How to tell your Asian parents you love them. The Asian Mental Health Podcast Episode 2

👋Welcome back to the Asian Mental Health podcast!

For this episode, we’re joined by Natcha Limpianunchai who's a registered psychologist and ex-international student based in Melbourne, to discuss all things love, affection and care, within Asian families.

This episode answers a question submitted to us from the Shapes and Sounds community that in essence asks, how can we show love to, and feel loved by our Asian parents especially when words of affection may not be their love language?

You’ll also learn:

• How Natcha stayed connected with her family overseas during those dark lockdown years via music and creativity⁠

• Recognising and appreciating care and affection external to Western ideals⁠

• Strategies from a psychologist (a little uncomfortable but nonetheless effective) to implement changes to the ways in which you might communicate with your family⁠

You can read the transcript for this episode below.

As we’re brand new, we’d love for you to help us in three ways:

• Download this episode so you can refer back to these tips and strategies when you need!

• Join us in our mission of destigmatising mental health conversations in Asian communities by sharing this episode with your friends and family!

• Connect with us on instagram @justshapesandsounds

Transcript:

Shapes and Sounds acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the lands on which we’re recording and connecting with you from, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation and we pay our respects to Elders past and present.

Asami: Welcome to the Asian Mental Health podcast, brought to you by Shapes and Sounds.

Marcus: Hello, Asami.

Asami: Hey Marcus.
Marcus: So for today's episode, I thought we'd talk a little bit about Asian family dynamics. And at least for me personally, family is such a nuanced and heavy topic. And I think just from hearing from my friends, it's a very heavy topic for a lot of people in the Asian community as well.

Asami: Oh my God. I would say it is really like the number one question that we get, right?
Marcus: For sure
Asami: Everything is about Asian families. I think I just had a notification yesterday saying that any post where we put the hashtag Asian parents, they’re like our highest hitting post. So that really says something, right?
Marcus: That makes sense, yeah.
Asami: And I think what's interesting about families in this context is that we really learn a lot about our cultures through our families, but our families also have their own cultures and their own sets of values. And, I feel like that can get really confusing, right?
Marcus: That's yeah, that's really tricky. And I think it just becomes this kind of nonstop loop of family influencing and culture and culture influencing family. And then in the middle is us, like we're just trying to juggle all those external forces of family and culture and then our own values, our own experiences. It’s just so confusing. And I guess something else I did want to bring up today as well, relating to family, is how would we sort of navigate the gap between physical and emotional connectedness? And I think it's especially applicable to like international students who might be listening today.
There's often so much talk around how different generations express vulnerability. I think at least from my personal experiences, my parents would always be like, we went through this struggle and this struggle and this struggle, and now you're in this country where you have so many opportunities, like, why are you struggling? Why are you complaining? And it's just that they don't understand the struggles we go through. They might not see, say, like social media as like something that could perpetuate the struggle because all they think is that we just go on our phones all day and do whatever, but that can sort of be such a struggle for so many people in our generation as well.
Asami: Yeah, especially if you've grown up in a different cultural context to your family. We really are working with different values and different kind of norms, I guess.
Marcus: For sure.
Asami: And it's just so hard to be able to navigate them and then to maintain good family relationships. And it's really complex. So to dive deep into this topic, we have Natcha Limpianunchai here with us. Natcha is a psychologist originally from Thailand, but moved to Melbourne in her teenage years as an international student. She runs Journey and Thrive Psychology just out of Carlton in Melbourne, and is particularly interested in working with culturally diverse populations, exploring mind-body connections, and supporting people through anxiety. Through her work, she also draws on many different theories and practices. But at the end of the day, Natasha values a person-centered approach as key.
Marcus: Welcome, Natcha. Thank you for being here today.
Natcha: Hi and thank you so much for having me today.
Marcus: So we'll just dive right into the first question that came anonymously through the Shapes and Sounds community from an international student.
“So living alone in Australia and being away from family is hard. They don't always show affection through words. So how would I engage with them to fill that emptiness?”
Natcha: Yeah, I think it is really common for Asian families to not tend to show affection through words, right? Like it tends to be through actions or through time. But those things are harder when you're physically not together. There is a way to communicate what you really want, like affection through words. However, that might be more of a long term thing and requires more effort, like you said, like it's a difficult, uncomfortable conversation. So let's start with the easier ways first.

