by Joy Chien
First Wave
My depression started four days before my birthday in Washington, DC on December 20th, 2012. It was a dark, snowy evening, and I was supposed to meet some friends for dinner. I was feeling pressured, stressed, and pushed by my co-founder, but mostly by my new boyfriend who wanted me to fly to Sweden for Christmas. I think I jumped into that relationship way too quickly. My startup business wasn’t going as expected, and my co-founder and I weren’t seeing eye to eye. I remember driving in the snow just out of my street, and then witnessing the headlight halo of the oncoming car and somehow feeling gravitated towards it. I remember a soft voice pushing me to crash into that other car, whispering, “You need to do this.” Why would I say this to myself? Some unconscious part of me wanted a wake-up call. The way I was living my life was not working for me anymore, and I felt terrified to make the changes I knew I needed to make. When I hit the oncoming car, it was a devastating crash. The driver of the other vehicle immediately emerged and started yelling at me, “What the F is wrong with you?! You stupid f@#$ing bitch, you saw me, and you swerved right into me!” But at that moment, I had a tornado of emotions going on inside, and I just replied, “Here’s my car insurance information, and please stop yelling at me. I’ll pay for this, I promise.” Thank goodness I was able to partially drive and push the car back home, ashamed and embarrassed — the mutilated car mirrored how I felt inside. A complete wreck. I didn’t leave my house for the following few months.
Scary changes started months earlier when I decided to quit my comfortable, six-figure executive job at IBM right before the London summer Olympics. It was a really long and difficult decision. I had been practicing yoga and meditation for a few years; it helped me slow down enough to listen to my intuition. I felt shifts inside myself, and over time, I couldn’t help but feel stuck doing something I wasn’t passionate about. I felt that my colleagues valued routine, stability, and feeling safe in their comfort zone. Despite their unhappiness, they would never give up the comforts of a well-paid job or the certainty and security that came with it. I can’t blame them. I was paralyzed with fear of making any career mistakes for over a decade. It’s safe, and it’s what everyone else did. But a certain part of me could not do it anymore; I craved adventure and did not want to spend the rest of my life buried under Excel and system requirements with only two weeks of vacation a year. I will never forget my glorious last day at work when I flew out the next day to attend the Olympics. It was so exciting! Pure, unbridled freedom. I felt like I had waited for this moment my entire life…finally free to create the life I wanted. I planned to travel and then start my own company with my best friend. I went traveling around Europe and Southeast Asia for six months on these long bus rides through Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Myanmar, where I started to notice a lot of emotions and memories surfacing.
I just brushed it off and tried to ignore the negative thoughts. When I got back home, I had so much free time on my hands, I started to spiral into very harsh self-talk and self-doubt. First came the sleepless nights. All of a sudden, 4am became my prime time for the “what am I doing with my life” panic attacks, and journaling was the only thing that helped. These echoes of past voices just kept talking. In the deepest moments of my despair, I stopped feeling altogether. I was indifferent and detached in every aspect of life, which was a complete departure from my typically stubborn and opinionated self. Everyone kept saying, “You’re starting your own company…I wish I could have your life,” and in my head, it felt like World War III was going on. It was a really gruesome slaughter and dissolving of my former self-image. The craziest part was that I wasn’t conscious of any of it. Life before this included planning every hour of the day, where I had no free time to be alone with my thoughts. This is where I felt safe, and as long as I kept moving, I couldn’t get hurt — at least, that’s what I thought.
Within a few months, I had torn down my entire sense of self and ripped apart all of the confidence that took me 30 years to build. I was so harsh, critical, and judgmental of myself. It’s not like you wake up and say, “This is the day I’ll ruin my life,” but over time, that’s exactly what happened. I couldn’t seem to find any positive voices in my head, but I was drowning in a sea of self-doubt. For months after the accident, I would look in the mirror and cry in judgment for so long that my face would become red, swollen, and almost unrecognizable. I spent so many endless nights battling insomnia, paranoia, suicidal thoughts, and panic attacks; my brokenness resulted in extreme depression, afraid to even leave my house. Not knowing what to do, I began to obsessively research yoga teacher training programs, thinking that yoga might be the answer to set back on the road to feeling whole and complete. Of course, it couldn’t and didn’t. I completed a yoga teacher training in Bali. What I enjoyed the most was the yogic philosophy, but even that was not the fast fix I had dreamed of. The echoes of the past were still there.
