How a bout of depression helped Dwayne Johnson come to a defining moment

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson

'RUNNING AMOK' is a common phrase you probably have heard. Did you know that the word "amok" is of Malaysian origin? "Amok" refers to a person, usually male, who goes on a rampage and starts killing everyone in sight and it usually ends with that person getting killed. It's a form of suicide, really, an individual who is mentally disturbed trying to go out in a rage, telling the world contradictory messages: that he can't take the world anymore and his existence matters.

I only mention this because mental health issues are topics Asian/Americans generally try to avoid, yet the manifestations that someone having difficulty coping is something everyone is familiar with; something that tends to be discussed behind closed doors. It  can manifest itself in extreme forms like running amok or more commonly, as in the case of movie star Dwayne Johnson, "in a bubble."

Asian/Americans and Pacific Islanders suffer from mental illness at the same rate as everyone else. Unfortunately, AAPI's are also the least likely to seek help. 

Recently, the television show Oprah's Master Class talked with Johnson, a Samoan/Canadian who made a name for himself as a professional wrestler after getting rejected as a football player. Eventually, he worked his way into acting where he is having a successful career playing big, strong macho guys. 

After playing football for four years at the University of Miami, Johnson was passed over by the NFL. While he played for the Canadian Football League for a short time, he was ultimately cut from his team, the Calgary Stampeders, and sent packing. At 23, Dwayne found himself living in his parents' small apartment, battling depression.

"I didn't want to do a thing," he recalls. "I didn't want to go anywhere. I was crying constantly. Eventually you reach a point where you are all cried out."

That wasn't the first time he felt lost, nor was it the last. Each time he had to remake himself, into a wrestler, into an actor, into a businessman, into a father.

Just the fact that they are people of color in a country that in every institution is white-centric puts a lot of stress on minorities; that they don't count, don't matter and are invisible to the rest of society.

Asian/Americans and Pacific Islanders come from 52 different countries and are the most diverse racial/ethnic group in terms of religious/spiritual affiliation, cultural background and traditions, and generational and immigration experiences.

Prevalence rates of mental illness among AAPI are believed to be no different from those of other Americans. However, the type of psychopathology, ethnicity and generational status, acculturation and cultural background all appear to influence the manifestation of psychological distress among AAPI, according to Gayle Y. Iwamasa of the Asian American Psychological Association.

A study conducted by The University of Maryland School of Public Health research team in 2007, which looked at needs of mental health for Asian-American young adults, showed that participants reported several common sources of stress that affected their overall mental health:

• Parental pressure to succeed in academics
• Discussing mental health concerns is considered taboo in many Asian cultures and as a result Asian Americans tend to dismiss, deny or neglect their symptoms
• Pressure to live up to the "model minority" stereotype (a view that inaccurately portrays Asian Americans as successfully integrating into mainstream culture and having overcome the challenges of racial bias)
• Family obligations based on strong traditional and cultural values
• Discrimination due to racial or cultural background 
• Difficulty in balancing two different cultures and developing a bicultural sense of self

A different study conducted by Iwamasa found Southeast Asian and other Asian-American/Pacific Islander immigrants who experienced violence, war, or economic oppression prior to their arrival in the United States appear susceptible to suffer psychological distress or post traumatic stress syndrome, something we usually associate with soldiers' disturbed by their combat experiences.

Living up to parental expectations can put a lot
of stress on children.

RELATED: Jeremy Lin on "The Silicon Valley Suicides"

"Understanding the mental health issues of Asian/Americans and Pacific Islanders is important," says Iwamasa," because of the vast heterogeneity of the group, the various Asian cultures' beliefs about mental health, and the emphasis on the connection between the mind and body." 

Among many Asian-Americans/Pacific Islanders, interpersonal harmony and the focus on family influence the experience, interpretation and expression of psychological distress. For example, in some Asian cultural groups, the experience of psychological distress is not only a reflection on the individual in distress, but also reflects on the entire family. Thus, shame, embarrassment and loss of face contribute to whether or not an individual will admit to experiencing psychological problems. 

These same cultural values are key reasons AAPI are less likely to seek help or treatment for their depression or other mental illness.

The acclaimed, Emmy-nominated series Oprah's Master Class tells the stories you've never heard from the people you thought you knew best. Hand-picked by Oprah Winfrey for their unique impact on the world, true modern masters from Academy Award-winning actors, to Grammy-winning musicians, to ground-breaking athletes, share the greatest lessons they've learned along the way. In an intimate setting, they share their successes, their failures, their triumphs, disappointments and heartbreaks.

The fact that a celebrity of Johnson's stature is willing to go public with his depression, even if may hurt his macho image, hopefully may help someone struggling with mental health - whether it be depression, PTSD, feelings of inadequacy, loneliness, sexual identity, or some other issue - to seek the help he, or she, needs. 

Johnson's confession shows that anyone can have bouts of despair. You can be a musical protege striving for perfection, a father trying to regain your position as family provider, a student trying to live up to expectations, a young person being bullied, parents who must depend on their child to understand a new culture, or an athlete who is just not quite good enough to go pro. The point is, if you know anyone suffering from this condition, let him or her know there is help and that there is no need to be alone. Ask "The Rock."

"I found that, with depression, one of the most important things you could realize is that you're not alone," said the movie action hero in the YouTube video posted by Winfrey's OWN channel. "You're not the first to go through it; you're not going to be the last to go through it. And oftentimes — it happens — you just feel like you're alone. You feel like it's only you. You're in your bubble. And I wish I had someone at that time who could just pull me aside and (say), 'Hey, it's gonna be OK. It'll be OK.' So, I wish I knew that."

