Feb. 19, 2015-- Leslie Zeitler was 15 when her mother, a 43-year-old Chinese-American, took her own life. “I was so angry and deeply pained about it,” Zeitler says. “It wasn’t just my heart that ached for her, but also my arms and my cheeks, my face. It felt like even my skin missed her.” More on Asian Americans and Mental Health Asian Americans Tackle Mental Health Stigma 'Killing Fields' Survivor Struggles with PTSD An only child, she spent years lost in that pain until she could finally forgive her mom. But to procure such peace, she had to breach a wall of silence -- one that surrounds suicide for many Asian-American families.

Early Warnings As young as age 4 or 5, Zeitler says she knew something was wrong with her mother. For long periods, her mom would sleep all day, unable to work. Her mother’s relatives didn’t understand why she couldn’t get out of bed, Zeitler says. “I recall hearing one of my family members saying, ‘You’re just crazy. You’re being lazy. … Life is hard, you need to just deal.’” When Zeitler was 7, her mother and her father, a German immigrant, divorced. “When the judge decided that I should live with my dad most of the time, I think that was devastating to her,” she says. Family members became increasingly worried. Her mother’s father offered to pay for psychiatric care. Despite treatment with multiple drugs for depression and two psychiatric hospitalizations, Zeitler’s mother ended her own life.