Foreign mental health has received much attention from the mass media in the past few years. So why am I here to once again talk about Mental Health? We have read, properly you have, we have read, liked, shared, and talked about Mental Health on various platforms. But how many of us actually realize that personally we need professional help from Mental Health Specialists? Mental Health Specialists are not our friends, not our parents, not our content writers, self-help gurus, or coaches. They are not Mental Health Specialists. Five years ago, my answer would be no. I don’t need help. I’m fine. I could handle everything on my own, and maybe with a little bit of help from my friends, the internet, or self-help books. Yep, that was me, and most likely could have been you as well.

So today, despite my hesitation and extreme introversion when it comes to personal problems, I’m actually shaking right now. I’ve never shared my personal story in front of so many people. But I decided to come here and share with you my story of why I decided to change and seek help from counseling and psychotherapy.

To begin with, I want to ask you one question: Do you think that we know how to protect our Mental Health? Personally, I did not. I was born in 1996. Mental Health professionals, mental health specialists, or social-emotional skills were not popular when I was still a student. So, without social-emotional skills or the right psychological support, how could we know how to protect our mental health? Rather than following the traditional ways, traditionally showing too much emotion might be considered negative, weak, or even crazy. Therefore, we prefer to keep our problems and our emotions to ourselves until we explode when everything becomes too much to handle.

When I was in kindergarten and primary school, whenever my dad and my brother beat me for my wrongdoings, I was sad, confused, and angry. But the elderly always say, “spare the rod, spoil the child,” and they thought kids don’t know anything. So, I learned how to hide my true emotions. My dad was very busy with work and was hardly home. I could sense that my parents’ marriage wasn’t going well. Deep inside, I blame myself for not being able to save my parents’ marriage. I was so jealous of other happy families. Sometimes I would cry alone in the closet and cut my wrist with a compass, hoping that my physical pain could numb the emotional pain.

And life moved on. When I was in secondary school and high school, my dad went to prison twice, and he was nearly killed in an extreme instant of crime. I could never forget the first time seeing my dad so heavily injured that I could not recognize him. He told me, “Don’t cry, be strong, be strong, stay tough, this is life.” So, I hid away all my tears, put on a brave face, and life moved on.

Within five years of studying abroad, I struggled with loneliness. I had a very negative self-image and had very little direction in life. At times, it was difficult for me to form deep connections with others. If I felt sad, I would watch random TV series or drink. If I felt lonely, I’d find myself in toxic relationships. And if I felt disappointed in myself, I ate and forced myself to throw up, read tons of self-help books, and strived for perfection in everything I did. And life moved on.

There were things making me forget about my emotions rather than facing and addressing the root problems. “Oh hold on, I’m different,” if this is what you’re thinking right now, then you might want to give it a second thought. Apparently, my experiences are extremely common. Parts of my upbringing are scientifically called adverse childhood experiences. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, adverse childhood experiences are potentially traumatic events that happened between 0 and 17, namely physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, physical and emotional neglect, meaning that your parents did not provide you with sufficient care and support regardless of their intention, or if you have a family member with mental illness, who had been to prison, who were victims of violence, who were addicted to alcohol or other substances, or if you had lost a parent due to separation, divorce, or death.

Different studies in more than 2,500 Vietnamese young people showed that more than 70 percent of participants reported having experienced at least one of these circumstances, and around 25 percent of them reported having experienced three or more. Many research studies all around the world have shown that the number of adverse childhood experiences is linked with increased risk-taking behavior, aggressiveness, domestic violence, depression, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and attempts, which might progress into adulthood. The effect is so serious that it is actually considered a public health issue by many.

And please keep in mind, there are many other social, environmental, and biological factors that could contribute to the development of mental disorders that I will not mention today due to the time constraint.

Anyhow, despite all of my experiences, I never thought that I had mental issues because I seemed normal most of the time. My grades, my physical appearance, my health, my physical health, my internships, the few relationships that I had, everything was more than okay. That’s what I thought. Four years ago, when I came back to Vietnam, my mental health went down to a point that I did not want to go out for days. Suicidal thoughts came to my mind. Only then did I decide to seek help from counseling and psychotherapy.

