While social media content is not a substitute for professional mental health care, in our darkest, loneliest moments, it can offer us the opportunity to feel seen and heard. Particularly in its earliest months, this account also allowed me to process my own feelings and model mental health strategies as I practiced them during one of the most difficult seasons of my life. I wanted to hold space for others to help them process and acknowledge their pain, much like I do during therapy sessions. I wanted to change that, even if it was in my small corner of the internet. As an Asian American, there are astonishingly few spaces in which the voices of my community are centered and uplifted, especially in mental health conversations. To my surprise, there were fewer than 100 posts.
One night, I looked up the hashtag #asianmentalhealth. I was emotionally crumbling under the weight of his illness and solo parenthood. I was raising two young children and my partner had a health condition that we could not explain.
When I started my social media account in 2019, my life felt like it was in a tailspin. It became increasingly difficult to open my social media account without feeling overwhelming panic and dread. Eight people were viciously murdered in three spas throughout the Atlanta area, six of whom were Asian women. began to shut down to limit the spread of COVID-19. Then came the Atlanta spa shootings, which occurred just days after the U.S. It broke my heart because I knew people were hurting, terrified, and seeking community. Some nights, as the world grappled with the horrifying effects of this ever-evolving virus, I would gain thousands of followers. In horror, I witnessed the concurrent rise of anti-Asian hate fueled by racist rhetoric, such as “kung flu” and “China Virus,” essentially blaming Asians for the pandemic. When COVID-19 was first recognized as a major threat in the United States in March 2020, my account was less than seven months old. But the irony of running a social media account rooted in mental health advocacy is that running a social media account takes a toll on your mental health. One of the primary goals of my Instagram account, is to create a space that encourages others to actively process and openly discuss mental health topics within the context of real-life events.
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