RACHEL WHITNEY’S STORY

Actress and Producer / “THOUGHTS OF THERAPY”

Coming from a bi-racial family, and whose family was part of a camp, it does something to you as a Japanese person, as a Japanese-American person – when you’re imprisoned for the way you look and so looking that way is shameful. I would always ask my Grandma why she doesn’t speak Japanese anymore, why did she never go back to Japan after the war, because she grew up going back to Japan because she had family there, and then it was like, after the war, and after being sent to an internment camp, it was like they tried to distance themselves and wanted to assimilate. She wanted to be as American as possible – I mean she has Japanese landscaping in her house and eats with chopsticks – it wasn’t like so extreme where she abandoned everything Japanese, but she stopped speaking Japanese, she had 6 kids, she didn’t make any of them learn Japanese, and she never went to Japan with her family, and I wonder why.

We have a saying in Japanese which means “It can’t be helped” and that was their attitude towards the camps. And that isn’t just on my mom’s side of the family, it’s kinda like my dad’s side too. That we just aren’t going to talk about this because it’s just easier and better if we pretend it doesn’t exist.

I wonder if it’s a California thing or generational thing, and but like growing up, I’ve been in therapy for almost half my life but at the time, my 9th grade self would be mortified if she knew, I didn’t tell anyone – even my friends. I was never diagnosed with an eating disorder. My doctor – I lost so much weight and was unhealthy but thought I was healthy – my doctor was very concerned and told my mom I need to see a nutritionalist and a therapist. I started sobbing – I was so relieved. A lot of people go through this, it’s not about the food, it’s about the control – like why do you feel the need to want to control everything in your life. I remember when it started too – it was in 8th grade at school in my science class, and we were doing this experiment, and they needed two boys and two girls to volunteer to participate, and we needed to be weighed as part of the science experiment, and I remember immediately volunteering thinking ‘I don’t care’ – I remember very clearly where all of a sudden I felt this – and am sure there were other things building up to it – but it was kinda like I need to prove to other people that I can do this and yeah, it was exhausting so, it was more a relief that I can talk to someone. A lot of people hold onto that feeling that like I can’t talk to anyone as that means there is something wrong with me. So yeah, that was the start of my journey with therapy but yeah it evolves, but it’s not like there’s something wrong with you – it’s like this is what you’re working through and you work through different things. A few years ago it was really bad anxiety, to the point where it would cripple me, it felt like I had these thoughts in my head that I’m not good enough, I’m not smart enough, not beautiful enough – I don’t deserve to be doing this – it’s amazing how powerful our minds are and can really make you believe something – it’s not easy and it’s very uncomfortable and that’s what a really good therapist can help you with. Someone who can listen to you objectively, and push you if you need to be pushed, or help you see things from a different perspective if that’s what you need – and I’ve always been really hard on myself. But then me being hard on myself has also got me this, this, this far – so sometimes you feel you have to hold on to that because if not, then what else will you do.

It’s great that so many colleges offer these counseling services to a certain extent, and even in college, my therapist wanted me to go to a group that had eating disorders. I eventually ended up going and what’s great about group therapy is that other people are in the same situation that you are and so you realize other people are going through it, and going back to what I said earlier, that’s like internment camps where you think ‘well, my issues aren’t really that bad’. But you can talk through it all in group therapy. Otherwise it affects you in a negative way and you carry that with you. I think if I want to be the best version of myself, that’s better for everyone else too, everyone I’m interacting with, even if it’s not as bad as what other people are going through. So yeah, it’s really important to talk about it.