The Second Wave
When I moved to Singapore in 2014, I didn’t know anyone, and wanted to build up my social circles. I thought it would be easy to join the biggest social sports league called Dragonboating. It was beautiful; I met so many people and made new friends whom I trusted, or so I thought. To conclude a great first year in Singapore, I went to a Christmas celebration with my Dragonboat team. There was a lot of drinking and aggressive alpha male behavior, but I thought I was just being overly sensitive. The captain of the team tried to put his hand on my leg that evening to which I politely moved his hand and moved away. After the party, I went to change clothes, and the next thing I realized is that he was in the women’s changing room. I was shocked; I froze. He used his physical strength to overpower me, there was nothing I could do. He violated me and then ran out. I told one of my teammates afterward what had happened while sharing a cab home. He asked, “Are you sure?’’ To which I replied, “Of course, I’m sure it just happened.” He went silent.
I beat myself up a lot afterward because I thought that maybe it was my fault, or I could have done more to escape from the women’s changing room. At the time, I knew he was a lot stronger than me, and I also knew that I could get seriously hurt if I tried to fight back. I confronted him the next day because I was so upset and wanted to think maybe it was just a big misunderstanding. I so desperately wanted to believe that. We met up at a bar, and he was nervously smoking and drinking. We talked for a while. Finally, I asked him, “Did you not hear me say, ‘What are you doing? This is not ok…stop!’”
I didn’t get an apology. He didn’t even acknowledge my hurt feelings or ask me how I felt or if I was ok. He trivialized everything and talked about how his last girlfriend cheated on him. I felt so angry, disappointed, and humiliated; I just wanted to get out of there.
I wasn’t planning to go to the police because I thought I could just forget about this and move on with my life. Like a bad dream, I could only suppress it like other negative emotions before. However, I would be sitting on the bus and then have a flashback, and all of a sudden feel so small, and then just burst into uncontrollable sobs. The same thing happened during meetings at work; I couldn’t get the images out of my head that would trigger this feeling of helplessness, making me burst into tears. I had frequent panic attacks that would get so bad that I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t feel safe anywhere. It was like this base of safety that I stood on every day was just pulled out from under me. My boss ended my contract for underperforming. He even tried talking to me, asking, “What’s happened the past couple months? The client says you keep leaving meetings abruptly and you’re just not focused. Is it your boyfriend? I’m sorry, I have to let you go.” I was devastated, and wanted support from my boyfriend, who was living in Sweden at the time. He told me not to go to the police and forget this ever happened to avoid getting retraumatized. He meant well, but I felt so abandoned and overwhelmed. We soon broke up. There was something very wrong; my body was having a far more significant reaction to the assault than my mind could ration
alize.
I ended up going to the police after a month of being trapped in an inner tornado. The Singaporean uncle at reception nearly fell out of his seat when I told him I wanted to report a rape. I waited at the police station for seven hours, just to be denied. It was shocking how the officer said I waited too long, asked what I was wearing, and said he could call this guy and give him a warning as a favor to me. I had to call a friend who worked at the police station to intervene just to file the police report. I didn’t want to leave until I was certain they filed a report against my attacker. Soon after, I was kicked off the Dragonboat team and told that I’m not welcome anymore. I was like a stain on the team that needed to be removed. Apparently, specific competitions were coming up, and it was easier to get rid of the newbie than the captain of the team. I went through many interviews with the police, and they asked me if I had a witness or if I had spoken to anyone right after the assault. I gladly gave the name of my teammate, whom I told right after; however, I didn’t realize that he would lie under oath. I confronted him with hot, angry tears pouring from my eyes when I found out he didn’t tell the truth and asked him, “Why didn’t you tell the police what happened? I know you remember what I told you that night.” He responded, “He (my attacker) already had called me, telling me to keep my mouth shut…we are friends, what could I do? He could be canned or imprisoned for life.” The investigation went on for a year but got dismissed due to lack of evidence. I felt so crushed and abandoned by everyone. This incident had cost me my job, my ten-year-long relationship, my team, my friends, my dignity, and most of all, my feeling of safety in the world. I felt so sad that I couldn’t even talk to my parents about what happened.
