I have thought more about mental health during the past six months than I had ever thought about it previously. Mostly, I worry about the mental health of my four-year-old, who was pulled out of school in March and has since been isolated from his friends, save for some occasional playdates outside. I reflect on my own mental health as well, in the age of radical politics, existential threats, and in the context of a biracial marriage. Some days, it feels like a lot, even though I think I am a naturally buoyant and unflappable person.
I have never had a therapist. I am not against the idea at all, but I am actually so transparent that I feel quite free to talk to just about anyone about my problems; I feel like I can just vent socially without paying someone, most of the time, because I don't generally feel ashamed of my feelings or predicaments. When my son was born, my (generally wonderful, and very supportive) husband and I were both so sleep-deprived, that my marriage experienced a rough patch for a short stint. I (forcefully, vehemently) suggested to my husband that we should seek marriage counseling before attempting to have another kid, in order to prevent similar hiccups the second time around. My husband is a non-believer in seeking help generally; he does not even like watching YouTube tutorials or posting questions in social media groups. He prefers to just try things out on his own, then revise his strategy privately if necessary, with new ideas generated from his own head. I had to really argue that marriage counseling is not a negative thing, but should be seen as an investment in our relationship prior to making another big change. He agreed to doing it, in spite of his skepticism, but I never got my act together to find us a therapist who was taking new clients and was reasonably affordable, so that idea never actually got anywhere before, well, our second kid arrived and things actually seemed to be okay. Earlier this year, I had a crisis moment when I again considered seeking therapy. On social media, my husband's blended family was giving me a lot of grief/toxic interactions for my liberal political views, and he felt that I was fanning the arguments that clearly would lead to nowhere. I came to the realization that 1. I don't experience the BLM movement the same way that my white, male husband does. 2. American discourse has changed a lot since we started dating, that is causing external stress upon our marriage, by putting our racial identities under the magnifying glass. I truly don't understand how some people say that their marriages just sail through the years without any work. That's not me. I think my husband and I are blessed to have a pretty strong marriage, but we definitely work on it, and there have been some rocky moments over the years. At one point this year, I considered finding a POC therapist who might specialize in treating me for being in a biracial marriage, and my husband supported me in doing so, even though he admitted that therapy is not really his thing. In the end, my husband and I reached a common ground without therapy (again, because I never had the energy to find one). Upon his suggestion, I removed his blended family members from my social media account (and eventually, I would de-activate said social media account as well), and he and I committed to making monthly donations towards social justice causes. My husband also took a series of concrete steps at work to leverage his white male privilege, that resulted in expanding inclusive hiring practices, his company making a commitment to match donations to BLM, and encouraging folks to feel safe to discuss social justice on their work chat channels. Although I never set up therapy, I do feel like I was able to navigate the situation to some type of a solution, to preserve my mental health. On a smaller scale, the things that I have done to care for myself include: semi-regular exercise (a little tougher at the moment because I am asthmatic and the air has been on-and-off smoky here); a lot of outdoors time with family and some friends this summer; cutting out certain toxic social media addictions; re-connecting with old friends over video chat, email, and text; starting to blog again for regular self-reflection and just a "pause"; and looking ahead and thinking about the fall and winter holidays. I also am experimenting with the idea of drinking less at home, because I feel like I have been slowly increasing my alcohol intake during COVID shelter-at-home, and my physical health is impacted (I feel sluggish, and the alcohol consumption feels habitual, rather than enjoyable). I still need to work on getting to sleep earlier, but that's on my list, too. I also have been cautious to not take on too much. I really wanted to volunteer to tutor math this year, to help out some families in need, but I was clear in setting boundaries of when I would be available (only during my children's naps, and after carving out days to exercise). I am keeping self-care in the foreground, as we move into the winter / new year. What does your mental health routine look like in 2020, and what would you revise about it going forward?
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Growing up, I was always extremely close with my mom. I have so many memories of talking to her for an hour at a time, while she was cooking in the kitchen every night. I would tell her every small thing that had happened at school, and she would help me to reflect on who I am and what my observations and opinions said about my values. Even though I moved away from home after high school and proceeded to live in different states, countries, and even continents than her, I always maintained a very close relationship with my mom. After she was diagnosed with cancer in 2013, I made it a priority to visit her regularly, in order to spend as much time with her as possible; I did not want to feel any regret after her passing. I wanted to make sure that she felt loved and appreciated by me, and selfishly, I also wanted to make more memories with her before it was too late.
