#129 – TIGER MOM’S CRY: SILICON VALLEY SUICIDE CRISIS AND MYSTERY – DR. TRUDY

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Dr. Trudy

When the suicides happened in the most elite high school, Henry M. Gunn High School, an affluent community, also in the heart of Silicon Valley, the home of the most brilliant and successful inventors, invention and companies, it raises a red flag and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is conducting an investigation and trying to find out the root cause of the invisible, mysterious and contagious disease, suicide cluster. I was informed more than 10 years ago in Oregon that parents in Palo Alto have organized patrol teams around the Caltrain tracks but obviously the suicide symptom is not alleviated after a decade later.

Any news related to death is always shocking and grief stricken. Homicide is the violent action of an individual to take someone else’s life. Victims and victims’ loved ones may vent their shock and anger toward criminals, suspects or someone else. Suicide is the violent action of an individual who chooses death as an exit, an outlet or a statement.
It is always an unsolved mystery that plagued family members and loved ones about the sources of anger and pain which motivates the individual to end his/her own life. Parents who lost their child through suicide have the most difficult time in recovery. By witnessing a precious infant that parents gave birth, nurtured, protected and educated without reservation chose to stop all the hopes and dreams pre-maturely is simply heart-broken.

Basic Statistics about Gunn High School

  • Demographics: Asian 43.8%, White 38.7%, Hispanic 8.8%, Bi-Racial 6.2%, Others < 2.5%.
  • 54% of students scored a grade of 5 on AP tests.
  • The top 2 universities Gunn High School students go to: Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley.
  • Most of the deceased students were Asian American male during 2014-2015. Most of the deceased students were Caucasian male and female during 2009-2010.

Puzzling Questions

  • When does the teens’ youthful life turn into such unbearable misery?
  • Why do the teens with such rich learning environment see no future?
  • How come there is no light/no solution at the dark tunnel in such an illuminating Silicon Valley full of inventors and inventions to solve other people’s problems?

In the “diverse” and “open” American society, why do all the best high school students, especially students with Asian heritage and Caucasian students, are put through such a gruesome competitive and inhumane way in college admission process with quota system to limit their opportunity, especially in Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley?

Universities pay big money to recruit football players and coaches. Why can’t universities or high schools resolve the suicide crises of their best brains and future inventors since a decade ago?

How could academic stress push a young teen to the path of suicide?

Many parents are asking, “Will suicide clusters just limited in Gunn High School in Palo Alto or it has happened in other elite high schools and colleges without much public awareness (Note 3)?”

Most of the parents could not understand the stress level that their teens and young adults were undertaken. Let me explain it to you the sources and developing process of the internal academic pressure bomb.

Political, Social and Economical Backdrop

As a clinical psychologist with 30-year clinical experience, I would like to shed some light upon the academically brilliant teen suicide epidemic issue. As the reports indicated that the academic stress has become insane and unbearable in Gunn High School, Palo Alto, CA. Some complained about the effect of Tiger Mom parenting style and some blamed the influence of Chinese and Korean type of academic stress.

Take my high school experience as an example. I grew up in Taiwan which is a small island located in southeast of China. My father was a navy officer withdrew from China to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-Shek military after 1949. With limited finance and resource, most of the people migrated from China to Taiwan lost the homeland, their family in China, and everything. (Note 1) My father’s generation should be defined correctly as “defeated homeless refugees” in today’s political term after the wars with Japan and Chinese Communist Party.

The only way to become successful in a small island without any resource or connection is through education. Chiang Kai-Shek did a great job in setting up almost free education from kindergarten to high school for every child (Baby Boomer Generation) in Taiwan. Since most of the students with similar background want to be successful in basic education and later on college education, the best and fairest way for everyone to get into college is through College Entrance Examination.

The pressure of College Entrance Examination has escalated year by year and become insane and unbearable.

Every student was ranked by test score and all colleges were ranked, too (Note 2). A student’s score and his/her college ranking become his/her identity, pride and value. Similar academic stress has pushed many Japanese teens and Korean teens to suicide in Japan and Korea, too. There was no Tiger Mom or demanding parents at that time due to widespread economical hardship (poverty) that my parents’ generation had to endure.

