Asian American Mental Health, a Reflection

Minutes passed as I kept refreshing the page I was on on April 16th. Trying to gauge the brutality of what was going on at Virginia Tech and later trying to understand the expanse of what it meant for me. It's been almost 6 days and I still don't really have an answer. However, while I read about this guy, I realized that I read about him before.

The anger, the confusion, the reaction - the story was familiar. It could have been about the guys I knew growing up in high school. The same story could have been about a few kids in my alma mater. As an Asian American, I'm sure we have known of a few kids just like Seung-Hui Cho. The question of why Cho slipped through the cracks remains a mystery for me.

As a Asian American guy, I struggle with the idea of mental illness. I've known friends who discuss issues with me about feeling angry, sad, misunderstood by parents and peers. I've had friends who talked about suicide. Some folks I know read like the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSMMD) and some in fact, are Asian American .

We live with a difficult culture, especially in the light of immigration and a generation gap. A few of our parents grew up without the ideas of bipolar disorder, alcoholism, depression, manic-depression, and personality disorder. Many of these are not just endemic in youth culture, but found within pop culture. Yet, the discussion of mental health counseling for folks in our community is often encountered with silence and deflection.

It is unfortunate that Seung-Hui Cho became the focus of the Asian American community. He also became an argument with the increasing number of Asian American medical students that there is a need for counselors, psychologists and psychiatrists to address the issue APIA mental health. Asian American clinicians can directly address cultural and race specific issues that other people may have a hard time relating with and resolving with Asian Americans.

Just maybe, we can find kids like Seung-Hui Cho and prevent another tragedy. Here's to hoping for a change.

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