For more news about Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders, go to AsAm News.

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Jeremy Lin: On "The Silicon Valley Suicides"

Atlantic graphic

RECENTLY, Jeremy Lin got a lot of attention because of his changing hairstyles even getting mentioned in a nationally published magazine.

When the NBA player posted on his Facebook page his thoughts on suicide, not so much. 

Reading "The Silicon Valley Suicides," in this month's Atlantic magazine caused Lin to reflect on his own high school years, darkened by the suicide of two his classmates, the pressures he placed on himself and the pressures he felt coming from others' expectations of him.

"The pressure to succeed in high school is all too familiar to me. I distinctly remember being a freshman in high school, overwhelmed by the belief that my GPA (grade point average) over the next four years would make or break my life. My daily thought process was that every homework assignment, every project, every test could be the difference," he writes on his Facebook page.

The Atlantic article written by Hanna Rosin focused on a couple of suicide clusters that occurred in Palo Alto, smack dab in the middle of Silicon Valley, the cradle of 21st century innovation.

"Since I went to Stanford, in the early ’90s, the surrounding public schools have been utterly transformed by the tech explosion," wrote Rosin. "Gunn, and to a lesser extent Palo Alto High School, is legendary all over the world. Steve Jobs’s old house is in the neighborhood. Chinese patriarchs buy homes in the community and send their families, so their kids can go to school there. Parents sacrifice vacations and plan their budgets carefully so they can afford a house in the district."

Not all the kids who committed suicide in Palo Alto, where Jeremy Lin went to school, were Asian/American, but there was no denying that some Asian/American students were under some - sometimes unsaid - pressure to succeed academically. Rosin wrote:

Tragedies do not always bring people together; sometimes they just deepen the rifts between them. The day after Byron Zhu died, a Paly senior named Andrew Lu posted on his blog a diagram of three circles, labeled “Palo Alto,” “Male,” and “Asian.” “It seems that the demographic most at risk are Asian (Chinese) males in high school (hey, that’s what I am!),” he wrote. Three of the boys who had died in the past academic year had at least some Asian heritage. 

Andrew was broaching a very touchy subject, one that had come up more rudely in comments on Palo Alto Online. Heavy stress among “good kids” was the product of “a nasty competitive atmosphere contrived by unethical Tiger Mothers,” one commenter wrote. At the end of some of my conversations, a student, teacher, or counselor would look around to make sure no one was listening and then whisper a story about an Asian kid being punished or even kicked out of the house for a night after getting a B or failing to get into Stanford. I’d heard how new East Asian immigrant parents mistakenly transposed the reality of education in, say, China or Korea, which is that how you do on a single test can determine your entire future. Gunn is more than 40 percent Asian, and some non-Asian parents, particularly ones who’d grown up in town when the Asian population was smaller, felt the shift was poisoning the culture of the entire school.

The Atlantic article raises questions about a value that is part of the Model Minority trope and should make us stop and ponder the possible unintentional ramifications of those values. It should be noted that the vast majority of Asian/Americans grow up to be well-adjusted, healthy and successful individuals. 

Contrary to popular myth fed by the Tiger Mom archetype, Asian Americans do not have a higher suicide rate than other racial and ethnic groups. However, data in the National College Health Assessment Survey seem to indicate that Asian/American college students have suicidal thoughts and attempt suicide more frequently than their peers.

But what both the Rosin and Lin emphasize, we shouldn't  expect our young people to react in the same way, even though the environment they are in may be similar.

As we know, Lin survived high school. He found his close relationship with his Christian faith  and his parents to be his saving grace, but that might not be the solution for everyone. Lin went on to Harvard and onto a life in the NBA. In each stage of his life he had to meet everyone's expectations and defy the Asian stereotypes, which puts an awful lot on his shoulders.

Lin's Facebook entry drew lots of reaction.

"As an Asian American bicultural and bilingual psychologist I’ve had the privilege to work with so many over-pressured youth and loving but misguided parents who believe that their child’s exhaustion, anxiety, depression can be overcome by just not talking about it,” wrote Neleh Chimera. “Thank you for writing this — it will touch many young lives.”

Generally, Asian/Americans don't like to talk about mental health issues but not talking about it will make this issue go away. There is a dire need to gather more data on this subject considering the wide breadth of the 50 ethnic groups that fall under this broad Asian American category and their mental health needs vary as widely as their economic, educational and social status.

"We may not have the answers to how to completely solve these issues, but we can take more time to really listen to each other, to reach out and have compassion on one another," Lin concludes. "I don’t have any great insight and I don’t know exactly what it’s like to be a high school student today. I do know that I’m proud to be from Palo Alto, a resilient community that I see striving to learn how to better support and care for each other. I hope that my personal experience can remind someone else that they are worth so much more than their accomplishments."

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FOR ASSISTANCE

Suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the United Sates and 8th among Asian Americans. 

If you are concerned that you or someone you know may be at risk for suicide, we strongly encourage you to do one or more of the following: 

• Contact a mental health provider within your community. 
• Call 1-800-273-8255 (TALK), the National Suicide Prevention Hotline, for a referral. (More than 150 languages are offered)
• Call 1-877-990-8585, Asian LifeNet Hotline (24 hours). (Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Fujianese are offered)
• In the United States, call 911.
• In addition, each state and county have their own hotlines. 

Do not leave the person alone even after phone contact with an appropriate professional has been made.

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