18-year-0ld Chinese female suffers from moderate depression and anxiety

Thinking about it, no one will ever believe that I am suffering from moderate depression and anxiety since I always look so outgoing.

I started having symptoms in high school, but was only diagnosed after the first semester in university when everything went downhill. Knowing the results, I was afraid, scared, I wanted to isolate myself from others since people are going to think I am a weirdo and hate me if they knew that I have a mental illness. That’s the reality, people act nice in front of you but they talk in your back about you faking your mental illness to obtain the attention of other individuals. During the first semester of university, I had problems with my roommate.

I told my friends “Life is so hard and sometimes I just feel like I should die.”

They responded: “Everyone’s life is hard, you’re not the only one. Why are you so pessimistic? Stop acting like you are the only one suffering from these small issues that isn’t important just because you have depression.”

There are still some stereotypical individuals that do not understand people with mental illness. They mimic and make fun of those individuals. But they do not know how much effort those individuals put in to be a normal person. Overcoming the side effects of the antidepressants, holding all emotions by themselves to not alter the atmosphere when they are chatting. They act like a normal person so that you wouldn’t notice anything different in them.

So please don’t say that their mental illness is fake.

This story is part of a series for 心怡HARMONIOUS, a Chinese mental health initiative, overseen by Dr. Xiaoduo Fan for the UMass Chinese Mental Health Program. To share your story, please use the anonymous submission form found at https://projectharmonious.org/share/“.