I just kind of felt like even at a young age there was a difference between boys and girls and I kind of, kind of had this inkling that people would prefer you were born a boy instead of a girl. And that made me really, just I had very low self-confidence because of that and I think what really hit me was an experience I had when I was 4 years old. I was at a daycare and I was like, they were asking us, you know, “What do you, what do you want to be when you grow up?” And I told them, “Well, I want to be a doctor.” You know, like, I, I really liked doctors, I had a female doctor, . I liked how, you know, how they made me feel better. I wanted to make other people feel better, so, you know, I said, “Oh, I want to be a doctor.” And this little boy came up to me and he was like, “You can’t be a doctor, you’re a girl.” And that really crushed me a whole lot. I was like, well that’s not true, I mean, I have, I have a lady doctor. And he’s like, “She’s a nurse, only girls can be nurses.” I mean only, you know, that’s it, they can’t be a doctor or anything like that. So that kind of [laughs] really just like made me realize okay, so obviously there’s reason why like people are telling me this. Like it must be that, you know, girls are weaker or something like that. So that kind of really tore me up and like as I was going through life I always knew that was a thing.

At that time I was also very overweight so like, being a girl, being overweight, was not a good thing, like at all. And you know, I just started to feel very uncomfortable, uncomfortable in my own skin.

As a child grow-growing up, I was, like I said diagnosed with severe depression when I was 14. And it continued until about two-- maybe three years ago. It started to less-lessen actually when I came to the realization that I was trans. That really alleviated a lot of it. 

…here’s another very specific trans and depression issue for people who, like me, like wear like a binder - like flatten my chest – that is painful and I, you know, I do it like safely, wear like the appropriate size but you’re not supposed to wear it for a ton of time a day and that like, that’s a huge barrier being like if I want to go outside to not experience dysphoria I have to wear this thing but it’s summer and it’s disgusting and it makes it like it’s hotter and it’s less easy to breathe and it’s like, so that’s another like, very, very annoying barrier in dealing, dealing with things.

Mhmm. Right

I remember last time…

Right because it comes into conflict some of your other strategies like of like “go take a walk outside” or keep moving or yeah?

Yeah or even just like—you know there’s also been the thing of I should like I’ll go for this walk but I shouldn’t stay out like for a ton of time because like I don’t know where in that area there’s like a bathroom I can use without being plausibly either in, in, at worst, in danger, at best, looked at as [inaudible]. You know? So that’s another category of like should I go to this event tonight? Who knows?

… in high school, I was starting to figure out like, “hey, you know, I’m not straight” and then so in trying to figure out what that meant, I didn’t, I didn’t want to tell anybody. and so I, I came out to my parents when I was a, when I was a freshman and they of course you know they figured I would grow out of it that kind of hurt, , but then once I felt more able to tell friends the first friend also told me. She said, “No, you’re just confused, you’ll be okay, you’ll get through it” and so it just made me not want to tell anybody else. So, I did keep it from everyone else, I felt like I didn’t fit in, all of my friends were talking about boys, and I just, it didn’t, it didn’t work, it’s not. So that was a way that I didn’t feel normal because I of course didn’t fit in with my friends, I didn’t know anyone else who was gay. There were a couple of “out” people at my school but they were not treated very well and so, of course I just “stayed in” for the most part. and then so I was not feeling normal I didn’t feel normal compared to my peers but I also didn’t feel like my normal self and when I think about how I was with seeing my family before that, I was always very much the, the peacekeeper, got along with everybody in my family, kind of the yeah, and I would make jokes to ease the tension like that kind of thing and as things got harder, I didn’t really wanna be in that role anymore. And so I found myself not wanting to spend the time with my family that I did before.

So you’re saying you isolated yourself from your family because they didn’t understand you?

Yeah that was part of it but too, I just , you know, I mean now I know some more like clinical words for this but I just didn’t find happiness in the things that I used to, so being with my family didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t care.

