It started, as these things often do, with someone else’s story.
A friend told me, over coffee and hesitant glances, that she had been seeing a psychologist. I remember the way she said it — not dramatic, not confessional — just matter-of-fact, like she was telling me about a dentist appointment. And yet something about it lodged itself in me. It cracked open a possibility I hadn’t let myself consider: that I, too, might need help. That it might even be okay to ask for it.
Two years later, I would sit across from a clinical psychologist and being diagnosed with CPTSD. And honestly, it felt like both a relief and a reckoning. A name, finally, for all the invisible knots inside me. But also: a quiet grief for the years spent not knowing. For all the ways I had learned to survive.
Since then, my life has changed in ways that don’t always show up on the outside. Therapy didn’t make me into a new person. It helped me meet the one who had been waiting, quietly, underneath the performance. The one who still flinches at certain words. Who can’t always explain why some days feel impossible. Who is trying, every day, to feel safe in her own skin.
Now, I speak up about mental health — not because I enjoy the spotlight (I don’t), and not because I think I’m particularly brave (I’m not), but because I believe it matters. I believe in quiet revolutions. In someone, somewhere, reading a story like this and thinking: maybe I’m not broken. Maybe I’m not alone.
Dr. Indra Cidambi once said that mental health advocates move conversations from private corners into public space. I think about that often. About how powerful it is when someone says: me too. And how healing it can be when that someone looks like you, speaks your language, or shares your culture — especially when you come from a place where silence is the default.
There is still so much stigma. So many obstacles. In my own culture — in many Asian communities — mental health is often dismissed as indulgence, weakness, or something to be hidden behind nice furniture and family photos. And the more privileged the setting, the deeper the denial tends to run. We don't talk about therapy. We certainly don't talk about trauma. We learn to succeed despite our wounds — not to tend to them.
But I want to write about it. Not as an expert, but as someone who knows what it’s like to carry invisible weight. I want to explore the way pain can hide inside polished lives. How survival often looks like overachievement. How healing is not glamorous or linear — it’s messy, humbling, and profoundly human.
I’m not here to offer five-step guides or perfect answers. All I have is my story. But if it helps someone feel a little less alone — the way that friend once helped me — then maybe that’s enough.
Resources
If you are looking to address and seek support for your mental health, here's a quick list of resources for anyone reading based on places I've received support from myself, or that have been recommended by trusted friends:
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Jakarta, Indonesia
Indonesian Psychological Healthcare Center
https://indopsycare.com/
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Sydney, Australia
The Indigo Project
https://www.theindigoproject.com.au/
The Feel Good Clinic
https://thefeelgoodclinic.com/
*Both clinics above accepts Medicare Insurance.
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Amsterdam, Netherlands
Psycholoog Nederland
https://psycholoognederland.org/
*This clinic accepts Basis GZZ insurance.
Esther Woonink
https://www.estherwoonink.nl/