Reading The School for Good Mothers and meeting Jessamine herself sent me down the path to finding the mantra that came to me in Inyoung’s house. I pushed through and “got better” on my own over the course of about half a year, even though I still had semi-frequent panic attacks and nightmarish thoughts about someone harming me or my baby even two years after I gave birth.

Although our different cultures have rarely been much of an issue between us, it has been very interesting seeing the cultural differences, particularly with his parents, when we had children. Giving birth makes the body “cold,” so in the first postpartum month, new mothers are not supposed to drink cold water, go outside, or shower, all of which can make your body “cold. As the growing pressure to be beautiful gets even heavier in Asia, is it right to pin these expectations onto mothers as well?Before I had my second child, my mom also told me “not to cry as much” because it was bad for my eyes (due to the tears affecting my hot/cold balance). Decades of being mistaken for other Asians, of being asked where I’m from, of rarely seeing Asian authors on best-seller lists had taken its toll; I stopped looking to books to make sense of my Asianness.

Amy Tan brought the Asian American mom to center stage, and in her, I saw my grandmother and my mother. When my husband and I came home from the hospital with our daughter, my mom and several pounds of ginger greeted us. Critics have swooned over the movie’s hot dog fingers, the butt plug fight scenes, the trippy zigzags through possible worlds, but stripped of its zaniness, the indie sleeper dominating the Oscars is essentially the story of an aging Asian American mom confronting her very real flaws to reach her daughter. Zauner didn’t just articulate the profound connection between food and our moms, she captured the zeitgeist of second-generation Asian immigrants like me—how our moms are the source of our Asianness, how losing our moms feels like losing our culture, the strange precariousness of our heritage. While many people seemed pleased with the competition, others seemed uncomfortable with the whole ordeal.Had I known that PPD symptoms included anger, among other things, then I might have been able to catch it sooner. The things your MIL said about taking care of the baby make me chuckle because my mom is exactly the same way! However, despite some cultural barriers in getting support from my mother, my primary hurdle in getting help had little to do with my cultural background but more with poor education. It's kind of her way to be a bit guarded and constantly second-guess herself if she's somehow intruding.

According to traditional Chinese medicine, our bodies have a “hot” and “cold” nature, which must be balanced for good health. I hope that my story will enable other women, particularly Asian women who may feel a cultural stigma against mental illness, to recognize that their struggles are not just personal flaws that they should bury, and to find the courage to seek help.Even though this was not my cultural norm, there were things about confinement that were definitely helpful, especially having someone else look after all the meals and cleaning! Life takes an unexpected turn when she becomes pregnant and must face the possibility of becoming a mother and marriage with her boyfriend. But to the outside world I was fine because I couldn’t let the emotions our, or show people that I was struggling. Too bad your mom didn't feel comfortable sharing her PPD struggles with you so that you could be better prepared. At the same time, I was stressed because my mom seemed to be watching my every move, not giving me space to learn to be a mother on my own.

My mother-in-law stayed with me for the 'confinement' period just after I had my first, when I struggled with some PPD. Today we’re so happy to welcome Cat, a Chinese-American Warrior Mom, who blogs at Postpartum Thoughts.Everything you see today is built by Asians, for Asians to help amplify our voices globally and support each other. In my neighborhood alone, the Chinese takeaway I walked past on the way to my daughter’s school was vandalized.