How hypnotherapy helped Asian Americans reconcile their identity

This year during APIA Heritage Month, we’re talking about mental health. Because for too long it has been stigmatized within our community. That’s why PS spotlights her mental health journey from an APIA perspective. Facing the shame of going to therapy, asking for help, and talking about how you feel. Read the story here.

I had never seen my mother so scared and silent until the day a stranger shattered my sense of safety. When I was about five years old, I was pushing a cart outside a grocery store when a man appeared with what appeared to be an assault rifle in his hand. He pretended to shoot his mother and me, yelling for us to die and go back to “our country.” No one helped us while he was simulating the attack. As a child, I knew that fight or flight was impossible. I couldn’t leave her mother and run away quickly, and I couldn’t fight this man. My body absorbed an overwhelming fear that I might die.

After my mother got me safely into the car and locked the door, I asked her why she had tried to kill us and if I should call the police. She didn’t explain and ignored my questions. We never talked about the incident again. That was my family’s unspoken rule. Some wounds are better buried deep inside, unnoticed.

When I was in elementary school, I was always the only Asian girl in my grade. Many of my white families didn’t invite us to gatherings, and my parents were strict about seeing my friends only once a week so I could focus on my schoolwork. Not only did I look different than my classmates, I was also expected to follow different cultural standards than the majority of my community. There was debilitating pain and despair as I learned that my classmates were facing hardships they would never experience. I was too young to realize that I wasn’t safe, that my parents wouldn’t always protect me, and that some people didn’t believe my family and I belonged in a place called home. I realized that.

Growing up in a traditional Vietnamese household, I was forced to bite my tongue and contain my emotions or face worse consequences. My body hurt even more because I carried so much inside of me. When I wasn’t attending class, practicing with my swim team, or going to debate practice, I preferred to sleep. When I slept, the world didn’t exist. My parents interpreted my behavior (which I now recognize as a symptom of depression) as ungrateful. They scolded me and told me it was worse when I was growing up in Vietnam. I tried to tell my parents several times that I had depression, but they ignored me. The word “depression” did not exist in my English/Vietnamese dictionary. I begged my parents to take me to therapy, but they thought therapy was something that privileged, entitled, pretentious people went to. My mother and father refused to accept depression as a health disorder. So when I went to university, I knew it was time to get some professional help and support. It was becoming very difficult to be happy.

Many of the therapists I worked with during college gave me a safe place to vent in the years that followed. They affirmed my feelings and helped me feel better after being gassed by my family for so long. Some people have offered workarounds. One person claimed that I cried and “vomited” during every session. Each of them helped reduce my symptoms of depression, but none of them addressed the cause of my pain.

In 2021, I stumbled upon Awaken Ananda’s Yelp reviews. Awaken Ananda is a practice dedicated to healing through hypnotherapy while incorporating other elements of body work, inner child healing, energy work, and spiritual awareness.

I was initially skeptical about working with a hypnotherapist and researched further. I learned that hypnotherapy is not about mind control or manipulation. It is different from the mechanical hypnosis like in Las Vegas. Instead, clinical hypnotherapy is a technique that puts individuals into a deep state of relaxation where they are more receptive to suggestion and can access their subconscious mind, according to the American Association of Health Professionals. I also felt safe working with Awaken Ananda founder Priya Rakhi, who is also Asian American. I thought she would understand the stigma against mental health in my family and the oppressive upbringing I faced.

I was nervous going into my first session with Priya. I’m an overthinker. I thought that for this to work, Priya would not be able to put me into a meditative state. But I was wrong.

Every session with Priya is a little different. Priya often begins by asking where in her body she feels discomfort. Sometimes it’s a lump in her throat, sometimes it’s a tightness in her chest, and at worst it feels like there’s a hole in her heart. She told me to keep focusing on that part of her body. This is when I start to fall into a meditative state. My mind is quiet and just there. Our real work begins.

During one session, it felt like molten rock was engulfing my body. Priya asked me, if magma could transform into anyone, anywhere, what would it be and where would it be? The lava inside me brought me back to my childhood. I saw my inner child, the younger version of me, walking around. I remembered the pink carpet of the old house, the cactus in the corner, and the old metal futon. I was about the same age when that guy attacked us.

In a state of deep relaxation, my inner child spoke when Priya asked me questions about my childhood. I spoke to Priya about what “home” means to the girl in me, a family left behind by their community, a family that imposes traditional values ​​on a daughter who tries to fit in, a family that forces a daughter from a harsh environment. I talked about my family who couldn’t protect me. The reality of being Asian in America.

As I continued to talk, uncovering my repressed emotions and buried memories through hypnosis, I saw my younger self picking up a red gas can. When Priya asked what my inner child was doing, I said, “I think younger me is trying to set the house on fire.” She asked, “Do you want her to do that?”

Before I could say, “No way,” I saw my younger self sprinting through my childhood home, dousing every nook and cranny with gasoline. I watched in horror as the layers of my subconscious finally did what I had wanted to do for a long time. It’s about letting depression, sadness, anger, and pain speak. May vengeance and retribution come. Let it all burn out. In talk therapy, I talked to her from a place of numbness. Hypnotherapy has allowed me to be fully present and feel within my body.

As I imagined my childhood home engulfed in flames, something changed. That disturbing image brought me a sense of relief I had never felt before. Everything that was trapped inside finally gained an outlet, like a pressure valve that releases steam.

I allowed the girl inside me to burn everything out. A girl who couldn’t resist or run away, had to push aside painful memories for a long time and pretend that everything was okay. I burned the house down with that fire until there was nothing left.

When I opened my eyes, Priya asked me how I was feeling.

“That was a lot,” I said. “Better.”

After the session, I felt lighter. I didn’t feel the weight of being the sometimes vulnerable daughter of immigrants in a new country on my shoulders. It was starting to heal.

It’s not over yet. There is still much to unpack from my childhood. But after resisting confronting my trauma for so long, burning the “crime scene” helped me reclaim my power, agency, and right to heal. Instead of sleepwalking through life from the debilitating paralysis that comes with depression, the fire woke me up. I feel like I’m finally free.

Crystal Bui is an Emmy-nominated Vietnamese-American news reporter who covered stories such as the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the Atlanta spa shootings that killed eight people, including six Asian women. , has covered some of the biggest news of the past decade. She is the author of her memoir, More to Tell, published in 2023, a biography of a journalist that became an Amazon bestseller.