The Third Wave
When my boyfriend and I broke up, I also lost my best friend of ten years. I had never let my emotional guard down before, and in my depression, he was my only light — his bright beacon of hope gave me the strength and the positive voices I needed to get up again. That’s probably why I couldn’t deal with the sexual assault, because I was so dependent on him through my first depression. He was like a pillar in my emotional well-being. Having him in my life was like the sky was blue. I completely took him for granted. He was like my Band-Aid on the outside of a cracked bathtub full of a lifetime of emotions that I had not dealt with healthily.
At the beginning of the relationship, we could talk for hours about anything, and he felt so safe because we had been friends for years already. I loved the fact that he spoke multiple languages fluently (including Chinese); he was so sporty and smart. I moved to Sweden for a while and we traveled around Europe, Asia, and the US together. One night, while sailing through the Komodo islands, we were lying on the top deck of the boat staring at the stars. He asked what love felt like for me. I had to think about it for a while because I wanted to give an honest answer. I replied, “Fear, abandonment, and pain.” I will never forget the look on his face. He was pretty shocked and had to process my answer. I asked him how love felt for him. He responded, “Like trust, acceptance, and safety.” I was wondering what was wrong with this naive guy, and how did he ever get so brainwashed by Disney? I later reflected on if there was something wrong with me and why I started to feel so trapped and anxious in the relationship as time went on. I guess I expected imminent doom and planned for it. I had already written the ending for our relationship, and perhaps every relationship I have ever had.
When we broke up, I had no idea how to deal with all the negative voices I had suppressed, and again, spiraled into sleepless nights, panic attacks, and anxiety.
Rising from Depression
During my first depression, I was far too ashamed and embarrassed to share how I felt with anyone, including my parents. My boyfriend was the only one I could talk to. He was in Sweden at the time, but we would Facetime almost every day. He encouraged me to leave the house by simply walking to the mailbox. Later, he encouraged me to go on a retreat. It took months, but with his support, I worked up the courage to go for a surf camp. The surf camp is in a beautiful lush jungle in Costa Rica. The golden sunsets through the last palm trees and the night sky lit up with hundreds of fireflies which were so breathtaking. I had a difficult time there, though. Everyone else seemed so happy and carefree. It just made me very self-conscious of how stiff and anxious I was. Trying to surf was even more challenging and terrifying than I ever expected. I can still hear my instructor saying, “Let go of your board and pop up! Let it go in life and just go with the flow.” I really couldn’t let go then of who I thought I should be and what I should be doing.
Traveling and setting up little challenges for myself did help me gain confidence, little by little. In the beginning, it was just walking to the mailbox, then going to surf camp alone, and then solo traveling around Europe. I was finally living in the present moment again and not stuck regretting the past or worrying about how I had ruined my future. I had heard about this transformational ten-day meditation program from a friend and bought a ticket to the birthplace of Vipassana - Yangon, Myanmar. Unfortunately, I was expelled from the program for having food poisoning from something I ate my first day in Yangon. Since I was already in Myanmar, I decided to volunteer at a children’s orphanage in Pha’an. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done. Talk about a lesson in gratitude! These impoverished little angels of love with no shoes were dirty and smelly but were so happy. I didn’t have to do anything, and all of a sudden, just being with them - I was enough. I was accepted in their community. I watched people in the region celebrate life, appreciate life, and my problems paled in comparison. I began to wonder how I ever became so ungrateful and developed a sense of entitlement for happiness, for my health, for loving supportive friends and parents who would always be there for me.