When my mother passed away in 2018, it was the end to five years of surgery and treatment. She had missed physically being present for the birth of my son and her first grandchild (in 2016), because she had been undergoing chemotherapy at home. By the time she passed, she had been confined to her couch and bed for a while; she had grown incredibly thin and could not stay awake for long stretches of time, and it was terrifying to wait for the last goodbye that could come at any time. In that slow, excruciating journey of loss, we had said goodbye both explicitly and emotionally so many times, that I felt there was simultaneously nothing left unsaid, and yet everything still to be said, once she was actually gone. When I read Michelle Obama's Becoming, one of the parts that hit me in the gut with raw emotions was her description of the loss of her father. The slowness of that loss, the incredible resilience of her father, and the way that loss forced her to reflect upon her own mortality and legacy, were very real experiences that I had myself in experiencing the loss of my mother. When my mother passed, besides feeling a deep sadness and trying to smooth over a gaping hole in my family, what I felt was an immediate question about my own life choices. When it came to the end of my life, would I feel satisfied with how I had lived my life? The loss of a parent forces this question upon you. In uncertain times like the one we are living in now, I both draw strength from the strength that I witnessed in my mother, and question sometimes my own decision to have children. I have a feeling that I might not be alone in questioning this. Well, I share my thoughts on that reflection here, to perhaps assuage your guilt in being a parent. 1. Human kind has always faced great adversity in different periods -- famine, war, poverty. If our ancestors had decided that they would only have children when everything seemed smooth-sailing, I can be fairly confident that most of us would not be here today. To have and rear children is both an act of radical hope and a commitment to pass on our humanity. I think there was a dystopian novel The Children of Men, where the premise is that no more children were being born on earth? I never read that book, actually, but I think it is true that children serve a very important purpose in our society. They are both a symbol of radical hope and they bring more hope and joy -- not only to their parents and family members, but to the greater community, whoever gets to witness that hope and joy. Until the last generation of humans on earth, I believe that each generation will continue to make and raise babies, against all odds. As they should -- else, what are we fighting for? 2. Humans are resourceful. My extremely optimistic husband believes that humans have the tools necessary to solve the great challenges we are facing currently. No, it is not all solvable by one person. The climate change problems we are facing are huge and complex. They require hundreds and thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of people working collaboratively to solve. They require a tide of public pressure for the government to change its agenda and priorities at all levels. And even then, it will likely take generations of work, in order to reverse the harm that has been done. If today, all of the left-leaning, science-believing friends decided that they will not raise children, we have already lost that fight. It is our job to raise human beings who are willing and able to move that dial and to continue that fight into the next generation. 3. Maybe this is just me being sentimental, but I think the three main components of my own humanity are: my relationship to my parents/sibling; my relationship to my greater community; and my relationship to my own created family (eg. my marriage and my relationship with my children). Through those three elements, my life gains meaning and is worth living, which comes back full circle to losing my mother and the reflections that I have had since. In being part of this long line of human existence, we are like a butterfly that goes through its own life cycle. It seems silly to question why a butterfly should procreate, simply because we don't know what life will look like for the next generation of butterflies? It was my hope that this post could bring you at least some comfort in these uncertain times. I am not sure if it accomplished that or was actually a downer, but I wanted to say simply that I see you, all the struggling parents out there. It is not easy balancing work, marriage, our own mental health, our idea of justice, climate worries, a pandemic, and trying to raise healthy and happy kids. I see you doing your best and holding on to radical hope. You are not alone. I have been reflecting a lot about self-limiting beliefs.
