Brown Girl Therapist SF — This was the moment when I decided that I would start conquering my fear of heights (and not just physical ones). I was going to take a leap of faith and do something different. I was inspired by the Albert Einstein quote, “The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.”

In July 2015, I finally told my parents the news: I’m moving out.

Not down the street. Not to downtown Chicago. Not somewhere where they could stop by at any time. I’m moving to New York City.

They didn’t believe me at first. In fact, I told them way earlier that I was going to move to New York City for grad school. They knew I got accepted into a couple of grad programs there. I had told them I got accepted into Teachers College Columbia University and that I was moving forward with their offer. They didn’t believe that I would be able to make the move. After all, the temp job I worked all summer would not be enough to cover rent in New York. I had asked them for financial help, but my parents gave it to me straight: they could not afford to cosign a lease with me in a city as expensive as New York. I was on my own. “There’s no way she’d make it work!”, they likely thought. That entire summer my parents and I acted as if everything was normal, as if I’d eventually realize that my goals were a pipe dream.

Little did they know that I was making silent moves. I saved up enough money for first month’s rent and deposit for the tiniest closet-spaced room right by Columbia. After one very short visit with a broker, I was connected with four random young women from different parts of the country and we all agreed to sign a lease together. It was official: I’d be moving to New York City on August 1, 2015. I booked my one way flight, confirmed all my courses for my first semester at Teachers College, and two weeks before the move, I broke the news to my parents: I’m leaving for school by the end of the month. When there’s a will, there’s a way.

My parents weren’t just surprised. They were shocked and disappointed. The silent treatment was suffocating. We couldn’t even be in the same room without them pretending I wasn’t there. They would even pretend to be asleep as I was trying to talk to them! They couldn’t stand to look at me. They really made me feel like I was intentionally hurting them, like I was doing something wrong, when all I wanted was to follow my career goals. I wasn’t doing drugs. I wasn’t being lazy. I wasn’t doing anything considered unproductive. I just wanted to prove myself!

If you grew up in a culturally conservative or religious household just like I did, you’re probably already familiar with the silent treatment, or other ways our immigrant parents guilt-trip you into believing you’re doing something wrong. For many women who come from cultural communities, you might have been told either implicitly or explicitly that your job is to stay closer to the family and be in the home until you’re married, even after college graduation. For many immigrant families, it is common to live in the same home as our parents and our grandparents. But what happens if you dare to dream differently, or if you just simply need more physical space from your family? Are you abandoning your culture, or are you learning to appreciate it from a distance.

This blog post is for the women who have ever asked themselves, “Am I a bad daughter for wanting to move out?”

Why Moving Away Can be Difficult

For many immigrant families and cultural communities, the home provides stability. One of the most beautiful things about Western society is the emphasis on individualism. You can do anything you set your mind to, and if you want to do things differently, you can if you work hard enough. But sometimes too much of anything can be problematic. For instance, what happens if you work really hard, and things still don’t work out? What happens if you move out and you can no longer afford the rent? What happens if you have nowhere else to go, or no one to turn to? Who is looking out for you, or there for you when things get rough? In highly individualistic societies, there is often no safety net. For immigrant and cultural communities, the family is a safety net. That’s why so many cultural and immigrant families rely on living with each other; there’s a guaranteed community of social support. We are the village.

But we are also not a monolith. Community is not the same thing as herd mentality, and we don’t all want the same things out of life. Having a cultural community doesn’t mean you have to do what’s always been done, or that you’re not allowed to want to move out. When everyone around us is doing the same thing, it can be easy for us to believe that what we want for ourselves is “wrong”.

All healthy relationships require some amount of emotional or physical distance in order to maintain connection and closeness. This can be as small as spending more time in your room or outside the house, moving across the street, or as big as moving away to another city. But for many immigrant families, moving out is unfamiliar, and can be seen as a threat to the family. Something that isn’t a big deal for white or more American families can be a huge rupture for ours. You’re not doing anything wrong. You’re just doing something different. But different doesn’t automatically mean “bad”.

Daring to Dream Bigger

Immigrant families value stability, and the idea of dreaming bigger than that can be a huge risk. We’re taught to just be grateful for what we have, and that if any problems come up, to just “think positive”. Stepping outside of your comfort zone had no guarantees. This is called toxic gratitude and toxic positivity.

