Episode 3 – Mental Health: Let It In, Baobei (Part 2 of 2)
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Full Transcript (Note: Transcribed via AI, may contain errors)
Angela Lin 0:09
Hello, I’m Angela Lin.
Jesse Lin 0:11
And I’m Jesse Lin. And welcome back to the where you really from.
Angela Lin 0:15
For those of you who listen to last week’s episode that was the first part of our two part episode around mental health. And just to recap for those who may have forgotten or weren’t able to listen to last week’s episode, that first part was really talking about the influences that are Asian upbringings that Asian culture has had on the way that we were first introduced to mental health and the reasons why our parents, for example, aren’t as open to talking to a therapist. Some of those key things that we talked about were the concept of saving face, not bringing shame from sharing your private maps. with the outside world, not fully understanding how to process your emotions in a healthy way, kind of general lack of trust in the realm of psychology because it is more Western versus in eastern based study.
Jesse Lin 1:18
So now that we’ve kind of laid all that out on the table, we want to share with you this week, our own personal experiences with therapy, what led us to finding the care that we needed, and also how we feel about the care that we received. So we’re talking about the particular barriers that we’ve faced in terms of how mental health has been presented to us as an Asian American growing up what made you decide to reach out?
Angela Lin 1:52
Yeah, I think two things well, first is that in general, I feel like at you know, growing Especially like we just mentioned watching our parents like hold in a lot of emotion and then like have random outbursts because they couldn’t hold in that emotion and process it well, over time. I think I just first reflecting then on me as like a grown adult, realizing that there’s a lot of shit going on with like, uncertainty around my career like, Am I really going down the path that I really want to take my life going on with my love life, friendships, my student debt that was like, overbearing at the time. They were just like a lot of issues that I was dealing with. And I was starting to see it’s like bubbling up building on top of each other. And that compounded with the fact that my inner circle was starting to be more vocal about how normalize they were seeing therapy that like a lot of my close friends started telling me that they were going to see a therapist and it sounded super normal and super helpful. There. That really made me feel like Why haven’t I explored that before? Because if someone who is a professional can help me start processing a lot of these things that are I know our issues, and it’s something that I can pursue, then then why wouldn’t I do that? So that’s kind of my entry point into that, how about on your end?
Jesse Lin 3:23
Yeah, I would have to say my first experience with a mental health provider was in college after I’d gone through some like traumatic health stuff. And part of kind of going through that process was that a provider recommended me to see kind of a short term therapist to deal with that. And I found the experience was really helpful in the sense that it helped me organize how I was, how I was feeling what I was thinking, and put them into, into ways that I could process and understand and also take action again. So like, I’m feeling This particular way, how can I process this? And what can I do to, you know, maybe avoid it moving forward or to better manage how I feel about it. And then again, very recently, this year, I had just gone through kind of a rough breakup. And I could tell that I wasn’t doing so hot. Like, I didn’t feel like myself a lot of times, I wasn’t super interested in any other things that I was doing. And so at that point, I was like, I need to, I need to go talk to someone I need to see if the situation is okay. The same way you would go to a doctor if you have a cold or if you have a pain somewhere that’s lasted a while. So I restarted the process there.
Angela Lin 4:40
That’s great.
Jesse Lin 4:41
Yeah, I was gonna say something that you you mentioned earlier is really interesting about how you were looking at your parents and seeing that outbursts, because they can operate in that manner because they have the feeling or understanding that they have this collective to fall back upon in a sense They have their family or their extended family or cousins or whatever they feel like share a part of their emotional burden. But for us, we don’t necessarily have that because we don’t subscribe to that concept of collectivism. Like we’re very, like, we were born in the US very individualistic. And that’s how our mindset and orientation is. So I also feel like part of the reason why we, as Asian Americans tend to have a larger problem processing emotions than our parents are appear to is that we don’t necessarily have this feeling of safety of a group that we can fall back on your on hard times, whether it’s emotional or whatever. So we have to kind of manage it ourselves in isolation.
