people suffer from mental illness stem from various factors like environmental factors, life experiences, and trauma. Personally, I never had the chance to process my trauma from my childhood due to being thing-oriented and the concept of the rat race. The rat race, the race we are all put into without choice. For more context an article talks about the concept of the rat race. The article states, “The rat race is the biggest reason why Americans are so pressed for time. I don’t think people think enough about how they spend time. They go through motions. They feel more and more rushed” (Ferreira). From this perspective I also agree with the author that the way we spend our time is going through the motions almost like a machine. We have no time to think we’re always using our time chasing after success. The rat race is exhausting with a weekly routine of trading our time for work and money. Most people are even working paycheck to paycheck. It’s hard to escape the rat race since people need to meet their basic needs. The rat race is the fight for survival and depending on someone’s income status some people have to fight harder than others. People are simply racing each other in pursuit of artificial incentives like a successful career, more expensive clothing, a bigger house, the list goes on. My whole life I was always on the move. I was occupied from 8 am till midnight with my internship, part-time job, and playing sports teams in High School. I loved the adrenaline rush I got from doing one thing to another. I kept myself busy since I wanted to seem productive and useful with my time. If I sat doing nothing I felt worthless. Time and money were my priority. However, there were cracks behind my busy schedule. Although I was chasing one thing after the next in my schedule I was ultimately neglecting my feelings and life became numb. I soon felt as if I was on a hamster wheel going nowhere making all this money and achievements. I was frustrated with no time for myself. Nothing really mattered anymore. Life was crumbling and I couldn’t hold onto happiness.

Some things I came to see that were brought into light was the problem our generation is facing. Noam Chomsky, an American public intellectual mentioned, “In today’s economy, many Americans lack steady, regular jobs and live a “precarious existence,” To make matters worse, over the past four decades, much of the world’s wealth has transferred from working people to concentrated private capital” (Ha). Our generation in particular has a heavy burden to carry since we have less resources. People today are chasing after crumbs in the money pot. We live in a plutonomy society where a small percentage of the world’s population is gathering increasing wealth. At this point working class and middle income families are the ones who live an increasingly precarious life. A lot of pressure is thrown at an individual meaning that the system we live in emphasizes a lot on personal responsibility. An example of this pressure is when there are layoffs, not getting a job, or missing a deadline it is a personal failure and they are at fault. However looking at the bigger picture, it is the system’s fault there are limited resources available due to plutonomy. With limited financial resources families are more vulnerable to more stressful life situations. Even studies show the relationship between financial stress and depression. A study by the National Library of Medicine focuses on financial stress and depression among adults. Results of the study show, “A positive association between financial stress and depression is found in both high-income and low-and middle-income countries, but is generally stronger among populations with low income or wealth” (Guan et al.). Mental health problems are influenced by economic burden. We are facing the greatest mental health crisis in history. The way we navigate the world today is different from older generations. Today, going to college for your Bachelor’s degree is becoming normalized, jobs are getting more competitive, and it’s harder to make a stable income. The insufficient resources makes people run harder in the rat race and compete with one another. The concept of competition of resources gets us sucked into the world of materialistic goods as society falsely tells us what can make us happy.

Another idea of atomization also comes into play here, the more we think of each other as competition, the more we become separated from one another. These social values of competition tend to lead us into isolation and disconnected leaving a sad picture in life. We can chase after the “goods” like money and career but all those things are temporary and don’t last forever. We miss out on the meaning of life if we never see or acknowledge we're all in a rat race. Although at times ignorance is bliss we can move forward and take action once acknowledging the cracks in society.

Chapter 3: Healing

Let’s return to that encounter with my mom. It didn’t end there:

***

At this moment with my shaky voice, I tried my best to hold it in and not cry. I couldn’t help it.

Me: “I haven’t been sleeping at all. I’m having nightmares every night. I’m scared of falling asleep. It’s not even the stress that I’m dealing with. You know what happened to me at a young age. You know my childhood was not normal like the others. ”

***

This was the first time I ever opened up to my mom emotionally. As we were both crying in the living room. She silently gave me a nod and allowed me to seek professional help. Although my mom had a shallow view of mental health I think she saw my smile slowly fading away within months. I became more quiet in the house and wasn’t myself. My mom was sort of against the idea of seeking professional help since she has a hard time believing it would be helpful. The silent nod was out of love and hope that I would get better.