Natcha: I think it's possible to recognize affections that comes through between the lines. So you know those questions that might seem annoying from your parents like, have you eaten today? What did you do? Have you made any friends? Who do you hang out with? What did you do? What did you learn at uni? Those things, like when you're physically living with your family, it might sound like almost nagging, right? But actually when you're physically far away from them, they just want to know what your life is like and they're interested in your experience. So if you can reframe how you see those mundane, everyday questions and see the beauty of that. And I think also recognizing that it's not a one-way thing anymore, it's not just your parents wanting to know what time you'll get home. You can also ask them questions about what they are up to. And even though you might not have physically shared experience, you can share your daily experiences in that way. And I think there’s a lot of kind of underlying affection through that.

Asami: I really like that. Like it makes me even think about, like, have you finished your assignments? You know what I mean? Like the nagging as well. Is that kind of what you're saying? Like, you could reframe the kind of like it seems like a criticism, but maybe it's not.
Natcha: Yeah, maybe it's out of affection and care. But that emptiness that this person was talking about, I think I felt it the most the year that I stopped being a student. So it was 2020, I was working full time and I was living alone. So when lockdown happened, I started working from home and living alone and not knowing when I could see my family again. That was really hard, and I feel like there were times where words of affection could only go so far. Like theres only so much of I really miss you. Wish we could travel again soon. Like, how's the Covid situation? Like, I got sick of that really quickly as well because it became repetitive and we all got stuck in that kind of Covid despair.

So my family and I started doing this thing. So we all musicians, so we would play a song, we would learn a song and play it on the piano, or on the guitar, or sing and record it and sent it to each other. And that was actually a really nice way of connecting. And I think it's that aspect of shared experience and shared interest and shared enjoyment that, you know, you might have to be a bit more creative about it. Yeah, I think besides music, my dad loves movies and shows. So he kept calling me to give me like show recommendations and like reviews without spoilers. Yeah. And because, you know, sometimes you might run out of things to talk about if you're not physically together. Right?

It's nice to find those little moments of shared interest and yeah, creates a sense of emotional connectedness, like you said before.
Marcus: Just to sort of touch on that point, I think, well, I don't know what sort of family the person who submitted this question came from, but what you would do in this situation to sort of foster connectedness when you are away from your family. I think that definitely does vary family to family. And I think it's important to think back to what do your family already do? Yeah. Like what sort of ways have they shown you affection? Maybe that might not be a way that aligns with what you need, but if you can sort of tap into that and reflect, oh, like there are these little instances that they do show affection, then you might sort of try and build off that. But obviously I acknowledge there are families who like, just don't show affection at all. And then to approach that kind of conversation would be very different.
Asami: Yeah, a lot of my family live overseas as well, and I would say that there's definitely not many words of affection at all. And what I've learned kind of the hard way over a long period of time is like, often I forget that I'm like one half of the relationship between me and my family. And so if I'm wanting something from them, it's really important that I also have that really uncomfortable conversation to be like, actually, this is what I want. Like it's Covid. I've got like, I do not know what you're up to. You need to tell me and message me. And often I would say that those experiences have gone like really poorly, like the conversations have not been well-received at all. And then I get really upset, like, why did I even bother? But then it's like you're just planting these seeds and then later on a lot later on. Then sometimes you kind of see, like the sprouts and what you tried to plant years ago.
Marcus: Yeah, yeah. That just reminds me of something that I sometimes think about. It's important to remember that your parents learned like sort of how to show affection through their parents and then their parents learnt it from their parents. So I guess that emotional expression is influenced by so many things that are out of their control. And I think something interesting to think about, especially in the context of Asian diaspora, is that I think a lot of the times, these sort of emotional regulation techniques, the ways that Asian families show affection, it might be influenced by like war or like trauma, like experiences of going through trauma. So then there comes this inability to explicitly share emotions, and that forms a little bit of a protective mechanism for them even. So, at least for me, taking on that perspective allows me to be a bit more empathetic and understand why parents might not be able to meet personal emotional needs. And yeah, so it's all about rewiring these habits they have. Like, you can't just tell them, oh, I need more affection from you. And then next day they'll change. Like they might have to make a forceful effort to change that. And that might sound unnatural, but that change will definitely take a really, really long time.
Asami: And like generational changes essentially, right? Yeah. And I think like so in that like we've identified that that change might take a really long time. I think you still need support within that time that you're waiting right for things to shift. But I don't know, Natcha like, could you share strategies about how people could perhaps build community and connect with others who have similar experiences? And that's kind of you're holding ground as you're waiting for change to occur?
Natcha: Yeah, I think that's a great idea. I'll start from my personal experience first. So I was quite fortunate in that my journey of being an international student in Australia was quite gradual. I went to boarding school and then when I started uni I went to residential college, which, if you don't know, it's basically like an on campus student accommodation. So I was surrounded by other students who were also away from home, either international or students from the country, country Australia. So yeah, being surrounded by an available community with lots of activities and everyone was kind of in the same boat, that helped in building meaningful friendships and a community. But everyone's journey is different and you don't have to do exactly what I do. So let's say you're already here. You're living in an apartment by yourself. I'm sure through your universities or courses that you're studying, there might be some students clubs or groups or meet ups that's available. I think, you know, putting yourself out there based on your interests, like, you don't have to change who you are, but be clear with what you like, who you are and start to build a community through there.
Asami: Yeah, that sounds great. And how do people find things like this? Is that through their uni or?
Natcha: Yeah, with uni most unis would have like student union or kind of like that central associations of clubs. Right. You can start there. I think that's also outside of uni. There's plenty of like sports group or for the non-athletically inclined such as myself like book clubs for example. And yeah many other interest-based groups. There’s apps like Meetups as well, where you can tailor meet ups or groups based on different interests.