Angela Lin 5:44
Hmm. Do you feel like though that our parents even bother relying on a group to process or like let out those emotions onto because when I think on my parents, I don’t feel like they have outbursts because they feel Like, no matter how they act like people, you know, the family will will accept it and just deal with it. I think it’s just because they have no idea how to like, talk about it in a healthy way. And it’s almost childish because they like from an emotional standpoint, they are more adolescent because they haven’t had this education and like talking it out and processing, why they’re feeling that way, why they’re acting that why where it’s coming from, where it was influenced by. So they just, they just have outbursts. I, from my perspective, I’m not seeing it from the like, communal standpoint, it’s more just like a lack of practice in and working it through.
Jesse Lin 6:47
Yeah, I agree with you there. I think that like people of our parents generation are not good at processing their emotions, but I think something that my parents have told me time and time again, is that like, your family will always be your family. And they won’t be your family no matter what. So I think that they have this feeling that like, you know, let me stifle let me do this, let me do this outburst like whatever, but my family is still there for me. And that’s just how it is. That’s the way it is. Versus for us. We know that’s not the case. Like, if you blow up at someone, they’re gonna be like, we’ll back it up, like, you’re a good friend, but like, you cannot come at me that way. And so we’ve learned to manage our emotions, so that we can more truthfully address it to the person that we’re talking to.
Angela Lin 7:35
Okay, so getting back to our personal experience. So you talked about the big part of the benefits that you’ve seen are being able to have some sort of like framework to organize your thoughts and emotions and process them in a healthy way Are there other like big lessons or big gifts that your past therapists have have given you that you feel like you You wouldn’t have been able to have in your life if you didn’t open yourself up to taking care of your mental health.
Jesse Lin 8:17
Yeah, so definitely Well, I will say one of the actionable takeaways I have from the initial therapists that I saw in college was that therapy is not just like sitting there and talking and discussing your emotions, there’s also an active part of dealing with your feelings that can be very helpful. So he would basically give me like homework assignments each week of things to actually go physically do so if I was feeling like oh, you know, I’m feeling really shy and not seen and I don’t know how to socialize with people you like go to a coffee shop and talk to one person and that’s your homework assignment. That’s awesome. So was it was really nice because we were able to talk through some of the insecurities and then He would give me something to do to try to like, bolster that. Other things that I think that have been very helpful in terms of having a therapist. For me really, it’s just, it’s really just to have someone to bounce my own reflections off of because I feel like given enough time, I’m pretty good at kind of sorting out like, what I’m feeling, why I’m feeling or what I should do with that. But you know, after you talk to yourself in your head after a few times, you’re like, I’m definitely crazy. So that’s when I went to see a therapist. I was like, can you please confirm that I’m not crazy and like, I am like thinking about my emotions and processing them in the right way. It’s always good, I think to have someone with a professional background, to basically examine your analysis of yourself to make sure if it makes sense because sometimes, it’s like grading your own homework, right? You might be like, Oh, this is great. But then someone else look, I’d be like, no, this is like, fallacious like, is this incorrect? So So for me, that’s what they’re this role plays. But it is really important that the person is not just anybody because I could talk to anybody really for that I could talk to you for that I can talk to a bunch of other friends or that I feel like a therapist for me. I would love ideally, to have some contextual knowledge of my background and my identity. So have some understanding of what it means to grow up as a minority or person of color, and also have some understanding of what it means to grow up as an LGBT individual. You know, we’re all human, we can all pick up on things regardless of how we identify, but I think there are specific nuances and really deeply ingrained insecurities that a person cannot understand if they don’t have these identities
Angela Lin 10:49
So for you, the ideal therapist is someone who has some of those shared experiences as us so that they know firsthand why What kind of emotions and suffering you probably went through during different phases of your life so that they can better treat you and give you advice?