There I was sitting in my therapist’s room hearing the words, PTSD. Never did I think I would be diagnosed with it but hearing those four letters. I couldn’t believe it, but I knew something was wrong. Truthfully, I was relieved that my therapist was able to find the root of the problem. This diagnosis has affected me physically, mentally, and academically, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get through it.

The need to feel in control of myself and my environment. It’s one of the symptoms. Yet, I never felt in control regardless of how much I tried. I attempted to distract myself by trying to do numerous tasks, and for a while, it worked. I would push away my feelings that this diagnosis had brought to light and during those few hours, I would feel stable. It was great until it wasn’t. I ended up overworking myself. I would feel tired and I started to neglect other areas of my life ​​– sleep, relationships, ironically my mental health, and my perspective towards school. I was emotionally detached and did not find pride or satisfaction in my academic achievements. 

This became a serious issue, so I decided to take a step back and quit my job during the semester. It was a hard choice to make, but I needed to take the time to work on myself. Due to COVID restrictions of social interaction in person it allowed me to spend time alone. Everything slowed down in terms of pace and my day-to-day schedule was open. For the very first time I was able to breathe and ground myself back into peace slowly.

In therapy, I learned to engage more in self-care through a structured routine. My routine would consist of morning walks, meditation, reading, journaling, and exercising. I was appreciating such simple things in life. Something special has been surrounding me this whole time yet I was so blind to stop and take the time to look at the beauties that lie around. As my routine, I walk to my favorite park behind my house. I sit on the grass in silence looking up to the trees and the sunny sky while hearing the birds chirp. I would practice meditation and journaling at the park. As I meditate, that is when I can breathe and focus on the present. For gratitude journaling it helped me to keep a positive attitude in life. I was also reading Christian books to grab onto hope at such a low point in life. Exercising was also another outlet that helped me exert my stress and kept my body healthy.  I also reached out to my family and friends while embracing vulnerability, and in return received a lot of support and love.

My journey in self-care, reflection, and seeking social support has lifted me from that emotional pit. Over time I have developed healthy coping mechanisms, increasing my confidence that I can take things one at a time without overworking myself. After going through a low in life I am thankful that I have gone through such pain because it brought light into the cracks and shaped the person I am today. COVID was a moment of pause. Now that we are out of lockdown I can still find myself at times on the move, working so hard in the rat race. I see how I tend to neglect my health in the midst of midterm season and stress over the small things that are temporary like grades. When I feel burned out I have to remind myself that I need to take a pause and slow down. Even though times aren't as slow as COVID lockdown we can always take a moment to pause and be in the present. I have to constantly remind myself to take it slow. My whole healing process to get back on my feet were things that took a pause to look deeply within and express it in ways such as journaling, meditation and seeking help from friends and family. One important thing was not to take the rat rat race too seriously because you can lose the meaning of life. Don’t work too hard and invest yourself in temporary things because there are greater things in life you are missing like memories and relationships. 

My pain has also shaped my interpersonal life. When friends are having a rough time I use to tell them just distract yourself with your work and school to get over the problem. I never realized how awful this advice was because I was simply telling them to shove their problem in the back of their throat and suppress it. Suppressing their feelings just how I did with school and chasing after things to forget my problem grows eventually. I know now that healing requires expressing your emotions in healthy ways like crying it out and having friends by your side to comfort and listen to you. 

Relationships to me are so important because when life gets hard having a tight community of friends creates a safety net of support and love. Investing in relationships is an important value to have. Seeing each other as competition will isolate us from each other. The beauty of life is the ability to love which brings us all together. With a community like a group of friends we can see how rich life is making memories and supporting each other at our lowest. An important relationship I got out of this pain was strengthening my relationship with my mother. Before my mother had a hard time realizing the truths of mental health. After attending my therapy sessions she slowly saw my progress getting back together on my feet. My mom supported me at such a low point with love. We’ve gotten to open to each other more emotionally and understand each other. Always remember taking a pause and looking deeper within yourself creates a greater understanding of love for yourself and others.

Works Referenced

“MHPSS Worldwide: Facts and Figures.” Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Crisis Situations | Government.Nl, 21 Oct. 2019

Ha, Taylor. “Renowned Political Activist Noam Chomsky Urges Next Generation to Take Action.” Fordham Newsroom, 4 May 2021.

Guan, Naijie, et al. “Financial Stress and Depression in Adults: A Systematic Review.” PloS One, 22 Feb. 2022.

Ferreira, Nicole Martins. “How to Escape The Rat Race (and Never Get Sucked Back In).” Oberlo, 26 Feb. 2021.