Although one thing that I would say is when people are away from their family or you’re being in a new country, sometimes that could leave us in a vulnerable position as well. So like, by all means be open to new experiences and push the boundaries a bit, but you don't have to do anything that you're uncomfortable with. So like don't accidentally join a cult or anything that doesn't feel right. Yeah.
Marcus: That would be bad.
Asami: Let's let's just reiterate that. Yeah. Do not join a cult.
Natcha: Yeah.

Marcus: So Natcha. For those who are experiencing loneliness, what are some strategies that you've got that you usually share with your clients to help them sort of express their need for affection?
Natcha: Yeah, I think this is the section of uncomfortable conversations, right? that we talked about earlier. I think it's important to be clear with yourself first, with what do you actually need in order to feel affection? Is it “I love you, I miss you, wish we could see each other soon”. Or is it “It's okay to find this hard. It's okay to have a break”. Because what your family think you want to hear and what you actually want to hear might be different. And sometimes I don't even know what I want to hear. Like, sometimes I need to sit back and reflect and just ponder on my own thoughts and feelings a bit. So that would be a good place to start. And Asami, I think you touched on this before, that you know, you’re half of the relationship. So would it be easier if you start doing it first, saying the things you want to hear and telling your family that you know, I wish we can share moments like this more because look how lovely it is. You know, it might be a bit awkward.
Asami: Yeah.
Natcha: But yeah, you know, you've got to start somewhere. I think another way as well is if it's really hard to say, maybe you can type it. Like, maybe it's easier to express yourself through messages or email if you need a paragraph or something. Yeah, I think find the best way for you to communicate and figure out what it is that you want from them, and see if you can start doing it first. Yeah.
Marcus: Yeah. So I guess it's just really important that we do validate our own feelings, our own needs. And just because we're not getting it from the environment we're in doesn't mean we can just suppress it. And it's not valid. Like those feelings are valid. And loneliness is something that's really hard to deal with.
Coming off the point, you were saying Natcha as well. I think it's important that we do take responsibility for our own emotions, that we take action when we do need something that the environment's not giving us, like when our families aren't giving us that affection.
Natcha: Yeah, definitely.
Marcus: Well thank you Natcha, for sharing all those tips from a psychologist’s perspective, from what it sounds like, there are a lot of different ways that can be beneficial for international students to better sort of navigate those feelings of loneliness and to understand more specifically where that loneliness or anxiety might be coming from. And I'm sure going to therapy might help these people to find more personal ways to engage with family that might be living far away.