Toxic gratitude is gratitude that’s used to humble you from you goals, or to silence any concerns that you have about your life. This can look like parents or relatives telling you to, “Just be grateful for what you have”, or “Other people have it worse. You should be grateful!” The impact of toxic gratitude is emotional suppression. It teaches you to suppress how you feel, and to believe that your problems don’t matter in comparison to other people. While toxic gratitude can be used unintentionally as a way to “cheer you up”, some people use toxic gratitude to silence women or women of color from speaking out against racism and misogyny. For many racists and misogynists, other people have it worse, so therefore you don’t have the right to complain about your problems. It’s a tool of deflection to silence you from speaking up.

Toxic positivity is also used to make you suppress your emotions, namely emotions that are seen as negative. You might have had parents or relatives tell you to, “Just pray” or “Just think positive” when you experience bad things. While positive thinking can be powerful, it’s not in the absence of acknowledging bad things or negative feelings. Positive thinking can co-exist with acknowledgement of trauma, adverse events, and negative feelings, not in spite of them. Usually when our parents engage in toxic positivity, it’s because they have a low tolerance for negative feelings, and usually have a hard time coping with their own negative feelings. They’ve been taught that toxic positivity is a healthy way to cope, when in actuality, it teaches you to suppress emotions. Emotions can only be suppressed for so long. Eventually what goes down must come up. Like a shaken soda can, there’s only so much you can store inside until it eventually explodes. That also explains why our parents’ negative emotions can feel so volatile.

For many cultural and immigrant families, having your own dreams and goals can be a huge risk with no guarantee, especially if there are no role models in your cultural community who you can turn to for advice. When I decided to become a therapist, there was literally no one in my cultural community that my parents could go to for advice and insight on this career. Now, ten years later, my mom is asking me to give advice to distant relatives who want to pursue therapy as a career choice.

You’re allowed to dream bigger, and you’re allowed to ask for more out of life. Sometimes this can look like moving to a new city to chase your career dreams. Other times, this can look like just moving down the street if it means having physical distance from your family, or even just spending more time outside the house. Just because dreams were risky for your parents doesn’t mean that your goals are impossible for you. With strategy, planning, and support from credible sources, you can scale your dreams in ways that are realistic to you.

How to Make the Transition Easier

For so long, you might have gotten along with your parents. You might have been on the same page when it came to most things, like where you went to school, what to study, and even who to date. Moving out might be the first time you and your parents realized that you’re not on the same page about everything, and can bring up feelings of abandonment for all parties involved. Conflict and disagreement doesn’t have to be relationship-ending.

Your parents might have very strong reactions. They are coping with the fact that this is your first time doing something different, and they might perceive it as abandonment or betrayal. Just like my parents, they might give you the cold shoulder or the silent treatment. As a result, you might also feel abandoned. Because our parents may not have had the same access to therapy and mental health, they might have a hard time learning how to cope with negative emotions in a healthy way. You can’t regulate what you were never allowed to have. Toxic positivity and toxic gratitude taught our parents to suppress negative emotions until they got too heavy and burst. As a result, our parents might have volatile reactions to their emotions. This is not an excuse for poor behavior; rather, this is an explanation for why it’s not you. You didn’t do anything wrong, you’re just forcing your parents to confront their own stuff, and they can’t handle it. Just because they’re putting it on you doesn’t mean it’s your problem to fix.

As a therapist who works with mostly South Asian women, here are some things I’ve used and my clients have used that have been helpful in my 9 years of practice:

Identify shared values and use them to your advantage. You and your parents are able to see eye-to-eye on some things. When explaining your decisions, speaking to your parents values can help them see the benefits of your decision. My free video guide on boundaries can teach you how to do this.
Validate how they feel while asserting your needs. Sometimes immigrant parents perceive your desire to move out as betrayal, and they react poorly because they believe you moving out means you don’t appreciate them enough. You gotta speak to their ego a bit! Validate how they feel, express gratitude for everything they’ve given you, and share why this decision is important to you.
Be prepared for the guilt-trip to get stronger. I like to say that you can say all the right things with a cherry on top and a fruit platter on the side, and your parents can still be upset. It’s not what you said, it’s just not the answer they want to hear. They’re going to react negatively, but that doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. They may just need time to process.
Give space, even when it’s challenging. There may be moments during arguments when you and your parents need space. Communicate when you need to walk away and that you’ll come back later. The best advice my aunt and uncle once gave me during a heated fight was to leave a note for my parents to let them know when I need to go outside for a walk after a big fight and that I’ll come back later. Be very clear that the break is temporary, but that this conversation is important to you and that you’ll revisit later.

