My time is coming. It’s already time for me to die. I can’t wait. … So yeah I plan to kill myself during spring break, which by the way, starts in two days. – Wynne Lee, 3/29/12.

Wynne Lee’s mind was at war with itself — one voice telling her to kill herself and another telling her to live. She had just turned 14.

She tried to push the thoughts away by playing video games and listening to music. Nothing worked. Then she’d pull out a razor, make a small incision on her ankle or forearm and watch the blood seep out. “Cutting was a sharp, instant relief,” said Wynne, who lives in Diamond Bar.

She wrote her feelings in a journal in big loopy letters.

At first, Wynne thought she felt sad because she was having a hard 8th grade year. She and her boyfriend broke up. Girls were spreading rumors about her. But the feelings of helplessness and loneliness wouldn’t go away.

“I was really happy as a kid and now I was feeling like this,” she said. “It was really unfamiliar and scary.”

Frightening despair

Wynne didn’t know where her despair was coming from. The words “depression” and “suicide” were not in her vocabulary. She knew, however, that she was failing — she was defying expectations of who she was supposed to be.

Growing up in San Gabriel Valley, a destination for Asian immigrant families with high educational and economic aspirations, she believed she was supposed work hard, get good grades and make her Taiwanese immigrant parents proud. She wasn’t doing any of that, and she didn’t know how to ask for help.

When it comes to mental health treatment, Asian Americans often get short shrift. Researchers say they are both less well-studied and less likely to seek treatment. While rates of suicide tend to be lower than national rates overall, Asian American are far from homogeneous and the limited research suggests depression and suicidal impulses vary significantly depending on age, gender and national origin.

For instance: Asian American college students are more likely to seriously consider suicide than white peers. According to 2007 data from the National Center for Health statistics, Asian American females ages 15 to 24 were second only to Native Americans for suicide deaths. In addition, researchers have found that Asian women born in the U.S. are at significantly higher risk of suicidal thoughts and attempts than others, including women immigrants and U.S.-born men.

Parents sometimes stand in the way of treatment, intentionally or not, because of the high standards they set, experts say. Kids can be burdened by the sacrifices their parents have made for their benefit.

“It takes a few generations before they can finally be free,” said Ranna Parekh, director of the division of diversity and health equity for the American Psychiatric Association.

Losing ground

I’ve missed school for almost a week now (three days). I mean I feel really bad … — Wynne Lee, 9/15/13.

Wynne frequently woke up feeling exhausted and unable to get out of bed. She would curl up and go back to sleep under the red blanket she’d had since she was a toddler.

Wynne’s mom, Maggie Huang, begged her daughter to go to school. She yelled at her and took away her phone.. “I thought she was just being lazy,” Huang said.

Altogether, Wynne missed 47 days in 9th grade — more than a quarter of the school year. The next year, she missed 39 days.

Her grades fell. Huang said she and her husband believed they were doing everything they could for their three children. They lived in a middle-class suburb, in a beautiful two-story home.

Wynne’s father works for a mattress company. Huang stays home with Wynne and her younger brothers.

“I just worried,” Huang said, referring to her daughter. “I was so worried.”

One day Huang went into Wynne’s room, read her journal and saw the threats of suicide. She told the school counselor. A social worker came to the house to talk to the family about getting help.

Huang enrolled in a parenting class and tried to talk to her daughter more about her feelings. But things only got worse. One afternoon Wynne asked for a ride to see a friend. She had skipped school that day and her mom said no. They argued. “I couldn’t do it anymore,” Huang said. She called the police.

Wynne grabbed a bottle of prescription pills and swallowed as many as she could.

Wynne landed in a psychiatric facility. She remembers sitting in a room with a huge window, coloring pictures. Doctors told her she had depression.

Finally, Wynne had a name for what was wrong.

Growing isolation

The suicidal thoughts are seeping back here and there by droplets. …. I’m not feeling any better. I’m still not able to handle this at all. I’m not healing. — Wynne Lee, 5/18/14

After the hospital, Wynne went into outpatient therapy at Pacific Clinics, a counseling and treatment agency based in Arcadia.

Maribel Contreras, the program director, said Wynne’s suicide attempt — along with the school absences, irregular sleeping and angry outbursts — made it very clear that her case was “very serious,” she said.

Wynne saw a few different therapists but didn’t feel a strong connection with any of them. A psychiatrist suggested she take antidepressants, but Wynne rejected the idea. “I just wanted to get better on my own,” she said.

Wynne felt she made little progress in therapy and ultimately quit late last year.

At home, she rarely came downstairs to eat.

Her 11-year-old brother, Kevin, said she often locked herself in her room. He could hear her crying. “It was hard to watch her like that,” he said.

After her grades dropped, she started on an independent study program. Being away from the drama of high school helped, Wynne said. But it also made her feel more isolated.

Huang, too, felt alone. Other Asian moms were always asking about Wynne. She felt they blamed her for her daughter’s lack of motivation.

“To them, grades are everything,” she said.

Rising hopes

‘And even when you’re ready to let go. When you’re ready to break free. When you’re ready to be brand-new. Lonliness is an old friend standing beside you in the mirror. … Lonliness is a bitter, wretched companion.’ — Wynne Lee, quoting author Tahereh Mafi, 4/6/14.

Near the end of her sophomore year in high school, Wynne’s mother took her out to dinner.

Huang told her that she loved her. She said she believed that Wynne would succeed — no matter what.

“That’s when I started to open up to her,” Wynne said.

Wynne’s feelings were beginning to shift — she didn’t know exactly why. She wrote in her journal afterward: “This is going to be the best summer ever.”

That fall, Pacific Clinics invited Wynne to participate in a panel for Hollywood screenwriters and producers about mental health. The experience gave her confidence. Her energy returned.

She took a test to graduate early from high school and enrolled in community college. She started dancing again.

On a recent night, she stood in the front row at a studio, picking up the routine quickly and flipping her long hair to the music. During a break, she caught her breath. “I feel really, really good,” she said.

Wynne said she knows that the depression, and the loneliness, may return. “I’ve accepted it as part of who I am,” she said.

But as she ran back toward the blaring music, it seemed the last thing on her mind.

agorman@kff.org