During COVID, things were stressful for everyone; my family was included.
Both children moved back home from school: Beo from the Navy and Mando from West Point.
I worked from home and moved to full-time as one co-worker left. I took over all of his cases. I should not have become full-time. Not sure why I did it. Besides this job, art practice is primarily important in my life. I thought I could manage both.
The stress was overwhelming.
I started to listen to Dr. Jordan Peterson’s Bible series posted on YouTube. Never had an interest in reading the Bible until listening to his lectures. He used his psychology and clinical background to explain each Biblical story, and it totally made sense to me.
One story stands out: “ Noah builds the Ark.” Jordan Peterson said, " The storm will come. No matter what. Noah walks with God. He believes that the storm will come. He listened to God to build the Ark to prepare." " The storm came. His family was saved because he spent time building a shelter to keep everyone safe until the storm had passed."
I had the epiphany. The concept that life is suffering is undeniable. Yet, it matters how you prepare to stay strong during the storm.
That insight "aha" moment saved my life and my family's life.
During college, Beo struggled. He got disciplined every semester. In fact, we are still amazed that he got into college.
When he was in elementary school, he already struggled academically. I always shared stories of Beo’s teachers and principal calling me all the time to complain.
In his report card sent home, there were D and F with the minus sign next to it. Who got D- and F-? The minus sign was the teacher's burnt-out attitude toward him. I guess.
When we moved to Seattle, sometimes I asked him how school was. He looked at me and answered, if the principal did not call you, you know I am fine. I stay low.
That was why we decided to send him to swimming so that he would become a lifeguard later. Surprisingly, he excelled in swimming when he moved to Seattle. He won three State Championships, which got the University coach’s attention.
Frankly, I did not know that swimming could be a ticket for him to college when I sent him swimming.
In his sophomore year, he was hand-picked by coaches from the Navy Academy in Annapolis. Under Navy Foundation sponsorship, he got sent to a private high school called Mercerburg Academy in Pennsylvania to boost his academic grade for one year. During this post-grad year, Beo continued to join the varsity swimming team and got support for his studies.
Eventually, Beo officially joined the Navy shipyard in Annapolis, Maryland, in 2017.
Beo got used to asking his parents loudly for help as needed. During 4 years in the Navy, he called Nguyen a lot. Because of the time zone differences, if Nguyen got a phone call at 6 AM, I knew that something had happened to him at school.
“ Mom, I failed this. Dad, I failed that. I got held back.” One time, he cried with me over the phone, " Mom, I am done. I do not want to go to school anymore. This is not real. Professors here are not real.” I told him straight up.
“ Yes, you can go back to a real Seattle. I have a job for you. You can go to clean up the homeless tent and trash encampment here. We need people all year round for this job. I have a friend who can hook you up.”
He woke up, “OK, I'll stay. Navy is better than cleaning up tent city in Seattle.”
As a parent, I always prepare for the storm and focus on helping my son. He was a troublemaker. He needs attention from both parents. He has humble expectations as a lifeguard. Now he was about to finish school at the Naval Academy. The parents walked with him to the finish line.
Beo could not graduate in May like the other 2000 students of his cohort. He and 19 other students were held back from graduating until August because of "this" and "that".
For the last three months prior to his August graduation, Nguyen went to Annapolis to rent a place there to make sure his son got all the support he would need. Nguyen bought fresh baby tomatoes and sushi for Beo almost every day and delivered them at the school checkpoint.
While we did all that, our little daughter, who was a freshman at West Point at that time, slowly fail behind, and we did not expect it.
Mando was not like Beo. She was responsible and reliable. She loved swimming and did very well in swimming. She stated that she was born to swim. She learnt to swim by herself during the summers when she was 6 years old. I took both to the swimming pool in Davis. She observed other swimmers and mimicked their strokes and suddenly went to swim in the lap lane with others. When I saw that, I told Nguyen that we needed to send both of them to a professionally trained swim club. She loved it. She improved pretty fast when she joined AquarDart club in Davis.
Mando was a good student academically as well. She was perfect. And we wanted her to be perfect like this. She took care of homework and sometimes did homework for her brother as well. She was always a nice and gentle little girl that I would never have to worry much.
Like her brother, Mano earned three State Championships and got recruited to Mercerburg Academy for her sophomore and senior years in high school. She joined the varsity team and still holds the female record in breaststroke at the school until today, when I am writing this note.
Championship at Mercerberg Academy
As her brother, she was handpicked by the West Point and Navy coaches, as well as other schools like Princeton and Columbia. The head coach at Columbia invited her three times. She chose West Point. That was a stressful decision to make, but we all went along to support her.
