In October 2008, at the age of 24, I was diagnosed and hospitalized for Myasthenia Gravis, MG, a neuromuscular autoimmune hurricane disease. One of my long-time friends since high school, Ken, told me he would visit me at the hospital right away. I waited. And waited. Two weeks somehow became five years. I haven’t seen him since. Like a dozen of my high school friends, he attended the many annual Christmas parties I hosted pre-MG. While most people stuck...
In my last post, Asian American Mental Health: Confusing Doing Well with Feeling Well, I described my life with bipolar disorder, lack of family support, a friend’s suicide, and my diagnosis at 18-years old. Also, there were a bunch of Rocky Balboa and boxing metaphors. Working in mental health nonprofit, I’ve seen countless end the stigma campaigns, which are valuable. But there are many other obstacles we rarely discuss. For instance, if someone comes to...
I was a junior in college. It was the third consecutive day that I spent in bed. I was on a steady diet of cereal and potato chips. A box of Kleenex and unopened textbooks lay on my bed. This was another sporadic episode of depression. Bipolar disorder does not care about your deadlines. I had homework to finish, and I was competing with my Speech Team at Nationals in a few days. Realizing I...
I’ve been depressed the past few days. There are many difficult aspects to depression and one of them is being productive. When you’re depressed, each task requires energy and answering an inbox full of emails is intimidating. Having bipolar 2, I sometimes wish there was a “pause” button I could hit when things get rough. Fortunately and unfortunately, life goes on when you’re depressed. I first started honing strategies to combat depression’s effects on productivity when I was a...
