My mom called me the other day. She usually calls about once a week to check in and catch up with me. When I was in college, she would call to ask if I’ve eaten yet. That translates to “I love you” in Vietnamese. Now that I’m a bit older she calls me to ask for my advice on certain things, but no matter how old I get, she’ll always worry about how I’m doing. If you’ve read any of my past writing, I post publicly on Facebook because people have told me that reading my stuff has helped them understand their own thoughts. It also helps me put my own thoughts in order and makes me feel like I’m not alone in all this. But one of the main reasons why I put my writing online is because it’s one of the few ways I’m able to communicate to my parents how I’m currently feeling.
Well, it’s how I attempt to communicate with them at least. I’d tell them in their language, but how do I explain something in Vietnamese that I can’t even understand in English yet?
I want to preface the rest of this article by saying that I understand that I’m very fortunate to have parents that are understanding and willing to try to understand where I’m coming from. Even then, it’s been a challenge to try and explain to them just what the heck depression is and how it affects me. At the end of our last phone call, my mom said that she read the last article that I posted on my Facebook. She spent the next minute trying to explain back to me what she read. Then the next few minutes were me trying to explain to her what I wrote. It was a frustrating back and forth of “Hmmm, that’s not really what I mean” and “Kind of but not really” and “I can’t really explain that”. This is what we settled on.
Mom: “Son, are you saying that you feel lost?”
Me: “Yes…something like that.”
That doesn’t even scratch the surface of what I’m feeling. There’s just so much more I want to tell her, but I can’t. And that just eats away at me. I can hold a casual conversation in Vietnamese just fine, but when it comes to explaining my more intricate feelings beyond happy, sad, or mad, I’m usually at a loss for words. Now I wish I took more Viet language classes growing up. A quick Google translation for depression turns up phiền muộn. I spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to say this correctly in a sentence, but then I realized I can’t just throw these words at her and expect her to understand where I’m coming from. It’s not just about translating the words. It’s so much more than just the language barrier. It’s about navigating the different generational and cultural perspectives towards mental health. My parents have never talked to me about my mental health. Growing up I didn’t talk to them about how moving to different cities affected me. I think I internalized and bottled up a lot of my emotions. Talking about our “feelings” just wasn’t something that we did. To my parents, therapist and doctor probably mean the same thing. Even if I found the right words in Viet to explain it to them, I’m not sure if they’ll be able to fully comprehend everything that I say. Mental health is just not part of our daily conversations.
Writing was my way of trying to start this “conversation”. It’s taken a lot of unpacking just to get to a point where I feel comfortable sharing any of my writing with them. But where do I go from here? How do I bridge this gap? Maybe I’m not giving myself or my parents enough credit. Maybe having these awkward and uncomfortable talks means we’re making progress. Or maybe I’m approaching this all wrong.
My parents also don’t say “I love you.” But they show it in different ways. They show it by working 7 days a week for 10+ hours a day. When I ask them why they don’t just take one day off a week, they said they’ll take a break when we have enough to pay for grad school for both my sister and me. They show it by having food ready for me the few times a year when I come home to visit. I realized they’ve always shown their feelings to me through their actions, so me trying to explain depression to them in words is essentially a foreign language to them. Maybe it’s not what I can tell them, but what I can show them? But what does that even look like?
Just seems like I have more questions than answers at this point. Honestly, I have no idea where to go from here, but I want to eventually be able to tell them in a language that they don’t have to learn.
