Jessica Gimeno graduated in the top one percent of her high school class and gave the commencement address.
Despite that, she is one of countless Asian American women who suffers from depression. Young Asian American women display more depressive symptoms than any other racial/ethnic or gender group.
Jessica thought it was normal because when she wasn’t depressed, she said she was genuinely happy. She was stunned when a counselor diagnosed her as bipolar.
“What makes the darkness, what makes it worse than typical sadness is you can’t function very hard,” said Jessica. “It’s like trying to lift your whole body up everyday. Even things that are easy become hard.”
You can watch Jessica’s story in the clip below from MSNBC.