Geisha School Dropout

Houston, We Have a Problem...and a Confession

(My response this short article on self-harm and violence in the Korean American community.)

I know this seems like a big bummer to post this during the holiday season, but 'tis also the season for a spike in suicides, suicide attempts, and domestic violence.

Does this ring a bell for you at all?  It definitely did for me:

Grace Yoon, executive director of the Korean American Family Service Center in New York, told The Huffington Post that Koreans come to America with high hopes of acquiring wealth and providing a good education for their children. When their expectations are not met, some feel like they have let their families down. Yoon commented that the problem has gotten worse since the recession, "especially with Korean fathers and heads of households whose small businesses are not doing well."

The article goes on to say that the intergenerational language barrier as well as the cultural taboo against seeking mental health services may contribute to the higher-than-average suicide rate in Korean Americans.

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If this helps anyone at all, I'll just put myself out there as someone who did try to kill herself when she was in the throes of what she now recognizes as a major depressive episode.  

I was 21, feeling exhausted and beaten down, not doing well in school, but instead of seeking help, I just ignored my health and soldiered on, terrified of delaying my graduation by yet another quarter or year.  It got to the point where I stopped talking to my friends and stopped checking in with my parents, unable to keep up the lies when I claimed I was okay.  As I got more and more insular, my whole world consisted of my classes and my inability to attend them, my lack of focus, my inevitable failure.  So a few days before my first finals, hating myself for letting my parents down, they who worked so hard and sacrificed so much so that I could go to a top-notch school, and I couldn't even repay them with simply succeeding, I tried to take my own life.  I honestly thought I was doing them a favor, relieving a burden.

I was so, so lucky that my attempt was feeble at best, and my roommate was in the apartment.

After that, I was hospitalized for a week.  For some reason, I had this stereotype against psychiatry and didn't consider it a fully-valid field of medicine.  I could not have been more wrong.  Thanks to the medication, counseling, and support I received then and afterwards, I finally graduated from university.  My grade point average was barely enough to scrape past, and my department might or might not have overlooked a single missing requirement, but I did it.  And my life instantly became easier once I stepped foot outside that damn campus and moved on with my life.

Did I at 21 have even the tiniest correct inkling about how life after college would be like?  Absolutely not!  My instincts and intuition that I relied on so heavily turned out to be completely off; I think it was because I was completely biased to see only the negative.  That's what depression does; it skews your outlook on everything to just remember the negative and completely ignore the positive, and that small shift in perspective is what makes depression so dangerous.  It was actually quite a relief to discover that my "lenses" were off and needed readjusting.  

The turning point for me was my dad tearfully telling me that he would rather have a non-college-graduate daughter than no daughter at all.  That he would have let me crash at home for as long as I needed in order to get back on my feet again.  And that he was truly sorry that it had to come to this for him to tell me that, that this was completely uncharted territory for him, that we would get through this together.  My mom was too overcome with emotion to speak to me then, but as time went on, I came to realize that she felt the same way.  And believe me when I tell you that my parents made the Tiger Mom look like a kitten; that I was pushed very hard all my childhood; and if you had asked me before all this if I truly believed they loved me, I would have a hearty laugh at the mere notion.

But it turned out that my Korean parents, as stoic and strict and cruel and physically punitive as they were, were still parents.  And now they are very demonstrative, nurturing, giving, loving grandparents.  

And now, daily I think to myself, "I'm so relieved I'm not dead.  All the fun I would have missed out on!"

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If you at any point feel as hopeless as I did that summer, please know that you aren't "crazy," that you are struggling alongside countless others, that there are other solutions besides death, that people love you and are rooting for you, that honest-to-goodness there is light at the end of the tunnel.  Or at the very least, there are enough points of light inside the tunnel to make it worth sticking around to observe.  DO NOT MISS OUT ON THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.

Call a friend and tell them you need help, call 1-800-273-8255, go to the emergency room, connect with people online, just don't leave yourself alone with the thoughts you are thinking, the same way you would try to save your friend who is trapped in a house with someone who is trying to kill them.

