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Michelle Yang, Writer & Activist for Mental Health Wellness
Michelle Yang is an advocate whose writings on the intersection of Asian American identity, body image, and mental health have been featured in NBC News, CNN, InStyle, Shondaland, and more. When not writing, she loves exploring new areas with her family and smoking up the kitchen with spicy recipes. Other projects: To learn more of my story, please see my writing here or see press features here. Please see here to listen to my story at upcoming conferences, classes, nonprofits and podcasts. For writing inquiries, podcast interviews, or other collaboration opportunities, please contact: michellehyang@gmail.com
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Social Media in a Time of Political Upheaval
My social media feeds have been all over the place lately. Normally a smattering of mental health-related posts, some good articles here and there, but mostly pictures of my kid or my dog — but now, during the border crisis, it all seems ill-fitting and jarring. The images of migrants seeking asylum locked in cages, caked in filth, haunts my mind constantly. As I live my charmed life in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, my guilt continues to grow. Why should I be able to carry on, while innocent children at our border suffer? This is a drop-everything-and-scream-for-action type of emergency, yet we carry on. All of us look away sometimes…
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“Coming Out”
On Wednesday, May 1, 2019, I “came out” to the world about my mental health. My story, “My Mental Illness Did Not Prevent Me From Suceeding, But The Stigma Nearly Did” was published on a major outlet. I had pitched my story in early February and was over the moon when the editor responded later that month. I had been eagerly anticipating its publication ever since. There would be no turning back after this “Coming Out.” Sure, I had already told my story to my own social circles, but this was a national, even international, stage. I set out to tell my story to make myself an example, an advocate.…
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Before Me
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Parenthood
Parenthood saved me. Maybe not in the way you think. I was such a good Chinese daughter. I was “drinking the kool-aid” as my brother called it until I was about 30 years old. All growing up, my parents would scold me and say, “You will understand when you become a parent yourself.” The irony is, when I was finally ready to become a parent, that’s when I stopped drinking the kool-aid. Stopped being a “good daughter.” I finally drew the boundaries I needed to stop the patterns of abuse. Preparing for parenthood made me reflect deeply on the type of parent I wanted to be and it was…
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PSYCHO
My nickname in high school was not cute. It’s not something I can laugh about even today, nearly 20 years later. It was a name that stung, what people called me when my back was turned. PSYCHO I would show up to school crying non-stop, having gone weeks without sleep. I was a top student in the class, yet I’d doodled on my final exams instead of answering any questions. I screamed at my best friend during class with a bunch of nonsense. It hurts because the nickname was accurate. I hadn’t slept in weeks. I was having a psychotic episode. I had not been diagnosed with anything. My family…
