Before jotting down a piece of writing:
I have always been a skeptic of mental health. I knew it existed, but I never realized I would be impacted as much as I had when I was hit with my own mental health issues. My friends and I always joked about being depressed because of school, but again, I never realized the extent of how bad it could get if I were to continuously neglect my mental health. It wasn’t until the pandemic hit, that I had my run in with mental health issues. After staying home all day, repeating the same cycle of logging onto zoom for class, completing assignments, and sleeping, it realized just how important human interaction was for me. As much as I was able to pull my weight in school when I had to to preserve my grade, I just wasn’t happy. A loss of appetite became normal for me. The lack of motivation to put my best work forward in my assignment and slowed movements became apparent months into the pandemic.
_____________________
Excerpt from Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
“Astrid was dubious. ‘Really? But he was so adamant about wanting a divorce.’
‘Think about it–Michael’s deluded himself into thinking he’s been trapped in an impossible marriage for the past five years. But a funny thing happens when men truly get a taste of freedom, especially when they’re accustomed to married life. They begin to crave that domestic bliss again. They want to re-create it. Look, he told you he didn’t blame you, aside from blowing too much money on clothes. My instinct tells me that if you just let him be, he will come back.’
‘Well, it’s worth a try, isn’t it?’ Astrid said hopefully.
‘It is. But you have to promise me two things: first, you need to live your life the way you want to, instead of how you think Michael would want you to. Move into one of your favorite houses, dress however it pleases you. I really feel that what ate into Michael was the way you spent all yout time tiptoeing around him, trying to be someone you weren’t.’” (Kwan 488)
__________
After jotting down an excerpt:
With the whole pandemic happening, there seemed to be so much time for me to just think. I filled that time worrying about how I wasn’t doing enough to concrete my future. In other words, I felt my own resume was lacking, and there was so much more I could do to improve my character. However, I wasn’t being true to myself, and neither was I being fair to myself. We were living in a pandemic for god sake. Looking back, I don’t think I gave myself enough slack. I was being too hard on myself, and this eventually led to my burnout. With this struggle with my mental health, I also realized, it’s never a question of will it happen again. The question is when. But this time, I will know how to combat it. I will know how to face it head on.
______________
Reflection:
When I started my writing prompt, I was in a very disorganized state. I wasn’t sure how to go about introducing my teachable moment, and the fact that I didn’t know how to best portray my feelings or experience made the writing process very difficult. After I copied down an excerpt from my favorite book, Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan, I felt more secure about writing about my experience. By instinct, I began to emulate Kevin Kwan’s structure. Similar to the excerpt I jotted down, I began to reflect on why my mental health issues arose. This is similar to the author reflecting on Michael’s possible thought process in the divorce. Then, I noticed Kwan talking about what Astrid should do to improve her situation with her divorce. Because I appreciated the structure of this excerpt, I also started to reflect on what I must do from now on in order to improve my situation. All of this showed that, my quality of writing improved in terms of structure after copying my selected passage.