Jesse Lin 11:12
Oh 100%
Angela Lin 11:14
Got it. Yeah, I man I mean I can’t say this enough but I said this in the first episode I do feel like you know, being being the societal default sexuality just like makes me so privileged because it’s not something that that crosses my mind when I think about like having the right therapist we talked about this a little bit but for me the the main woman that I was seeing I connected with really well pretty right off the bat and like surface level we have nothing in common like she’s definitely not an Asian or other like, racial minority the way that we would describe it, she hasn’t gone through a lot of the same stuff I went through she like
Angela Lin 12:00
She studied both like Western psychiatry as well as like shamanism. So she had this other like totally spiritual realm that was very kind of like foreign for me when I first met her and yeah, we still clicked really well. I think a big part of that is back to your point of like, just having someone who is a professional and like a third person perspective, to analyze what you’re going through and like the way you responded, and for me, it wasn’t so much what she called me out on my bullshit what she did, but like for me, it was when I felt like I was going crazy or like acting crazy towards other people especially like when I get in a fight with Ramon, for example, and we talk about it like, I can’t help but then go into spirals thinking like, I’m, I’m insane and I’m like acting crazy. And having someone who is not invested in whatever you were talking about, like the actual fight You had an instrumental listening to you based on like an objective perspective of these are the facts. This is why you acted like it felts the first time she validated me and my emotions, I just felt this like warmth that I didn’t expect to feel, which is like, she was like, Yeah, what I like is that instead of focusing on the details of what I say of like, we thought about like XYZ, she focuses on the emotional impact of the actions that we each took. So she would analyze the situation and be like, yeah, of course, someone who just bare their soul out in this way and then got rejected or whatever she says, right, but she puts it in like the most black and white way of like, of course, if you were, you had this kind of emotional attack on you. It’s valid for you to have felt this way to respond this way. That kind of like validation from someone who’s not invested in it. Your personal problems and like the actual issues you’re talking about. It just feels so good because, you know, they’re not saying it just to make you feel good. Like you said before if it was just to talk to someone, you could just talk to your friends like I could talk to you right? I think that’s when I like first had some breakthroughs with her. The biggest takeaway I had was like, This is not the same as talking to your friends because you could claim that like venting to your friends complaining to your friends about whatever bullshit just happened to you is the same as therapy but it’s not because most friends are are going to just say whatever is going to make you feel good, right? Because they’re invested in you feeling good, not invested in like you growing as a person and like recognizing your faults and overcoming them. So when you you know, if you’re like your ex boyfriend, did some bullshit to you like the way I would respond or just like well, he’s an And like, you know, just taking your side, because that’s my response, I’m just trying to defend you and like protect you. Versus like a therapist doesn’t have that same level of investment because that’s not their relationship with you. So they would break it down into like, the facts and the objective actions that were taken. And I think that is like the most valuable piece that I’ve taken. I also think for me, I like that. When I explain certain situations to her, she will take a step back and it’s like, it feels really cliches like, hydrous when she first starts talking about it, but then like, I guess there’s a reason why everyone says this kind of stuff, but she’ll be like, Okay, is there something happened in your child that like, then made you stir it out? Right? Yeah. So like, I’ll I’ll talk about like, getting super angry because I don’t feel appreciated or something to that effect, and she’ll be like, Is there a time from when you were child Felt like you didn’t feel appreciated by certain people in your life and like, do you feel like there might be some carryover impact from that and then she makes it go real deep, but then, you know, someone highlighting that kind of stuff does make you more self aware of where these emotions are coming from. And I do feel like the another one of the like, biggest takeaways from me from therapy is just recognizing where your emotions are coming from that like, a lot of times when you’re expressing sadness or anger or frustration at someone else, it’s not because that person actually did something that’s like so terrible, it’s that it’s triggering you because you had like a past trauma that’s tied to that same emotion and you’re like layering on that past trauma onto that that instance that just happened.
Jesse Lin 16:52
Have you run into any problems and the process of getting treatment or just something you didn’t appreciate a little about it?
Angela Lin 17:02
Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, this woman was referred to me. So I kind of just like went into that relationship because like, I trusted the referral. But it was tough dealing with her from like an access standpoint because she doesn’t fall within my insurance. So I had to pay her out of pocket for every session and that runs a lot of money. It’s, you know, therapists, a lot of money over time. And like, definitely, they’re doing great work for you. But like Jesus, it costs an arm and a leg. And especially if you won’t go with a frequency to like, make any progress, right? Like, if I had all the money in the world, I would go every week, but I couldn’t afford to do that. And then like, personally for me, just because like I was following her kind of like how some people follow their favorite hair stylists, like they’ll move, depending on you know, wherever they go. She He started in an office that was in Oakland. So it was more accessible to me still a little bit of a stretch because I’m in the city. But then she like moved far because she she saw her her own home office. So like good for her, but also became super, super difficult for me to retire. And it’s just like the thought of switching to a different therapist having to restart that relationship research all the history of like, explaining my background and stuff is so daunting that I haven’t.
