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Linh Pham
UWRT 1101
Connie Douglas
10 September 2014
The Escape from Me
I think of life as an obstacle course, in order for you to feel accomplished you must first
pass through the cones without knocking them down or being hit in the gut by the balls. In
listening to Amy Tans lecture, she describes her development of thinking as a way to combat
the notion of death. She said, When you are faced with the prospect of death very soon, you
begin to think very much about everything. You become very creative in a survival sense (Tan).
Although my experience was not a life and death situation, but I have struggled with depression
and crawled out of the dark hole that is often overlooked. The one truth that I live by is when a
person has finally hit rock bottom, they are most motivated to climb back to the top. However, I
am aware that there are people who do not want to make the decision to climb back up after they
fall, but I chose to fight for myself.
My first experience with depression happened in seventh grade. My family is
Vietnamese, and they are heavily influenced by the words of Confucius. Culturally, children
have to obey their parents and have no say in family business. In fact, they have no say in
anything even when the consequences involve them. In Vietnamese society there is no such thing
as depression, where as in American society, the subject of depression is readily acknowledge.
My parents never worried about me being depressed, because I rarely cried in front of them. The
only kind of serious conversations they had with me involved school. They always reminded me
how much hope they have placed on my future. I was not only their child, but I was also their

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investment. As they are my investors, they were only interested in my profit, meaning my
grades.
After four years of living in the United States, my parents began to have problems. At
first they slept separately, then they divided the grocery bill, and lastly my mom moved out of
our two bedroom apartment. Before she left, I decided to sit down and talk to my parents. I told
them to stop treating me like a little child, and begged them to stop arguing and stay together.
Unfortunately that did not work out. They separated for almost a year, and the divorce was
finalized in March of 2009. At that time, it was three months before school ended. My focus
dropped, so did my grades, and my health. The only thing that went up was my stress level and
sadness. As soon as I got to school, I wanted to go home, and the only thing I wanted to do was
to crawl back under my blanket. In fact for those three months, I cried everyday. Even worse
than my parents no longer being married was that they did not tell me about their divorce. No
one told me that they signed the papers, or how they planned to share custody of their only child.
I learned of it the day after when my uncle-in-law broke the news to me.
After three months of tears and suicidal thoughts, I still did not seek help from anyone.
Luckily, my aunt Pam told me about her niece who attempted suicide several times, and she
reminded me that I still had a second family that will be there for me. Aunt Pam became my
personal motivational speaker and the person who influenced my belief. She told stories of her
search for freedom and prosperity.
After the fall of Saigon in 1975, our family lived in poverty, with little to eat and constant
harassments from the new communist government. She took the risk of leaving Vietnam in 1980
with her eight year old niece, Nicole. Their first stop after several months floating on a wrecked
boat was Hong Kong. A year after living in Hong Kong, Aunt Pam and Nicole made it to the

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United States of America. My aunt took on many different jobs; such as, cleaning houses, doing
nails, working on assembly lines for an airplane company, and she also managed to learn
English. It took a long time for her to have a good life along with Nicole, her new husband and
her newborn son. During her first couple of years of living in the U.S, she endured racism, and
missed her family dearly because she left home when she was eighteen-years-old. She suffered
greatly after her father passed away in Vietnam. Aunt Pam was selfless, because she sent money
home to support the family without spending that money on herself. She put her son through four
years of college, and sponsored my family to come to the U.S in 2006.
I was amazed by Aunt Pams ability to cope with sadness and pain. Unfortunately, she
was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007. I came home from school, and everyone was crying
including my strong Aunt Pam. However, she was not crying for herself but instead she cried
because she was worried about what would happen to her family if something were to happen to
her. She went through treatment, and after the first chemotherapy session, she was a wreck. She
lost all of her hair and some weight, but the one thing she held on to was her drive to live. Aunt
Pam would tell me that even when she could not do anything about her sickness, she wanted to
fight for her life. Her will to fight was the biggest force that helped her win the battle against
breast cancer.
Her story has motivated me to perserve. Randy Pausch describes two types of people; he
said decide if youre a Tigger or an Eeyore. Im a Tigger (Pausch). My aunt is a Tigger, she
never feel sorry for herself nor does she want anyone to feel sorry for her. When I went through
my depression, I thought to myself it would not do me no good to remain sad and hold a grudge
against my parents. When I thought about how much I suffered compared to what my aunt went
through, it made me feel silly. I was angry with my parents. I remember snapping at my mom

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and fussing at my dad, which further damaged the relationship that I had with them because of
their mistakes. My depression got worse, before I finally figured out No matter how bad things
are, you can make it worse (Pausch). I chose not to make the situation worse for myself because
I suffered in silence, until this day, I have yet to discuss my depression with my family.
Recently I watched a movie called The Book of Eli. The heroine is named Solara and she
lives with her mother and man named Carnegie abuses her and her mother. She loves her mother,
and she shows that love by sacrificing herself to protect her mom from being physically abused.
She shares with her mom the spiritual learning that she discovers from Eli. Solara decides to run
away with Eli because she wants to be free and away from the abusive Carnegie. After being
captured by Carnegie, Solara kills two men and wrecks a car to save herself. She has the will to
live her life. She does not want to go back to suffering and decides to save herself because if she
goes back her mother and she will be punished (Silver). Even though Solara has never killed
anyone before, she takes the risk of standing up for her life and she escapes Carnegie. Her action
inspires me more because Carnegie is the symbol of the depression I have faced.
After successfully regaining myself, I feel more empowered since I can make the
decision to be living because I want to be alive. Every day, I think about how I can further live
my life like my aunt did. I constantly remind myself that I have climbed out of a dark hole and I
should be proud of myself for making the decision to fight with everything I have. Quite
honestly, I do not think my belief is going to change at all, because it is not only a reminder of
my self-empowerment but also it is the respect that I have for my aunt.

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Work Cited
Pausch, Randy. The Last Lecture. Hyperion, 2008. Print
Silver, Joel, Denzel Washington, Broderick Johnson, Andrew A. Kosove, David Valdes, Gary
Whitta, Atticus Ross, Gary Oldman, Jennifer Beals, Michael Gambon, Mila Kunis, Ray
Stevenson, and la T. F. De. The Book of Eli. Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 2010.
Tan, Amy. Where Does Creativity Hide? Online videoclip. Ted Ideas worth Spreading.
Ted.com. Feb. 2008. 1 Sep. 2014.