The academic stress mainly arose internally from high aspiration for achievement, high self-expectation and extremely competitive academic environment among a large group of competitive students whose survival and success rely on his/her own academic excellence. Once a student was admitted by top universities and the top departments, it symbolized one’s caliber of intelligence, elite status, and academic brand through numerous past harsh tests. Students and parents assume that they would be awarded with promising career future. They also believe that they would harvest the abundant fruits of their long hard labor.

The Myth of Asian American Students’ Academic Success

Normal academic workload daily can grow into heavy workload and later on unbearable burden which can cause physical diseases, depression, and occupational depression like most of middle-aged professionals in highly competitive high-tech work environment. Asian immigrant parents work at high-stress Silicon Valley without much resource or connection in a new society, like their defeated homeless refugee parents, and uphold the same belief system and academic dreams unto their off-springs unconsciously.

Once the chronic academic stress persists and goes beyond the limit of tolerance threshold, an individual will suffer sleep disorder, sleep deprivation, physical and mental fatigue, declined cognitive capacity in attention span, comprehending, reasoning, memory retention, analysis, problem-solving, judgment, and he/she walks around campus like an emotional zombie.

The worst symptom is the loss of pleasure and positive sensory reactions. It is hard for an adult or a teen to understand or accept the sudden “failure” or “decline” even with consistent excellence in the past. It might be considered as losing face shame and devastating defeat in the competitive academic games. Any setback, such as a falling grade, a rejection, any disqualification can be interpreted as a failure, or a beginning of an end to the final glory. It triggers a sense of worthlessness.

The vulnerable teen with growing sexual hormones but limited time for social interactions and relaxation tends to have tunnel vision with no outlet or solution. Down ward negative spiral thought leads to disillusion, despair, and endless misery. Ending life seems to be a comforting and suggestive option to stop the misery from continuing.

Silent Tiger Moms’ Cry

Are there other approaches in addition to Caltrain track patrol to protect the brilliant youth from harming themselves?

Is it time for Tiger Moms to break silence, roar, and break the Model Minority stereotype?

Is it time for Tiger Moms and Tiger Dads in Palo Alto to get together to fight for their young teens’ survival and their own silent suffering and sacrifice in the high stress Silicon Valley instead of pressuring themselves and their young teens to internalize the silent discrimination through fierce competition.  This is often exacerbated by what is perceived as discriminatory quota policies to limit the opportunity for academically outstanding Asian students from receiving high-quality college education that parents’ taxes pay for?

Asian American young lives should matter, too, shouldn’t they? Asian engineers’ family lives should matter, too, shouldn’t they? Silicon Valley high-tech workhorses’ brain health should matter, too, shouldn’t it?

There does not seem to much protest on campus, on streets, or even in the media about the silent death walk into the train tracks and the silent crying and burning inside the elite college dorm room?

We are going to see much more leadership for affirmative action for outstanding young Asian Americans? Should Tiger Moms turn their silent cry into a loud roar? What a lonely, isolated, hopeless, helpless and heart-broken way to end a brilliant young life without any support or voice from the society except the regular train horn calling nearby!

Notes:

Note 1: Majority of military service members before 1949 in China came from wealthy families and businesses, land owners whose youth chose to defend their land, families, assets, and business during the 8-year-long war against Japanese invasion.

Note 2: Top ranked colleges in Taiwan were/are public-funded colleges with affordable tuition: US$300 per student per year.

Note 3: The rate of student suicide at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) continues to be notably higher than the national average (3/17/2015). Asian American student suicide rate at MIT is quadruple in National Average (3/20/2015). A female MIT student, Elizabeth Shins, committed suicide in her dorm room through burning in April, 2000. A Boston Globe study of college suicides, 1990-2001 indicated that among 12 schools that made data available, including Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, University of Michigan, and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, etc., MIT had the highest suicide rate. 74% of MIT students surveyed by the 2001 MIT task force said that they had an emotional problem that interfered with their daily lives.

Bio:

Dr. Trudy is a psychologist in California and Oregon working with Asian American communities.  Her website: www.DrTrudy.com.  Tel: 503-439-0514 or 503-895-8360

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