I was born in Vietnam, a small developing country in South East Asia.

Most of people
only know about Vietnam through the War (Vietnam War) and some old images from
the internet. It has been more than 40 years since the civil war ended, and Vietnam has
being changed remarkably since then. After a political reform in 1986, Vietnam
transformed rapidly from one of the world poorest country to a lower middle income
country with the poverty rate of 3% in 2016, which dropped from almost 60% in 1993. It
means in only 2 decades, 40 million people escaped from poverty. Like many other
young developing countries, Vietnam also faces many political and social problems like
corruption, environmental pollution, health problem. For a better living standard, people
have to work harder than before which means they have to face many difficulties. There
are more pressures are putted on their shoulders. According to Dr. Nguyen Doan
Phuong, parson of Institute of Mental Health National, 30% of Vietnamese population
are having or had mental disorder within their life, and the pattern shows that the ideal
patient of metal disorder is rejuvenating recently.
It started with my struggles, I faced loneliness, which led me to depression and anxiety,
when I was in high-school. I had been always felt lonely and isolated since nobody
really understand me. However both education system and Vietnamese parent didnt
include knowledge about mental disorder or mental illness to teach children, young
adult in Vietnam grow up without the awareness of such a dangerous threat like mental
illness. Because I had no idea what I was facing at the time, so I did not take it so
serious. Even when the situation was getting worse, I did not know how to solve it or
even seek for help from other people. The only thing I did was trying to forget about it
and live with the mental wound which was left by loneliness. I was lucky enough when it
only happened in a very short period of time and the severity was not really the worst,
while many of other teenagers and young adults in Vietnam who is not as lucky as me,
has a more serious illness are still day by day fighting with their struggle by themselves
without knowledge or the help of society.
This book is dedicated to everyone out there who has a similar situation like me,
through this book I want to share my story, to raise the awareness and give you
knowledge about the phenomenon, how I could overcome it and even turned it into an
advantage. I hope this book can be useful to help yourself or give you basic skill to help
other people who suffer from the same situation.