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If you got this far, thanks so much for reading.  This was difficult to write.

Cross-posted on Kimchi Mamas

Questions from the Audience #3

Anonymous IMer asks: How has your love story with your husband changed since you first fell in love?

Oh, jeepers.  The short, smart-ass answer is, "A shit ton, give or take a shit."  The long answer deserves more time and thought than what I'm about to say here, but I'll limit the focus to just the "love story" part of our relationship (i.e., not our co-parenting, the daily banalities of marriage, or what-have-you), and just from my point of view.

First and foremost, I think it's important to point out that I was 23 when we got married.  I was a baby, and didn't know myself and/or my potential selves, let alone all of the intricacies of Tim's psyche.  All I really knew was that our connection ran deep, like animal-brain, pheromone-level deep.  I could just stare at him for hours, talk to him for days on end, memorize every pore.  My heart rate would palpably slow down if I just leaned into his neck and breathed him in.  And of course, there were fireworks every time we touched.

(Sounds so cheesy and stalkery now!  But I shall go on.)

Because this kind of affection inevitably cuts both ways, and probably also because I was still very much at the mercy of my depression, I really, really needed him.  I had this juvenile desire to spend every moment together, so any meal, movie, or laundry folding session spent apart wounded me.   I also thought the relationship would end quite often, so I would constantly miss him, sometimes even when he was right there next to me.  As you can guess, Tim felt suffocated and would pull away at times, which made me feel worse.  The whole thing was pretty unhealthy, and I really had to grow up quite a bit and learn how to be my own person.  Unfortunately, this was when I was also trying to figure out how to be a mother, so Isaac's early years were tumultuous for Tim and I couple-wise.

Nowadays, things are much more stable.  I still like to smell him, but I'm more comfortable in my own skin.  I've developed and nurtured my own self-identity, learned to recognize where I end and other people begin.  So now I'm fine being alone, with or without the kids, and that's very much a good thing.  Having a home to call our own with the little family farm out back helped me greatly, too.  Once we were able to put down roots somewhere, my spirit really started growing.

We still can talk for hours, make each other laugh, and we go out a couple times a month to concerts, movies, dinners, drinks, etc.  But now the stakes aren't so high, perceived rejections aren't constantly plaguing me, and I feel more relaxed.  There are still fireworks, but toned down a smidge because our house is small and Emi has an uncanny "business time" spidey sense.  I think she wants to ensure she's the baby of the family.

So, moral of the story is: relationships are extremely tough to sustain because you are not just dealing with two people over a certain period; you are also dealing with the people they morph into over the years as well as the shifting whirlpools of their environment.  So at any given slice of time, are the partners compatible at that moment?  Hopefully so, but chances are there will be time periods of incompatibility.  And I think that's okay.  If you're really in it for the long haul, when you look over at your partner and find an almost-complete stranger who isn't up to snuff, at some point you will have to think, "I will wait; this person is worth waiting for."  Of course, the two of you could always find other people who are already at the levels you need, but what's the fun in that?  :P

Questions from the Audience #1

Sonya writes: What would your 33 year-old self say to your 13 year-old self?

Okay, attempting to channel myself at 13...seventh grader at a 7-12th grade academic magnet school, falling in love with every junior and senior boy who walked passed me in the halls, all perms and bangs and glasses and braces and biker shorts.  I was on the chubby side and clumsy, but was very interested in current music, movies, and fashion.  Basically invisible to the popular people, especially the upperclassmen, but my friends and I were tight.  Our clique was known for being goodie two-shoes, and within that group I was already deemed a bit of a loose cannon with the loud laugh.

First and foremost, I wanted to be a cheerleader.  At the time, they represented all that was awesome about America.  I loved the uniforms, even in our school's colors of brown, gold, and white, and dreamed about one day being able to get a set of my own, putting my hair up in a ribboned high ponytail, and having a smiley sorority of friends.

