By Grace Chiang, Sept. 22, 2020

The night I submitted my college applications, I lay in bed and stared out my window for hours. I prayed to the moon that I would die soon. On paper, I looked perfect (at least to the adults who told me so): a perfect SAT score in one try, three perfect SAT II subject tests, 10 perfect AP tests, recipient of national awards, president of various clubs, avid volunteer, and founder of an education nonprofit. But I would rather have died than learn that “perfect” was still not enough to get into the colleges I’d set my sights on.

I didn’t know there were illnesses called depression and anxiety, and the adults around me never suspected, because I looked like I was on top of my life. When I would burst into tears, my father would shout at me to stop crying because, “No one is dead — save your tears for when I die.” And when I told my mom of my suicidal thoughts her first response was, “How can you be so selfish?” I felt unworthy of their love until I was perfect beyond reproach.

I attended Yale as a first-generation student supported through financial aid, worked at McKinsey in New York and London, and received two master’s degrees from Stanford. My fears of not being good enough for college seem unfounded now, but perhaps understandable given my upbringing.

Contrary to the stereotype of Asian Ivy League students, I did not have wealthy tiger nor snowplow parents. My extended family in Taiwan barely received an education, so in high school I was already among the most educated in my family.

What I did have are parents who, like many others, came into parenthood with their own wounds — and no knowledge of how to deal with them.

According to the Harvard team that developed the Adverse Childhood Experiences score (ACE), an instrument to measure childhood trauma, high ACE scores often correlate to challenges later in life, “because of the toxic stress it creates.”

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