I violate a lot of her understandings of what it is to be a good woman and because I have always been so assertive, she finds it to be aggressive and condescending. So she would always try to keep me in my place because of the Chinese sort of dynamics of hierarchy and what you can and cannot say. And I was just like, “If you wanted me to be a good Chinese daughter you should have raised me in China, because if you’re going to raise me in the United States and I’m to be successful here, I am going to take on American socialization.” Especially because I didn’t know any Asian kids growing up I was literally like, there was like me and the one Jewish kid, so we would like take our turns he would show everybody dreidels and I would show everybody like, Chinese New Year, like red envelopes and give them candy like, Chinese candies and so like, that was the extent of the diversity growing up. So not being within a culture where certain statements were normalized I think was part of the damage, but also I think there are, you know, a lot of issues and I mean this, this is part of the thing, like nobody wants to bring shame on their culture, but I think a lot of East Asian cultures have, you know, very frequent physical, emotional abuse. And I think it’s something that’s commonly not addressed because the kids do really well in school and they don’t act out, so no one sees it as a problem and I think that’s incredibly damaging. I mean there’s like an entire Reddit forum, like a Reddit sub-forum that’s just called, oh what is it, Asian parent stories. And like, there are stories of people who are just like, “I did it. I graduated from John’s Hopkins and I’m literally a brain surgeon and they’re still not happy and every day I want to kill myself.” 

…everyone is already assumed to be mentally healthy. Everyone well I mean especially in my family and you know talking about some of these issues with other people, I have very strong people in my family tend to have very strong sense of self and a very strong sense of how we handle our own emotional mishaps. And so it’s not in our vocabulary to say, “Oh you think, you, you know, you tend to be sad consistently.” This is not really what they understand and of you do end up in that situation, they’re just like, “Well you pick yourself up and you deal with it,” Or you know, “Just be happy.” And you know it’s I really do hate the just be happy things because it’s really like first of all I really don’t want to be happy second of all how, I can’t just be now.

Right. 

So just be, just being aware of the fact that you know often times families just don’t have the vocabulary for these sorts of things.

And did you get a diagnosis from your doctors who offered you that?

That’s why I did not proceed with their help because I did not want to be labeled, I did not want that in my file at all. So that’s where me had, dealing with it myself came in because I did not want to be labeled. I did not want that in my file at all.

Okay you know I, know that depression has, you know, it’s a sensitive topic and it’s in some kind of parts of the culture it’s stigmatized.

[hmm]

Do you feel that that is a stigma? Yeah and in your culture particularly?

Yes, yes it’s not something that’s easy to talk about. I feel like African Americans or maybe woman I don’t know, I can’t speak to men. We deal with you know a lot and not having a support group makes it more, makes it harder cause we kind of have to deal with everything ourselves or you know, on our own and I would say I think I’m depressed which is it’s something that’s kind of frowned upon or something that’s.

Frowned upon by? Like your friends, your family, your community?

The community. It’s not something that’s in the norm, I guess you would say. I don’t think people are educated on it much.

…right now I just really need a job. I really, but I get distracted, but I really, I think that’s why I’m losing my mind right now. I’m really depressed because right now, right now at the current time, I think that’s the biggest problem right now, it could be the biggest problem that I’m unemployed. And I have too much free time and I’m actually in jeopardy of like triggering a relapse because you know when you have so much free time you contemplate your thoughts and sometimes you can think negative thoughts and then you can be self-destructive when you have too much free time…

… for over 7 months I have been clean now, but now I have not been able to find employment. And, and that’s, that’s making me depressed because I have nothing to do. I don’t like I’m not, I was a productive, productive member of society and I was working and now I feel very depressed because I don’t have a job and I want to go back to work and do something and make some money.

When the depression would kick in , I’d stop caring as much about my job, I figure, “Well what’s the point of it? I’m just a low class American anyway.” I would stop smiling all the time. I’d start brooding.

It makes it extremely hard to hold down a job because I’ll get a job and I’ll be doing great. I’ll be ok and then the depression is like, “Wait you’re happy? No you’re not allowed to be happy.” And it draws me back down into being depressed and then I lose my job because, “Oh, you’re not who you told us you were when we interviewed you. You’re not who you were when we hired you.” It makes it extremely hard to have relationships, to keep a job to do anything…

And there are tons of people across you know the sands of time who have struggled with prejudice and perception and everything like that and you’re one of many who go through those issues. And you know how, if you look back in time and at how people have dealt with it, they’ve dealt with it full on force and it’s been a struggle and sometimes it can be painful but they’ve dealt with it and that’s how you have to do it in order to come through to the other side. So adopt the tradition of facing it instead of constantly seeking to avoid it because avoiding it will only put yourself back, in your little comfortable space of being anxious enclosed and everything. And facing it will give you an opportunity to say there’s another side of this.