To that end, I auditioned for the junior high pep squad early in the year.  It was my first time learning a choreographed routine, and my try-out was abysmal at best.  Needless to say, I didn't make it, but one of my best friends did, and although I was crushed, I was sincerely thrilled for her.  She actually went on to be a member of the pep squad every year, and was the varsity squad captain our senior year.  She even let me try on her uniform (didn't zip up, but still thrilling)!  And although I was sad, I knew I had a lot of specific skills to work on, so I wasn't too discouraged.

Life went on.  I didn't try out for cheer in 8th grade, recognizing that my body was getting even more uncoordinated as I was going through some uneven growth spurts.  But I did try out for junior varsity mascot, thoroughly convinced that my combination of goofiness and sassiness would be such a great asset to the noble field of Mascotry, but I still wasn't what they were looking for.  Then every following year, I auditioned for mascot again, giving it my best at the time, and every year my biology teacher would frown sympathetically and tell me the bad news.

Until junior year, that is.  I finally was able to dance convincingly enough and choreographed a hilarious routine with my audition partner.  Because I would be a senior the following year, that officially made me varsity mascot captain!  (Oh, the power and the glory!  Ha ha ha!)  But during mascot camp, something really clicked between me, my team, and my mascot instructor.  We were awesome!  I was even invited to audition to become an instructor myself.  I was on top of my little bitty world, and I was so grateful for every second of it.

Therefore, I don't know what I would tell that 7th grade girl.  She had more gumption and guts than I do now.  If I told her not to attempt the things that would absolutely break her heart, would she really benefit?  So much strength, courage, and humor came from that suffering.  

I would just hug her and tell her to just do her thing, but maybe tell her to not get so sad when things do start to get harder in the later teen years.  That people were and will be cruel to her, and to realize that it was their problem, not hers.  That Kurt Cobain is going to kill himself the next year, and from then on, the romanticism of suicide will crawl into her psyche and take residence there, seemingly harmless, until it really threatens her life in college.  Maybe just watch out for that, and don't let it cut her so deep.

Also, in college, keep her head up; keep going to class, no matter how dismally she performed on her first midterms.  There is so much glory in redemption, none in self-destruction.  Don't give up.  Channel the girl who tried out for pep squad every single year with the same optimism and spirit.

Oh, and if she want to dance with that boy, go up to him and ask.  Lots of dances wasted on waiting.

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Do you have a question for me? You can ask me anything, about motherhood, depression, not living up to your parents' expectations, my personal Top 5, hobbies, what I'm wearing, anything!  Please comment below or email me.

Hello, Grey Dog

Post-Birthdaypalooza come-down in full effect here, ladies and gentlemen.  Regret, aka the Grey Dog (i.e., Depression the Black Dog's bitch half-sister), has decided to hang out for a bit.

I only had 2.5 days until Tim would leave for Japan, and I messed up Tuesday night and Wednesday morning by being a total Doomsday Douchebag with him and the kids.  Tim will come back home on Monday, and I will try to make amends, if he'll still take me.

I especially missed my friend Renee today.  A woman of wise words and indomitable spirit, she always knew how to slap some sense into me then hug me right afterwards.  I needed her guidance, so I visited her blog.

I found this, to this day the best treatise on marriage I've ever read.  I seem to have forgotten that daily I must choose to love my family.  Kind of too late for yesterday; I will start today, though.  

I also found this, which made me laugh through my tears:

God, she totally would have sent me this if I had told her I had chickens, along with a note asking if she could crash at my coop if she ever were in town.  She had a wicked sense of humor, that one.

I miss you, lady.

Why There Needs to be a Different Standard of Depression for Koreans

When I feel like shit, it's hard to tell the cause: is it stress in my life, my mood disorder, or merely because I am Korean?

Talk to any Korean person of my parents' generation about depression, and most likely they will equate it with laziness ("When we don't want to get out of bed or work hard, we don't call it depressed"),  privilege ("They don't have to worry about anything else"), or  insanity ("Are you going to tear up your clothes and put flowers in your hair?").  They just don't view it as a real chronic illness.

