Illustration by Shannon May





My mother called like

she did every week. "How are you?" she asked in Mandarin.

"Fine," I

lied.

"How's the

baby?"

"Good."

That was true.

Then, once again, I

rushed her off the phone. "I'd love to talk but the baby's crying."

"Okay, I know

you're busy," she said. "Don't worry. I'll call you next week."

The baby wasn't

crying. She was sleeping. I wasn't busy. I could barely do anything. I couldn't

sleep, couldn't eat, could hardly dress myself.

After I hung up I pushed away from the

table to lie down. I had used all my energy trying to sound normal.

How could I tell my

70-year-old mother who had finally become a grandmother the truth—that I was

going crazy, that in two months since giving birth I had gone from being

thrilled to fighting thoughts of killing my baby and myself?

I pictured my mother

in the kitchen of my childhood home in Jersey, placing the phone back in its

cradle before knitting another pink sweater for my daughter Anza despite the

pain in her diabetic hands. She was probably sitting there, gray permed hair gripped

by a plastic headband, eyes switching from smiling to intense (so much like Anza's),

trying to decide how else she could help. I could see her packaging more baby

clothes, gifts from church. Later, she sent an email: "Don't forget to

write thank you cards to my church friends. And don't forget to work on your

belly weight."

I wanted to say: I'm not okay, Mom. I'm

so tired it hurts. I feel like I'm being electrocuted in a tub of ice water. I

sweat. I shake. I have panic attacks. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm so

scared.

I didn't know I had

postpartum depression—postpartum anxiety to be exact. Even after I found out

and was diagnosed with severe PPD a month later, I lied. Even after I was put

on anti-psychotic medicine, even after I was registered at the mental hospital

in Berkeley, I lied. I lied, because I didn't want my parents to worry. It

seemed the right, Confucian, filial thing to do, to protect one's elderly

parents from one's own suffering. Most of all I lied because I didn't want to

be judged. I already felt like such a failure. I was failing as a mother and I

was ashamed.

Four years ago I had

three miscarriages. "You're not careful enough," my mother said.

"You're too active." While I was pregnant with Anza, I learned I had

balanced translocation, a genetic condition. We needed to get lucky. Even after

explaining this to her, my mother would insist: "Go on bed rest so it

doesn't fall out."

I couldn't risk

hearing words that sounded like blame. I already felt it was my fault: I was

too soft.

My grandmothers

combined had birthed and raised 15 children while fleeing the Japanese, the

Communists, and poverty. What right did I have to fall apart?

So I took selfies of

me and Anza smiling and sent them to my parents every day.

Photo courtesy of Sharline Chiang

I lied because even

though depression is so common in Asian American communities, we rarely talked

about it. The message I grew up with: your mental struggles are our own; it's

up to you to find the inner strength to "ren," to endure.

The character for

"ren" 忍 is the

character for "knife" over the "heart." Endure even when

there's a knife in your heart.

In my thirties I

discovered talk therapy, tried to get my parents to go. Their response was

basically: "That's for white people." "They hook you in,"

my mother said. "You can never be cured."

I wish mental illness

didn't come with stigmas. I wish I could have told my parents that my mind had

broken just as easily as if I had to tell them my arm had broken.

Whenever my husband

would say, "You really should tell them," I felt that chasm again

(he's white, son of hippies). To him it was unimaginable to suffer the darkest

period of your life and not tell your parents. Meanwhile, everyone in his

immediate family knew. His mother and brother moved down from Canada to help

take care of me.

The fact that I could

get PPD never crossed my mind. I had

no history of depression.

Two years ago while

pregnant with Anza, I had spent thousands of hours reading about pregnancy and

birth and exactly five minutes reading about postpartum depression.

On the cover of the

brochure was a white woman with long brown hair. She was staring into space

under the words: “Feeling Blue?” I took one look and said to myself: white

woman, sad woman, that's not me and that's not going to be me.

I was 41. I had

traveled the world, had a great career in nonprofit communications, and had

married the man of my dreams. We lived in sunny Berkeley. We were finally

having a baby. I was elated.

Looking back I wish

more doctors had talked to us about PPD, its signs and how to get help. I wish

someone had told us about Postpartum Depression Spectrum because PPD manifests in so many ways, including intense

anxiety. I also wish I had been given articles written by survivors, especially

other API women.

I got lucky. I found

a psychiatrist who diagnosed me in time (I didn't go to the hospital). The

medication—Seroquel, Klonopin, and Zoloft—worked on me with no side effects.

In six months, with the help of a therapist and support group, I stabilized

significantly and was pretty much back to "myself" within a year.

I'm slowly accepting

that there is a new me. The new me is more sensitive to stress. Like any

survivor of a health crisis, I try to remind myself to manage my stress levels

and overall health.

By the time my

parents visited us again Anza was six months old. I was doing much better. They

watched her eat her first solid food (mashed yams). It didn't make sense to

bring up my ordeal.

I don't like lying to

my parents. They deserve my honesty. If they ever read this, I want to say I

hope you can forgive me and see that I did this out of love, love for you, and

love for myself.

I hope if they come

across this, or any of my other articles about my experience, they can

understand that I'm trying to share my story to encourage other survivors to

tell their stories, so we can let other women know that that they are not

alone, that they're part of a larger family of women who have been there

too.

+ + +

Sharline Chiang is a writer based in Berkeley, originally from New Jersey. She is a proud, long-time member of VONA, an amazing community of writers of color. Sharline previously wrote a piece for Mutha magazine about her experience with postpartum depression and anxiety.