Given the cost of living crisis, and I'm assuming for international students it might be hard to already like, support themselves, therapy might not be very accessible to them. So another question we've gotten directly from the community is,
“If an international student did want to see a psychologist, would they be able to use international student insurance to help with the costs of seeing a psychologist?”
Natcha: So the international students health insurance is essentially a private health insurance. The level of coverage that you get depends on the policy that you took out. So, the best way to go about it would be to find that email in your inbox that confirms you've got overseas international students health insurance, email that email address, or call that number, and ask them or actually in that document it might already say, here's your coverage. You've got hospital, GPs, maybe psychologists, maybe not. You've just got to check.
Marcus: So in terms of the coverage, would it also vary depending on how much of the session fee they would cover?
Natcha: Actually it differs based on the policy as well. So it's a bit hard for me to advise. So I think the best way would be find a psychologist that you want to see and then send their details, send their website, perhaps to your insurer and ask, do you cover this? Does my policy cover this? It might be partially, might not be the full session, but yep, the easiest way is to check with your insurer.
Marcus: Right. Okay. So then if say like they find out that their level of coverage doesn't sort of cover the costs of seeing a psychologist, what might be some sort of alternative services that an international student might be able to access if they did want to see a professional?
Natcha: Yeah. So most universities or educational provider would have student counseling available. The only thing is you might have to wait a bit, like it might be like a month or so before you can get an appointment, but that's usually free of charge. It might just be time limited, so you might only get a specified number of sessions through uni. So that's one option.
Asami: Yeah. And I think like some unis now. Right. Like you can actually request different languages. Can you?
Natcha: I think it depends on just whoever they've got available at the specific university clinic. Yeah, I think nowadays unis probably do try to hire people who are multilingual. But yeah, it really depends. It's just like the insurance question. It depends. The easiest way to find out is to check. I remember being a student myself trying to book in with the uni counseling clinic, and I remember thinking, oh, the wait is so long, like it's a month. But actually the longer you don't book, the longer the wait is, so just book. In the meantime, there might be some help line or other kind of support services that are short term that you can use.
Asami: Yeah, just get that booking right. Just secure it and four weeks will pass quickly. Yeah. I think also I want to add there like you know how sometimes the unis it's kind of just a random allocation of who's available, which is great. And sometimes you get really lucky. But it's also nice to point out that if you do find yourself with a therapist and you just do not click, you can actually request another person as well. And that might take time but you do have agency in that. And if you want to be really, audacious or bold, but this is actually like it shouldn't be bold in any way, but you can when you find yourself with a therapist that you've been assigned with, you can actually ask, like, do you know my cultural context? Like, do you know anything about the culture from which I come from, which is impacting my mental health? And you can just watch their reaction and then use that as an assessment of whether they might be a good fit for you.
Natcha: And actually, I do tell that to my clients. I always tell everyone that, the first session is just to see if we're the right fit, if you're comfortable with me, if you feel like we're not the right fit, that's fine. Like you're not locked in for a specified number of sessions. I won't be offended. I will even write a letter to help refer you to someone else if you need. So, yeah. Don't feel like you are locked in. That's a great point Asami.
Asami: And you really won't be offended?
Natcha: No, no.
Asami: I'm sure people would be like, oh, I feel bad Natcha’s so nice.
Marcus: Yea, it’s like oh I already used up this person’s time.
Asami: So yeah. Anyway, I digress.
Marcus: But yeah, I think at some uni clinics you can choose the therapist you want to see as well. But yeah, like I just know some of the booking systems are like really crazy and you just have to like really hope for the best.