Jesse Lin 18:33
It’s an investment It really is. And I want to just say I really, really mirrored the problem that you’re having, like the process of finding a therapist that was covered under my insurance was like so upsetting because I was I knew there was something wrong and I knew I had to go see someone. But the way that everything was made it like impossible for me to find someone that was affordable, which in and of itself is extremely frustrating. And then outside of that, for me, my experience with therapy has generally been good. But I’ve also found that after therapy, I feel like I’m over analyzing some of the ways that I feel like I’m thinking about how should I feel about how I felt. And it’s like Inception like you’re like too many layers in and you’re like over complicating it just because you’re overthinking everything that’s just come out of a session where you’re literally thinking about your emotions. So I found that that’s like one drawback because it can cause me to like, ruminate on a particular situation when I should just kind of like, process it and then like just package it away because it’s, it’s done.
Angela Lin 19:57
Alright, so we just talked about how it can be really hard sometimes to find any provider, especially when insurance is an issue. And also just trying to find someone that you can actually connect with. So we wanted to end this episode with some resources that might be able to help you in that search. First and foremost, I think what’s worked well, at least for me, and I’m sure a lot of people is opening up to your friends in terms of letting them know that you’re looking for a therapist, because not again, not everyone has gone to therapists, but I think it’s much wider net than you think. And once you start putting it out into the ether that you are open to talking to someone I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised to know that probably more friends and you think are also seeing therapists and have good ones that they’d love to recommend to you. So just put it out there and I think you might get some good bites and obviously you trust your friends. So They should be good referrals. And second thing from my side is, obviously, this is not going to apply for everyone. But something that a lot of my friends and I have discovered is, for a lot of companies as part of your health insurance benefits, it’s kind of hidden in the fine print, I would recommend that you go back and look at like the details of what’s included under your health insurance, because a couple of the companies that I’ve worked for And that my friends have worked for, have kind of buried in there that you have maybe three, three free sessions with a counselor, there are free hours, sometimes included in those. So I would just encourage you to double check if that’s already included, and it’s just something you didn’t know was already at your disposal.
Jesse Lin 21:49
And if you’re more particular about the provider you’re looking for there’s a really great website called Psychology Today where you can find a ton of different providers listed on there. They’re listed by insurance. So listen by expertise, they’re even listed by the specific issues that they deal with. So there are some people who deal only in adult issues, LGBT issues, women’s issues. So it’s a great resource to do some independent research if you’re looking for a very specific kind of provider. And for those of you who maybe don’t have insurance or can’t really afford to go see a therapist right now, there are some local and regional resources for you. For the two of us since we live in New York and San Francisco. I thought I would just mention that in New York City, there’s resource called New York City Well, you can text call web chat, for some short term counseling and help. And also in San Francisco, the Department of Public Health also runs a pretty solid program for sliding scale access to mental health care as well.
Angela Lin 22:51
Awesome. I’m sure there are a ton of other resources that we didn’t get to plug but we just wanted to make sure that we handed off a few good stuff starting points for you guys if you are new to thinking about mental health and want to jump into taking care of yourself. Alright, so I think that wraps what we wanted to cover today. But I think something that we really want to explore moving forward with all of our episodes is hearing more from you guys and being able to share more experiences than just our two experiences. So we’d love to hear what your experience has been like dealing with navigating the mental health landscape trying to find a provider trying to overcome stigmas that you might have been raised on anything else tied to the topics that we’ve been talking about within this two part. Topic around mental health. We’d love to hear from you. So Email us at telluswhereyourefrom@gmail.com. Again, the you’re is y o u r e. We’d love to hear from you and share your experience on a follow up episode.
Jesse Lin 23:58
And if you don’t want to send an email you can also like follow and subscribe us, send us a DM. Let us know how you’re thinking feeling about the episode. And as always, there will be new releases next week. So look forward to sharing things with you guys next week.
Angela Lin 24:14
And with that…
All 24:17
Zai jian, bitches!