I also met some very kind and compassionate ladies along the way. I tried to speak to myself the way they talked to me or their kids. Growing up, my parents never asked how I felt or comforted my feelings in a gentle, soft way. I adopted my friends’ voices in my head. In particular, my friend Shirley would call me and ask, “How are you feeling, honey? What’s wrong?” The way she said it and the tone of her voice was so warm and caring. I realized I had never talked to myself that way. Slowly, over time, instead of accusing, judging, criticizing, blaming, and shaming myself, I developed a kinder inner narrative.
Unraveling my Unconscious Fears
Like many multi-cultural children, I grew up quite nomadically, and lived on three continents before puberty. I was born in China, moved to England at age seven, and then to the US for high school and spent the next 18 years there. As a kid, I loved science and conducting experiments. Now, as an adult, I love setting up experiments around thoughts that are no longer serving me. I learned to trace my feelings of inadequacy, shame, helplessness, and abandonment to the first time I felt them. Feeling the trauma triggered lots of childhood memories.
I had a pretty great childhood, but I remember some sad moments where I was utterly helpless. My mom was quite busy as a university professor, doing a part-time MBA, and taking care of her adoptive mother who was dying of cancer. This meant I grew up without full-time parents until we moved to London, and my grandparent’s parents were not especially fond of me since I was a girl. In traditional China, many girls were even killed because parents wanted boys to carry on the family name. My dad left for England when I was three. I didn’t see him for four years. The feeling of helplessness and abandonment always goes back to this image of my parents leaving. I would desperately panic because I didn’t know if I would ever see them again. My mom likes to joke that when I was two, I would sit in my crib grasping my soiled blanket soaked in urine and I wouldn’t say anything because I was so scared. I remember how much my parents blew up whenever I did anything wrong as a child, spilled things, broke a glass, it felt like endless screaming about how careless and stupid I was. If I cried, I would get hit and yelled at until I stopped crying. To this day, I have never seen my parents cry, so this emotional constipation was
just normal.
Over the years, incompetence became my inner dialogue until I was so paralyzed with fear of making mistakes, I couldn’t do anything or make any decisions. I was tall and stupid. That’s what my mom called me, and that’s what I believed. It sounds abusive, but this is actually Chinese culture dating back for generations. You’re not allowed to compliment or praise your children; otherwise, you would superstitiously ruin their life. With this in mind, China in the ‘80s was a very different place, and I don’t think they were conscious of the impact of their words or actions. They wanted the best for me and migrated to new continents just so I could have a better life.
Now, instead of telling my inner child how pathetic and what a loser she is for constantly feeling terrified and sad, I took the parts of myself that I felt ashamed of and invited them back into my life. I accepted them. No longer suppressing my inner child or the negative emotions, I started to have a dialog with her. The first time I spoke to my inner child was in this journal entry:
September 6th, 2014
I’m journaling in the moonlight, living the dream of my 20s, listening to the waves crashing, enjoying the fresh, crisp smell of the ocean listening to Etta James - At Last.
Man, I’m really loving being by myself right now. I have so much clarity. This is so calming, the scenery of the silvery waves dancing on the ocean is just breathtaking. I love being with myself. Well at least on Ko Samui haha.
I love you. I will never leave you again. I’m sorry I judge to you, abandoned you, ignored and dismissed you for so long. I didn’t listen to you and locked you up because you scared me. I became so afraid of being alone. Being with you. I only cared about what others thought of me. I felt safe and loved in someone else’s arms and never on my own. I thought as long as I kept moving, I would never have to face you. But you followed me. Well, I am ready and you can come out now. I want to hear everything. I’m here for you. I am going to make an amazing home for you.
Liberate your Struggles Page 14