So you mentioned there were some like free services that like, people might be able to access in the meantime, like online, chat services or like helplines. Do you have some examples you could provide?
Natcha: Yeah. So organizations like Beyondblue or Headspace do have online free support. I think it's in the form of chat. And there's even helplines, so over the phone like lifeline for example, that's a crisis support line, 24/7, you can call them.
Asami: So, Natasha, like, just before we progress, you kind of touched on crisis support. Could you just tell everyone, like, what exactly you mean by that?
Natcha: Yeah. Actually, I called lifeline once, and I wasn't in a crisis. I called them, and I said, like, I'm really sorry to take up your time, but I really want to double check what you define as crisis and who can call you so I can tell my clients, I can give them accurate information. And they said, you know, it's meant to be for people who feel that they are at risk of harm to themselves or to others, and they need immediate support. However, if you are really distressed and it's like 10 p.m. at night, you know, you can't get an appointment right now. You're not sure who to turn to or who to call. You're welcome to call Lifeline as well. They are open 24/7. The only thing with chat services or helpline is that it's meant to be a short term support. So you get a different person every time. It's not meant to be ongoing, but it could be really helpful if you're in a crisis or if in the moment you really need that support and it's hard to get an appointment straight away.
Marcus: And I just learned about this recently but if you do want to seek services in another language that's not in English, you could actually call the translation interpretation services number. And then tell them I want to speak to Lifeline, give them lifeline number, and then they will sort of connect you with like the crisis supporter. And then you can speak in your own language. The translator will translate it to the crisis supporter, and then the conversation can occur like that as well.
Asami: Yeah. Wow, that's important to know because sometimes, like, even if you're doing your whole education or you're living in Australia, then when it comes to the real crunchy topics
Marcus: Yeah sometimes it’s just hard to explain.
Natcha: Yeah. I actually get that quite a lot because people would say that, you know, even though I can speak English well, it's easier to express like the really deep stuff in my first language. And I speak Thai, I can provide counseling in Thai. My Instagram is English only, but I've got a Facebook page in Thai. And I post content in Thai explaining what counseling is, what depression is. So yeah, I think resources like Shapes and Sounds for example, you do list different languages that the counselors can speak, so that could be helpful if you would like to see if there's a counselor or therapist who can support you in your first language.

Asami: Natcha. Like you sit at this really interesting intersection like you studied here as an international student. And obviously you studied psychology and now you are a psychologist supporting international students as well. And I suspect within that process there was a journey of you working through any stigma around mental health yourself. And I was wondering if you could just talk to that experience a little.
Natcha: Yeah, I think it's definitely been a journey. I think like my immediate family understands and is quite supportive. But when I was studying this and I was talking to one of my grandma and she meant like totally well-meaningly, she was like, but why are you studying this? Like, so do you want to work with crazy people? Like, what does this mean? I think generally with Thai culture, like lots of other Asian culture, mental health is quite stigmatized. I'm going to see a counselor or a psychologist. It's not like what normal people would do. I think the younger generation is a lot more open. However, I think we've still got a long way to go with the general public. And I think as a psychologist I've been advocating a lot. So just educating people on what it is like, you know, in Australia, it's as seeing a psychologist is really common. It's like going to see a GP when you're unwell physically. So when you need more support mentally, you go see a psychologist.
And stigma comes from not understanding it well enough, right? So educating people helps to increase their understanding and hopefully reduce stigma. And in the process of doing that, I felt that it was actually quite healing for myself as well. It inspired me to see my own counselor because I feel like, yeah, it would be helpful to, work through my own things before I help other people work through their own things. So yeah, it's definitely been a journey both professionally and personally, but it's been a really rewarding journey so far.
Asami: And I think, like even though you are a psychologist and you understand mental health and you work in this field of mental health, but you yourself have experienced like having to try and communicate with your family and trying to ask for what you need. Like you're just a human trying to work out how to build like good family relationships, right. And navigating the human experience. So we really appreciate you sharing your story with us. And I think from this episode, I'm sure a lot of people will really be interested in learning more about you or wanting to work with you. So can you just outline where people can find you online?
Natcha: Yeah, so my website is journeyandthrive.com.au. I'm also on Instagram at Journey and Thrive. And yep my email, my contact details, my phone number, everything is on my website.
Asami: And just a quick plug from us. You can also find Natcha on the Shapes and Sounds website, under our Asian Australian Mental Health Practitioner list as well.

All right. Well thank you everyone. Thank you so much for listening into this episode. And thank you, Natcha. You're a wonderful guest.
Natcha: Thanks for your time.
Asami: And thank you, Marcus, for planning this whole podcast too.
Marcus: Thank you
Asami: And for everyone listening, please be sure to follow us on your favorite streaming platform, and if you'd like to join us in destigmatising and normalizing mental health conversations in Asian communities, please be sure to share this episode with your friends and family. You can tag us on socials at Just Shapes and Sounds. But yeah, thank you. We'll see you in our next episode.

Asami: This show is a production from Shapes and Sounds. It’s hosted by Asami Koike, Marcus Lai and Oscar Abe, and produced by Yeo Choong.