Behind The Smile

Article Written By Muriel Hsieh At what point do you lose the right to be a child? At what point is it too late to ask for things to be changed? Mental health was never an easy topic to talk about. However the longer it lingers at the tip of my tongue, the more I am desensitized to my own needs, the more I feel less entitled to speak up about change.

I remember walking to my mother’s vanity in a state of neutrality. Nothing had been going on. However, she looked at me through the reflection of the mirror, she asked me if I was okay, if there was something wrong, why do I look strangely unhappy? I then realized I’ve assumed the detrimental label of “the happy one.” The label lived on with me all throughout my teenage years. It is a facade that I’ve put up when I was first given the honorable duty of keeping my parent’s divorce a secret; a facade I’ve put up when mother wants to keep her string of relationships a secret; a brave face I put up when stroking my hand through mother’s hair over a breakup and offering her a beverage that I was too young to drink; a reflexive mask I slip on when father said to not wear skirts because men wouldn’t like the sight of my thighs so unconventionally gap-less. I was brought up to think that there is a very fine line between having emotions and being mentally unstable, where the latter is treated with disbelief and should be treated with screams and mental asylums seen only on screen.

It is a brave face until it isn’t anymore. A year ago I impulsively walked into the wellness center on campus without really knowing what I was doing, my ears roaring as I sat in that waiting room. It wasn’t because I was unaware of the actions I was taking but because of how foreign everything felt. I asked to speak to someone and instantly I felt like I betrayed who I was, or rather who I’ve pretended to be for a long time. I hated every second of it. They made me unhinge and they took all the tears I’ve had from me only to make me feel like I was drowning.

Despite how much I didn’t know what I was doing in that waiting room, there’s something I did end up realizing; I may not have had a single clue about how I could have improved my mental health, but I did gain strength from being more and more comfortable with openly speaking about it and therefore I now support anyone who needs someone to listen and understand. I’ve made it a personal mission to de-stigmatize the dialogue surrounding mental health and wellness, which is something everyone can do to make people more tolerant, more understanding, and more comfortable with opening up. As counter-intuitive as it is, in the new age of innovative communications, it is increasingly easier to hide behind a character, a mask, or a separate identity. Don’t make people feel the need to put one on. Be inviting and be understanding.