Many of us could seek help much sooner. So when should we seek professional support? According to Dr. Stan Kucher, an internationally recognized researcher in Mental Health Care, Mental Health exists in many different states, and here they are:

The first one, no distress, no problem, or disorder. You are mentally healthy. In this stage, you might not need professional support.

The second one, mental distress. They are healthy reactions to stress or daily life problems, such as losing your keys, burning your dinners, or forgetting your deadlines. In this stage, you might need a little bit of psychological support, but unnecessary support in this state could make you overly dependent on external help and not learning important skills to become fully functioning adults.

The third one, mental problems. They arise when you face an overwhelming situation that you are not yet able to deal with, such as death of a loved one, death of a pet, divorce, parental divorce, study abroad, or the end of a long-term relationship. Facing these extreme stressors, we might have stronger and longer reactions, such as mood swings, loss of appetite, sleep loss, loss of stress in yourself, loss of hope in the future. And in this state, you might feel like you have no direction in life. And in this state, you do need professional support.

The last one, mental disorders. They are internationally recognized disorders. In Vietnam, they could only be reliably diagnosed by psychiatrists or clinical psychologists. And in this state, you definitely need professional support. In state three and four, insufficient support could make you even more confused about your problems and do not help you understand more about yourself or prevent future problems.

The tricky thing is, we could experience all of these at the same time. For example, one might struggle with an eating disorder, which is a mental disorder, while still having a lively social life with

absolutely no problem, and struggle with mental problems from the loss of a pet, and mental distress from forgetting her deadlines. Because of the complexity and the connection between these states, we need help from Mental Health Specialists. They are equipped with the right knowledge of how to support and when to support. Mental Health Specialists in Vietnam, a counselor, psychotherapist, psychiatrist, children or clinical psychologists, they will guide you through your own unique self-understanding and healing journey in the most safe and effective ways.

And I know finding the right counselor or psychotherapist might take a lot of time, effort, and even money. But once you have known how to find one, it will save you a lifetime of struggle. In my own case, through counseling and psychotherapy, I was able to retell my life stories without the fear of being judged. When I retold my counselors those stories, they helped me reorganize them in a more coherent order. Previously, the stories I told my friends were just fragments of emotional events with very little connections. Now everything started to make sense. Through my stories, my counselors also offered me different perspectives so I could see my past in a more objective way, not just from the perspective of a child or a person who has been hurt. No more blaming or playing the victim.

I’m now much more empathetic towards my brother, my parents, and my friends because I could see how their past has shaped them too. In addition to that, through my stories, my counselor and psychotherapist also offered me to see many different trends and patterns in my behaviors, thoughts, and emotions. Previously, I might have those knowledge through my education, but I could not see them in myself. I know it might be easy to point out other people’s problems, but it could be very difficult to acknowledge your own. It’s okay to get help with that. And I also learned many different techniques and skills to help me regulate my emotions, adjust my negative thoughts, and develop many healthier behaviors. Before that, self-healing workshops and self-help books could not help me. Firstly because I or other unprofessional healers, we don’t know which technique will suit me best. Some of them actually do more harm than good. For example, opening up and sharing your traumatic event to somebody else without knowing how to calm yourself down might actually re-traumatize you and push you back to those dark times that you have always been trying to forget and make you even feel even worse about yourself. Secondly, we are unique individuals. Some of our problems need individualized interventions which are not provided in self-help books for the masses.

I’m now much more confident and ready to take ownership of my life, not just to find peace but to create it in every moment. So where could we start? I really hope that from this point onwards, you, me, us, we could pay more attention to our behaviors, thoughts, and emotions. It is not okay to hate yourself. It is not okay to be stuck in toxic relationships. It is not okay to have no direction in life. And be ready to seek professional help from Mental Health Specialists whenever it is needed because it is not weak to seek help. We all deserve to be happy and live a peaceful life.