“The moment I was diagnosed mentally ill, the dynamic between us changed.”

I remember that from the age of 13 years old, I was always anxious. After trauma hit me, my mind was running nonstop with anxiety. Life has been a blur since. It felt like a psychological block formed in my head due to my repressed, unconscious anxiety. I cannot learn new things, nor do things that need a long attention span.

One of the biggest factors contributing to my anxiety is my relationship with my family. I live in East Asia and the familial pressures have definitely played a role. Expectations and standards upon children here are very high. I clearly remember my parents yelling at me for being a disgrace to family name, just for getting a B in English once. In our culture, people typically care about achievements; how much money you make, when you start a family and all of those kinds of things. It can be a lot to live up to.

Prior to my mental illness, my parents had always been quite relaxed about my future. They would often say, “Oh your time will come,” but the moment I was diagnosed mentally ill, the dynamic between us changed.

I sought help from a therapist, but after only one session, my mum said to me that nobody would hire anybody with a mental illness. I begged for help, but she refused. I felt like she washed her hands of me the moment I became a liability in her eyes. I think she just ignored the problem in the hope it would go away by itself, which of course it didn’t. That’s not how anxiety works.

I started to open up a little to everyone about how I felt. At first people were sympathetic, but then they quickly became fed up with me sharing my feelings. People say they will listen and be there for you, but at lot of the time it’s just lip service.

I was an easy target for bullying, and when my parents found out about me talking about my issues to other people, they yelled at me and called me crazy and a disgrace to the family. My dad even looked at my online chats with other mental health survivors.

Of course this has made me distrust others, not least my parents, who had taken to scolding me for not being successful and capable like other children. I felt that publicly they showed their nice side, but behind closed doors I was seeing something very different. It was clear they were in denial about my mental illness, and I felt that the only way they knew how to deal with it was through punishment.

I attended hospital near where I live and am taking medication now (Venlafaxine and Lamotrigine). The meds help me grasp life a bit more, and help me to be able to work better. When I stopped my meds in the past and went cold turkey under pressure from my family, the side effects sucked and I got in trouble at work a lot. Working is still hard for me, but I do what I can.

I was informed I could try Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) but I haven’t had the time and funds to be able to do so yet. Mental health care is so expensive in my country. Buying the meds alone cost roughly 30 percent of my monthly salary. It’s reflective of a general attitude towards mental illness where I live- if you attempt suicide, you are punished by law with jail time and fines.

I’m still alive, but everything in life -whether due to studies or work- was down to sheer luck of me surviving it. It’s difficult to take care of myself when I’m forced to still live at home with my parents and they are so opposed to my treatment. I feel like I suck at everything basically, because of my anxiety being so debilitating.

I still struggle with that psychological block stemming from past trauma. I’m a big fan of anime and I’ve found a lot of comfort and understanding in watching it, as it’s helped me to understand myself a little better. Some of the characters and their situations I can really identify with due to my anxiety.

For example, when I watched Black Jack (episode 31 where Black Jack was paralysed and unable to use his hands to perform surgery) I knew how that felt. Similarly when I watched Spongebob Squarepants (episode Pickles) and saw how Spongebob lost his confidence after not remembering to add pickles to Krabby Patty, that resonated too. Anxiety really does affect my ability to function daily, even just doing normal things that are routine.

I am a victim of trauma who was failed to be protected by the people who should have been protecting me. Instead I was victim blamed, with the guilty party walking away and facing no punishment, as I was urged to keep quiet and told to forgive the perpetrator because they are human. But I too am human.

No matter what condition anyone has, the most important thing is that people are human. To those who do not support me at my lowest, you certainly do not deserve me at my best. That’s irrespective of family beliefs, culture or tradition. It’s unfair that thanks to a mental illness I have no control over, I have to endure being ostracised, mocked and vilified because I face barriers to achieving the kind of material successes my culture celebrates; a family, big house, nice car, money. I will likely need treatment for the rest of my life.

Everyone deserves equal treatment, once you bring a child to this world they are a sentient human being. They deserve to be cared for and loved, not disposed of the moment that you become a ‘burden’. The condition doesn’t give you a right to label others, where all your actions are considered right just because you are ‘normal’ while my actions with anxiety are wrong.