It all started when we made these new friends a couple of years ago. They are a married couple, and their kid was in the same toddler soccer program as our big kid, L. My husband, G, started getting friendly with the dad during the soccer program, which annoyed me initially because they were always off in the corner chatting, so I had to run around with L during the soccer program while being fairly pregnant. But then, we met his wife, and it was all good because I liked her right away. We have been hanging out more with this family over the course of the past year, and we just really like them. Besides being incredibly down to earth and genuine, the thing that has made the biggest impression on me is how both of them DO NOT seem to have self-limiting beliefs! The husband is learning to swim currently, because he has set a goal to do a triathlon when he turns 40. Have you ever met a person who has decided to do a triathlon, before they know how to swim?! The wife has had a spotty academic record because she had to care for her younger siblings financially when she was in college, but she is applying to a prestigious MBA program so that she can advance her tech career while on upcoming maternity leave! This lady bikes up and down the hills in our city while being 8 months pregnant, while carrying her 30-pound toddler on the back of her non-e-assisted bike. So incredibly inspiring. I just love everything about them, and they have helped me to examine my own self-limiting beliefs. Because of them, I started practicing biking with my younger toddler. (Before this, my husband gladly rode with both toddlers on his non-e-assisted bike -- on a crazy bike rig that weighs about 80 pounds including both kids.) I started riding my bike with a sack of rice, training three times a week when both kids would go down for a nap. I started with 10 pounds, then upgraded to 20 pounds. Recently, I started carrying my actual toddler, which has been amazingly gratifying, even though I was a little too ambitious and we fell on a slippery gravel trail last week. The whole idea of self-limiting beliefs is one that I have been really thinking about. What can we accomplish, that seems currently impossible? It is an idea that I have been talking extensively to my oldest kid about. L is at a wonderful age where you can really talk to him like a real person. He is 4, which has its challenges for sure (recently, before I noticed, he was throwing fist-sized rocks over our fence onto the sidewalk, which is incredibly dangerous and almost hit a passer-by), but he is also capable of holding some big ideas in his head. During our COVID-19 homeschooling, the idea that everything always seems impossible until it is done (a quote from Nelson Mandela) has come up again and again. L is naturally risk-averse, which is both a blessing (for me, as a parent -- he has never tried to climb anything dangerous or tried to run into the street) and a challenge (he is scared to walk down tiny hills sometimes, or to climb play structures that he had done a year prior). Being at home with me, we have had the chance to work on taking risks on a daily basis, which has had a huge noticeable impact on L and his growth mindset over the course of several months. He learned to ride a pedal bike (before COVID, he had never agreed to be on a bike of any kind, either balance bike or bike with training wheels), learned to jump off of benches and rocks, learned to ride a two-wheeled scooter, and learned to read in English. In acquiring each new skill, L has had self-doubting moments where he felt like the next stage of achievement was simply impossible. And then, what seemed impossible would become achievable after some risk-taking (bribing), a lot of pep-talking, and a lot of repetitive, low-pressure practice. In response, he now says things like, "Everything takes practice, and you will improve!" and "Everything is impossible, you know? Until you do it, and that's it." To me, that is everything; that mindset is way more important to me than the actual skills he has gained. But, as I work with L on these skills and his growth mindset, I have been reflecting critically about where I practice what I preach in my own life. How can I teach my child to take risks, without modeling it myself? It seemed impossible to carry a child on my bike. It seemed impossible to home-school my defiant toddler while managing a baby with developmental delays. It seemed impossible for me to take on teaching my child to bike, when my husband is the best biker in the family. It seemed impossible to get my child to speak Mandarin, when I am the only person who speaks to him regularly in that language. For a long time, I was anxious to improvise music with my husband, because I felt like I was not musical enough. Each time I have had a self-limiting belief, if I worked at it steadily, I have been able to show myself that that limiting belief is not actually accurate. So, my new goals (which currently seem impossible) are: I want to get comfortable with taking my children out on the water, in a kayak, all by myself. I want to start a business (for profit or non-profit, I haven't decided) to provide tools to help average parents with reinforcing mathematical understanding at home. Will these goals be achieved? I don't know; but what I can do is to take teensy, little steps towards realizing those goals, and hope for the best. What are your self-limiting beliefs, and in what ways are they holding you back? |
About MeBorn in Asia, I have spent more than a third of my life living outside of the U.S. thus far. I currently reside in the Pacific Northwest with my techie husband and two biracial children. Categories
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