2021, both children went back to school. COVID was still a big concern. I felt that Mando was stressed out during the weekly FaceTime conversation with me.
She shared school and swim activities, among other things. She never shared that she was depressed. As her mother and clinician, I felt the depression on her shoulders. She knew that I am a clinician; she would never share what was going on.
As a professional swimmer, Mando was healthy. But she gained a lot of weight during her time at West Point. The weight appeared on her shoulders, and she hunched her back more.
While we paid attention to our son, the storm unexpectedly came toward my daughter.
She was stressed. She sucked it up. She kept going.
Under stress, a few triggers added up and led to the decision that life was meaningless.
What was the point of moving forward? Death would be the way to end all sufferings.
As a young lady full of life, hope, and dreams, some small negative factors could cause catastrophic consequences.
She wanted to die. She planned her death. She admitted herself to the hospital so she could get her own medicine. The first admission was planned out by a nice- quiet always -smiled and get- along Mando.
Who would know that.
Individual that declared he/she is suicidal would access medical help, social assistance, and emotional support and move past the dark thought and live a life.
The quiet one was the one who went on with the plan secretly. That was my daughter.
One weekend, she did not call Nguyen or me. We were worried. The week after, we contacted the coach; he hesitated but informed us that Mando was hospitalized for depression.
We were in shock. We built the ark, prepared for our son’s storm. We could not see that the storm changed court direction toward my daughter. This was not just a storm; this was a hurricane with waves rising high up over the rooftop and without an appropriate broadcast.
We did not build the ark to prepare for my daughter’s downtime.
Now I think over it; it was not fair for Mando. She was a perfect child in the family. She would have had a lot of pressure to be a good one. She could not be a "loser" like Beo. Being a "loser" from the beginning, in my son's case, turned out to be an advantage.
As a consequence, she slowly and silently fell apart unnoticed. Her ark was not prepared and built. She would not allow herself to shout it out loud to ask for help like Beo.
She stayed in the hospital for a week and was brought back to West Point. During that COVID time, she was isolated in the room, waiting to be processed back home for medical leave.
We set up a time for Nguyen to drive to West Point to pick her up. By protocol, the school, the coach, the hospital, and the psychiatrist planned for her to come home with her parents.
However, this was not what she had planned in her mind.
The day Nguyen flew to Baltimore BWI Airport, we got news that she was brought back to the hospital because she overdosed on her medication.
She took the pills intentionally the day Nguyen went to pick her up.
Her plan was not to come back. Her plan was to be gone forever.
Nguyen drove a car to the hospital in New York; the drive took 6 hrs. I was at home texting him from Seattle.
We texted each other, guessing what was going on with Mando. Maybe she accidentally OD'd on her meds?
I was sad and depressed, with anxiety and uncertainty.
Nguyen arrived to hospital and met Mando’s captain, who was the one to called an ambulance to take her to the hospital.
Nguyen called me saying that she took pills.
The hospital cleaned her up, and now she was stable.
The captain told Nguyen that after seeing the lab results, he felt relieved that she did not use drugs or alcohol.
She took her sleeping medicine and ½ of a bottle of her antidepressant to kill herself.
When Nguyen arrived and saw her, Mando was still not awake from the pills she took. There was a nurse to stay there with her 24/24.
Nguyen looked at her arms. She cut her arms with scissors. Nguyen was traumatized seeing his daughter's arm like this. He went back to the car. He got a bottle of vodka, drank it all off, and cried inside his car in the parking lot for the whole night. He cried with grief and guilt.
" I should have paid more attention. What if I could have traveled back and forth between Navy and West Point to support both of the kids during that time? I loved them equally and never want my daughter to think that I love the boy more than the girl."
It would take years for Nguyen to process his grief and guilt. He would sit in his car and cry his eyes out for a few hours at night for a while.
We now know that treatment for depression is a long process that the whole family has to participate.
I could not sleep that night either. I cried periodically until the next morning, waiting for Nguyen’s phone call.
Mando woke up the next morning, and Nguyen gave the phone to me to talk to Mando. I got so mad, frustrated, and yelled at her, Why did you do that? You want to punish me?"
The nurse stopped me at once.
Nguyen told me that they would need to keep her for observation for 1 week before releasing her back home.
Nguyen said he may stay in New York for a week so he could pick her up.
We talked. And I said to him that he did not have to stay there that long. He should go back to Seattle so he and I could be together to find a way to help our daughter.
That night he drove back to the airport. In the darkness, he saw a Ghost. He stopped his car for a moment.
Later, Nguyen shared that he felt he had already died. His soul was gone after the hospital visit. The Ghost appeared as the young boy in the middle of the road asking for help. That image woke him up. He needed to come back to life so he could save Mando, per Nguyen.