But yet, it obviously exists, even for Korean people.  Domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse, and suicide are major societal problems, and those often are side effects of mood disorders.

I'm starting to wonder if the problem lies in the usual criteria for diagnosis.  If you look at the normal list of symptoms for depression and you knew Korean people at all, it seems like we are ALL depressed!

According to the Mayo Clinic, depression symptoms include:

• Feelings of sadness or unhappiness
• Irritability or frustration, even over small matters
• Frequent thoughts of death, dying or suicide
• Crying spells for no apparent reason

In Korea, these are all considered normal.  We even have a word for it: han.  An excellent article in the LA Times on han can be found here.  We all carry around a sadness and trauma that is so ingrained it might as well be part of our genome.  Suffering and death are recurring themes in our art, our folklore, our history.  Hell, it's even the main philosophy of kimchi: preserve everything you can for the day -- and that day definitely will come -- when there is nothing.  It is the reason why when you piss off your mom, she says things like "Do you want me to die now?  Will that make you happy?"  Sigh.

• Reduced sex drive
• Feelings of worthlessness or guilt, fixating on past failures or blaming yourself when things aren't going right
• Changes in appetite — depression often causes decreased appetite and weight loss, but in some people it causes increased cravings for food and weight gain
• Agitation or restlessness — for example, pacing, hand-wringing or an inability to sit still
• Unexplained physical problems, such as back pain or headaches
• Loss of interest or pleasure in normal activities
• Insomnia or excessive sleeping

These things are also very common...but these I put the blame squarely on nurture, not nature.  I am still convinced that my parents had sex only two times in their lives: that is why my sister and I exist.  And Korean parents are the kings of the extreme guilt complex, unconstructive criticism, harsh-ass punishments, mysterious aches and pains, the neverending war against dust and hair on the floor, and equating food with love...which take care of the rest.  Again, a Korean would look at that list and think, "Yeah, so what?"

• Slowed thinking, speaking or body movements
• Indecisiveness, distractibility and decreased concentration
• Fatigue, tiredness and loss of energy — even small tasks may seem to require a lot of effort
• Trouble thinking, concentrating, making decisions and remembering things

These might be real bellweathers for us, but then again if I told my Korean doctor that I felt these symptoms, he would probably give me some nasty Chinese herbal potion to flush out my liver and reprimand me for being fat (in all seriousness, my childhood doctor's nickname for me was "Cow" and would constantly nag me to take diet pills.  He was a friend of my dad's.).  Maybe some Korean-specific research needs to be done, so we can get an idea of what depression looks like for us, or maybe we are indeed all afflicted with it.

Sorry for that Month of Silence

Today's fortune cookie stated, "You have a charming way with words and should write a book."  I looked online and saw that it has been a month exactly since I last posted.  I guess I better say something!

How have you been?  I'm undergoing a minor depressive episode, but I'm doing okay.  While during my twenties I cried rivers of tears into my pillow, this time around I'm mostly irritable and bitchy, and I don't want to do anything except work, drop off and pick up kids from summer school, and watch "True Blood."  This hasn't been my most productive or social summer, but I've definitely been worse.

I think I'm over the hump, though.  Today I caught myself tidying up my bedroom, picking little things up off the floor here and there.  I haven't cared about thes status of the floor in a few weeks.  That's progress, right?

I also am starting to respond to emails and such.  I even wrote a pro-backyard-chicken letter to my city council!  I'll post it tomorrow.  In the meantime, here's our summer in a nutshell:

Isaac's first right-in-the-center bullseye!

 

Emi's first beach bonfire

A visit with Mother Goose

 

Haircuts

Summer's bounty: home-grown tomatoes and grapes

PS: Remember when I went to Ethiopia to help my friend bring her baby home?  Well, the baby just turned one!  Here's a scene from her dol (Korean first birthday)...the baby is placed in front of some items that symbolize her fortune.  She picked the string, which means she will have a long life.  Then she picked up the rice, which means she'll always have enough to eat!  :)

Poetry, Oh No-etry!

