Every day seems to bring stress and pressure from all sides from start to finish. You aren’t sure if you need therapy, coaching, or if you just need to learn to be content with the way things are. After all, aren’t you already having it better than your immigrant parents or grandparents, who toiled and sacrificed themselves to give you all these precious opportunities in America?

On paper, your life might be looking good…

You did well in school, went to a great college, even though your school years might not always have been easy for you socially (especially if you didn’t grow up on the coasts). Now you have a good job and know that you’re making your parents proud, and yet you don’t feel the sense of satisfaction that you thought would naturally follow.

You go to work, have the knowledge and expertise, do all the hard work, say yes to every demand, and yet you aren’t the person getting noticed. It’s the person who is playing the corporate game and doing all the ingratiating and talking (and c’mon we both know they don’t even know what they’re talking about!) who gets the attention and advancement. I mean, how are you going to make a case for the promotion you deserve if you get tongue-tied every time you have to “sell” yourself? If only you hadn’t been taught to be a quiet, humble, and demure person since you were in the cradle! The funny thing is, you’re probably also feeling like an imposter, worrying about being found out that you are, in fact, not as competent as you appear to be… How ridiculous is that, when deep down you know you’re pretty darn good at your job?

Or perhaps you have chosen a career that didn’t meet the approval of your parents, who simply can’t imagine that money could be made out of a passion in writing, arts, or music (what happened to the thousands of hours they pushed you to practice your piano or violin, not to mention the recitals and the competitions…?). Internally, you witness a daily struggle between pursuing your own passion to make yourself feel whole and fulfilled and meeting your parents’ expectations to make them happy. Why can’t you just be more like your doctor sibling or lawyer cousins, who seem to be happily walking the paths their parents have paved for them?

Navigating the world in this political climate also hasn’t always been easy for you.

As an Asian American, you often feel simultaneously on display and yet invisible. For one, all the discussions on race and racism everywhere you go almost only ever focus on black and Latino folks. Even though people see you as belonging to the “model minority” or “honorary whites,” you can’t escape being the target of microaggressions or sometimes even outright racism. You’re tired of being made to feel like a perpetual foreigner in your own country. You may rant about this inequity privately with your Asian-American friends or on online forums, but when the opportunity arises in person to confront or educate someone ignorant of your race, culture, or identity, you often feel tongue-tied again! 

But perhaps what feels the most daunting is managing your parents’ high expectations of you.

Anxiety spikes whenever your parents’ calls or texts come in, because you’re afraid that they will inevitably circle back to the one thing you don’t want to talk about. Listening to them talking about what they value, you often feel that they don’t really understand you or care about your feelings. In fact, when there’s a difference in opinion, they seem to exert more effort in persuading you or asserting their authority as your parents than trying to understand where you’re coming from. On top of that, perhaps because you don’t speak your parents’ mother tongue fluently and they don’t speak advanced English, the family conversations often fail to reach the kind of depths you need and desire. 

In the end, you often feel you have to hide a part of yourself from your parents.

Maybe it’s your non-Asian significant other, maybe it’s the fact that you’re queer - you can’t even imagine bringing up topics like these with your parents because of the potential colossal consequences. Or perhaps you have finally mustered the courage to broach a sensitive subject with your parents, but they took it so poorly that now the whole family just acts like the conversation never happened for the sake of maintaining “family harmony.” You often wonder why they can’t just care more about what actually makes you happy and what you want in life. Do they even know what you truly value and find to be important? It seems that all they care about is prestige, security, money, success…not feelings, ideologies, good communication, and God forbid, healthy boundaries!

You have so many conflicted feelings about your parents. On the one hand, you have seen how much they’ve done for you so you could always just focus on your academic work and start your adult life with minimal to no debt unlike many of your non-Asian friends. Even though your parents never say “I love you” or show much physical affection, you know in your heart that they love you and will always be there for you. And yet here you are, not being content with where things are with your parents, not feeling happy with how they can’t seem to grow and adapt to how things are changing, harboring all these negative thoughts about them - you feel like such a bad, ungrateful person every time this happens.

You know it’s time for a change.

You don’t want to burden your partner or friends with your problems anymore, and yet the stigma in Asian cultures around seeking therapy still gives you pause. You are skeptical of how this therapy thing that your white friends do can actually be helpful to you. Or perhaps you’ve tried therapy already, but the therapist just didn’t seem to get you, your “unusual” relationship with your parents and siblings, or the nuances in your bicultural upbringing. Being told to “just be your own person” or “keep your boundaries” really wasn’t all that helpful or even applicable. And honestly, having to explain so much about your family’s culture just got tiring and, if you were being brutally honest, not the best return on your investment! 

You know you need someone open-minded who really understands the Asian-American experience of our generation, who won’t trash your parents or make you feel like a bad child. You want someone who can really help you navigate your intricate relationships with your parents, boss, coworkers, partner(s), and friends and guide you to get your voice heard in your career/creative pursuits and in your daily life. 

My name is Sil Chen, and I am an Asian-American therapist in NYC.

I know what it’s like to not fit in all of the boxes that our parents and societies want to put us in based on whose children we are, how we look, who we love, how we dress and style ourselves, and what we do. I help Asian Americans navigate these complex issues and relationships to create more ease and happiness in life. I’ve had the privilege of working with many Asian Americans of Taiwanese, Chinese, Hongkongian, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Filipino, Singaporean, Malaysian, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Cambodian descent, including clients of mixed races. I also provide therapy in Mandarin and Taiwanese.

Click here to schedule your free 15-minute phone consultation online for therapy for Asian Americans in Brooklyn, New York. My offices are conveniently located in Williamsburg, and I also provide video therapy. If you are out of the area and need coaching to navigate your life as an Asian American, I also provide emotional wellness coaching via Skype or FaceTime. I look forward to having an opportunity to chat with you!