I stopped crying. I informed all families from both sides. I texted my two best friends. I emailed to HR asking to add Mando to my health insurance just in case she was out of Westpoint and would need health insurance coverage.
Nguyen was home. We hugged. We comforted each other, and we were gentle with each other so we could be together genuinely to help Mando. We made a solid rule that we both could not say anything that would shame or blame pointed at each other. Shaming and blaming would dig the hole of depression deeper and darker.
We needed to use solution-based conversation to get past this storm.
One day during that week when she was hospitalized, I gathered my courage and dried up my tears to call and talk to Mando over the phone she was allowed to use in the hospital. I asked if she wanted me to pick her up. She said, “If you want, Mom.”
People around us, family and friends, were supportive. The hospital referred Mando back to Seattle to participate in an outpatient program 30 minutes away from our apartment.
My friend gave me material to read about why teens cut themselve. My family formed a united front with a chat group to support the family.
Another best friend helped to take care of our dog, Happie, while we were back in New York to pick Mando up.
Mando's friends from swim team and her company called and talked to her every night to make sure that she was OK.
We went to the hospital. I was nervous. I waited in the waiting room.
I saw kids and teens come out, and parents picked them up.
She came out in her favourite yellow knitted sweater. She was quiet, gentle, but defeated. Her sweet smile squeezed my heart bleeding. We hugged and drove back to West Point so she could say goodbye to her swim team.
We stopped at Annapolis to stay overnight, then flew to Seattle.
The outpatient program required her to check in at 6 AM the next morning.
I was extremely worried. I slept next to Mando's room. The week before, we thought about taking the door away so we could see her from outside.
We were happy that we did not do that. Trust must be rebuilt. Love must be regained. Mistakes must be acknowledged and apologized for. The door stayed the same.
I woke up at 5 AM. She was up almost at the same time. The light from her room was up. I felt relieved. "She was still with us". I thought.
She was always reliable. She was always on time and ready to go.
The whole family started a new chapter the day she came back to Seattle on March 21, 2022.
Later on, I asked her what she thought when she woke up from the hospital: “ I got mad. I got angry because my plan failed.”
Then I heard she told her best friend, “Do not go to that hospital. They are bad. All they did was keep you alive. They did not help much”
I was shocked hearing that, but I prepared. I did not react. I listened carefully. I stepped back to hold her in my arms tightly during the darkness to wait for the storm and hurricane to pass.
When I saw the cuts flash across her arms, I composed myself. I asked her, “Feel good, huh?” She nodded. She felt validated. She did not feel rejected. When I held her in my arms, I intentionally made sure I held all the flashes and scars as well.
I made a deal with her: “ Give yourself 10 more years to see how your life turns out; if, after the deadline, you still think life is meaningless, we would go together. You are a part of me. If life is meaningless, we all go.” She agreed.
As we all know, we survived.
Things were better off. She was back. We went back to my friend's house to pick up Happie the day we arrived in Seattle. I would like to shout out to Happie. He is important to this story. When things did not make sense, life was meaningless, parents were asshole, the dog meant everything. Happie has been an emotional support to both of my children. Happie always knew how to be an unconditional, lovely brother that keep my daughter going at the darkest moment.
After 45 days of treatment at an outpatient clinic, she reached out to her previous coach of Seattle Club and went back to swimming. Swimming saved her life. At the time, going to swim was the one thing she knew how to do best. One thing that was under control, safe, and made sense. I believed that water has the property of healing. She said swimming calmed her mind and body. She started to do art and amination /clay and drawings to express herself and process her emotions. Yup, art helps.
She started to learn how to drive and found volunteer jobs and then worked at the restaurant for a while until she got back to study at Hawaii University in 2023.
Our family's journey toward healing was impossible without the support of so many people around. Family, friends, coaches from Navy, West Point, Mercerburg, Boston University (that coach later moved to become a head coach for Hawaii), and coaches in Seattle, hospital, school, and healthcare system from both New York and Seattle.
She said, " I did not know that I had so many people that love and care for me so much."
Last week we went to my high school reunion. Some friends invited me to the Mass in the newly built, beautiful Vietnamese Church. We all wore Vietnamese traditional ao dai. I am not Catholic, but I would go with my friends when I am invited.
I learnt wisdom from the Bible to save myself from the big storm.
I told one of my friends that I am better off now.
I continue to expect that the storm will come unexpectedly.
I continue to build the ark like Noah did.
I would need it in the future. I just do not know when. But I know for sure that I am not scared or running away. Not anymore.
We are ready!
Brother and sister at Army -Navy game and swim meet.