How Therapy Can Help

When you’re used to people in your cultural community judging and criticizing every decision you make, you might think, “What could a therapist possibly teach me?”. Especially if that therapist doesn’t share your cultural identity. Especially if that therapist also comes from your cultural community, and harbors the same conservative and even reductionist views on cultural obligation.

Therapy is the last space where you should feel ashamed about decisions that make sense to you. A culturally informed therapist may understand that talking about these things out loud can bring up a lot of fear and shame, and can meet you where you’re at.

With a culturally-informed therapist, you can:

Slow down and make the best decision for yourself, even if it’s not what your cultural community would consider the “right” choice.
Unpack how much of your shame and self-judgement is really your voice, or the voice of someone else.
Find your voice, and start to value your opinions of yourself, rather than what other people think you should do.
Find the in-between that allows you to create balance in life, rather than feeling stuck between two impossible options. For instance, you might believe, “I either have to move out and get my own place, or I have to be stuck at home with my parents”. What about getting roommates? What about living with other relatives you get along with? Moving out doesn’t mean you need to live by yourself or pay a mortgage if that’s not sustainable for you in the short-term.
Set boundaries and express differences with family that honors how they feel without letting them dictate your decisions.

If you’re interested in working with me, scroll to the bottom to book your free consultation to see if I’m a good fit. Or, you can visit southasiantherapists.org to find a culturally responsive therapist who fits your needs. Just like moving out, therapy can be a difficult step to make, but remember that both moving out and going to therapy are ultimately investments in yourself. Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself often isn’t the easiest in the short-term, but pays off in the long-term. It’s important to put a lot of thought into these decisions, and be picky with your therapist!

So…how did things turn out after you moved out, Tracy?

South Asian Therapist SF — I graduated from Teachers College Columbia University two years later (and yes, my family came to celebrate with me)!

The same week that I was expected to book my flight, I frantically started posting on Facebook and Instagram, asking for my friends from undergrad if they knew anyone who could give me a ride. I had actually scheduled a friend to come over, help me grab my stuff, and take me to O’Hare airport.

Two days before my flight, my dad asked, “Tracy, what time is your flight?”

“10:30 am”

“Okay, I’ll drop you off.”

I can’t even tell you the mixed emotions I had at that moment. I was thankful that my parents had a change of heart, but I was also annoyed and frustrated that we had to go through so much unnecessary conflict for them to come around. Next thing I knew, my parents came with me in line to drop off my luggage at Delta, my mom starting to cry, my dad saying, “This is just like the Lizzie McGuire movie” (his very Indian dad way of expressing emotions when I’m about to do big kid things).

Since then, I’ve been living in New York for almost 11 years. I’ve been able to successfully grow my career here. My family came to visit me my first month in the city for my birthday. I’ve flown home as much as I could since then, and I’ve done more big kid things, such as taking solo trips out the country! Moving out gave me the confidence to step outside of my comfort zone, and it helped my parents trust my decisions more. Even now, as I contemplate moving back home as my parents gets older, they’ve encouraged me to stay in NYC and continue growing.

I can’t promise you that your parents will have a change of heart like mine did. In fact, therapy isn’t a magic 8 ball and make any guarantees. But as a therapist, I can promise you that you’ll make the best decision for yourself, even if it’s not the most perfect choice. And that it’s okay to change your mind. You don’t have to do what’s always been done. Even if your parents aren’t OK with your decisions, therapy can help you accept that your parents may never change their minds.

Do you need help navigating grown woman decisions? Are you planning to make a move or a transition that might upset your parents or family? Maybe I can help. I’m an EMDR Certified Therapist™ that can help you process the guilt and anxiety with making these decisions. Book your free intro call below, and let’s see if I’m a good fit.

Let Me Help You with Your Big Girl Move!