Tim was toodling around with Garage Band this weekend, and he asked the kids to spit out some song lyrics.  Here is a sampling of what they came up with; I was very surprised (and more than a little heartbroken) by the dark imagery:

there's a flower that's prettier than the others
it spins when the wind hits it
the flower wants to have 18 petals
right now it has no petals
people picked them all 

Isaac (age 7.5)

 

home was home
home was fragile
i saw a sign that said no thank you.
when i was old,
i was strong and i flipped through the air
one day i saw a little star in the morning
i saw a sign that said No!
one day i went into the garden
and i saw myself floating on a lily pad

Emi (age 4.5)

Man, was that depressing or what?  Isaac's little petals ravaged by the envious hordes, and Emi sounds like Ophelia floating down the river!  I resolved to start playing less Radiohead and more Mother Goose around the house.  My poor little babies!

Which reminds me: I have discovered that my kids have huge gaping holes in their nursery rhyme knowledge bank.  When prompted, Isaac couldn't fully recite "Humpty Dumpty," and he had never even heard of "The Muffin Man."  How was that possible?  I totally freaked out and went into intense stage mom mode, drilling him on the last line of "London Bridge" and barking at him to repeat it back to me.  I then freaked Tim out while maniacally singing all EIGHT verses of "Mary Had a Little Lamb," and so I recomposed myself for fear of additionally scarring the children.  I couldn't help the gusto; nursery rhymes were the bread and butter of 1980's ESL classes, and they brought back lots of very old memories!

Apparently the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) also takes Mother Goose and Raffi way too seriously, because they have compiled a comprehensive list with links to full lyrics and MIDI files on their website.  Let the educatin' commence!

I Think I'm Allergic to Summer

What is it about summer that brings out the extremes in things?  

Take my garden, for instance: birds, butterflies, and bees flit and flutter past in pairs, reeling under the influence of nectar and hormones.  Every flowering plant is a-flower, every fruiting tree is a-fruiting, and if you stopped right there, you'd be able to write sonnets about how full of life summer is.

However, my eyes see danger and doom.  Our grass has browned, and our chickens miss nibbling on it.  The grapes and tomatoes can barely keep standing under the weight of all their leaves and not-quite-ripe-yet fruit.  Once the fruit ripens, the grapes' leaves will fall and the tomato plants will die.   Food spoils faster both inside and outside the house, thighs get burnt on car upholstery, sweat and oil clog pores and flatten hair.  And of course, the heat is inescapable: it is in the air, the ground, my skin, my eyes.  

The sun, giver of light and life, also doles out pain and disease.  I got sunburned on Monday playing in the pool with the kids, and now I feel flu-like symptoms as my skin starts to peel.  

I feel sorry for my kids: they love the outdoors and don't mind the heat.  Meanwhile, I feel like a BBQ pork bun about to burst. 

Maybe this is why I went through a goth phase, and why I enjoyed living in Seattle when I was 20.  Oy.

Where do you stand on summer?

Money Can Buy a Little Happiness

We got off easy for the first half of the month; the June Gloom's morning clouds took the edge off the afternoons.  It even drizzled a few times, which the plants and I loved.  However, along with the start of summer camps, the heat has come, and even though the temps are only in the low 80's, I already feel uncomfortable.

I've never enjoyed the heat, but my intolerance shot up like crazy after I was pregnant with Isaac.  I thought maybe that summer was especially harsh because of my condition, but it, along with my incessantly cracking knees and hips, never went away.

I hate showing physical weakness and simultaneously tend to wallow in my sorrows, so I get a bit depressed during the summers.  Combine that with having to muck with a new, blank hard drive, trying to get used to the kids' summer schedules, having to dream up lunches that Emi would actually eat, Tim up in the Bay Area training for a new job, and the chickens waking up at 5:40 every morning, and we have a rollickin' pity party of one over here.  I've learned to cope a bit by surrounding myself with creature comforts.  Here are a few:

Korean people have a fetish for exfoliation.  Ask any of us to take you to the Korean spa one day to get scraped; it is pure masochism, but the pain feels appropriate while in the company of sweaty, naked ajummas.  At home, I scrub my upper arms to rawness to get rid of the chicken skin, then rub glycolic acid lotion into the wounds...in about a week the bumps disappear and I call that my bikini body.  This stuff is nice and smells like  a spa; you can get it at Target.

I've been toying with a variety of brownie recipes in order to post my ultimate Kimchi Mama Brownie.  I've seriously been making batches for a year now, and none of them are right.  Again, I fall into mucho despairing, but then I just pop open a box of this shit right here and all is well with the world again.  Why mess with perfection?  Add 1 tablespoon of gochugaru (chili powder) and you've got it. 

Yeah yeah, water is healthier and beer is more fun, but this stuff is the bomb.  Green tea made with purified water; no lemon or sugar or honey or ginseng or any other crap; ice-cold elixir of life.  I actually just downed a whole bottle in order to get inspired to write this blog post!

It's ollalieberry pie season at Polly's right now!!!  Apparently ollalieberries are a cross between loganberries and youngberries, which themselves are crosses of other berries.  Basically, they are a firm blackberry with raspberry flavors mixed in.  They are amazing.  Once when I was younger (and by younger I mean in my early 20's), I kept an ollalieberry in my mouth, not wanting chew it and thus end my ollalieberry experience for that day.  It lasted a few hours, then I accidentally swallowed it whole while being distracted by the book I was reading.  I almost cried.

Wow, that really sounded pathetic!

Last but not least, this baby is my anniversary gift from Tim.  Even when the sun beats down on the ugly extra large men's helmet I have to wear because of my gargantuan noggin, it feels good to feel the breeze against my face.

How are you guys keeping cool out there?

PS: I didn't want to write this initially, but it must be said: the singular WORST thing about being hot has got to be the between-the-boobs sweat.  Can I get an amen up in here?  Sometimes Maggie will cram her nose into my cleavage, take multiple whiffs, and look at me in disgust.  This kind of judgement from a creature who once befriended a dead squirrel wounds me.   

Year in Review: 2010

2010 was a helluva year, one where our family spread out roots, having lived in our neighborhood for more than two years.  Isaac and Emi were finally invited to birthday parties, we got to know all the pho restaurants within a few miles from our house, and we didn't have to change any of our basic information on our tax return!  Isaac learned how to read, Emi learned how to talk like a human being, and we added two chickens to our family.  All in all, I think we all grew stronger and more confident.  Here is a list of the most notable stories from each month:

January: To think that this recent spate of rain was bad!  Our neighborhood floods and I find solace in, of all things, palm trees.

February: A little chihuahua enters and exits our lives, and I still regret sending him home!  Emi still asks where little Bito went.  Darn doing the right thing all to heck!

March: The world loses one of its brightest spirits.  Oh Renee, it still hurts each time I see something beautiful or funny, to not have you say something clever about it.

April: Emi earns her sassiness crown, and Isaac can't stop kissing a girl from his class.  This all makes for one crazy-ass Mama.

May: Depression, aka the Black Dog, scratched at my door, wanting back in.

June: Summer in our household = veggie porn, bonfires, sports camp, and World Cup-inspired jingoism.  Bossy little girls are always in season.

July: Flipping off airplanes while smoking a 2-year-old cigarette is an awesome hobby for a little ol' rebel like me.

August: I list my morning routine, where take care of all creatures, big and small, and seeing it all laid out that way helps me to realize I'm a freak.

September: Isaac and his literacy totally throw me off my game.  Killing cones!!!

October: One family's trip to their neighborhood Target, aka raw, unadulterated crazy-making.

November: Emi's verbal antics catch the eye of one member of Tears for Fears!

December: Isaac apparently took Feminism 101 in utero and lectures me on gender stereotypes and self-identity.  

I hope you and your loved ones have an awesome New Year's Eve, and I'll see you in 2011!