Growing up as an Asian American, I was built and "trained" to study hard. The work ethic and study habits that my mother taught me at a young age yielded good grades all throughout my academic career. Although, during my high school years, the high levels of stress and pressure that I have placed upon myself slowly turned into depression.

Until now, I thought that I was still in the state of denial seeing the initial hesitation to even admit that I was depressed here on text. Unsure when it started, I can still look back at those days and feel the sense of helplessness.

It felt simple yet uneasy. I would resort to oppressing my emotions and isolate myself from my friends. I would often feel anxious during test days and beat myself up over a bad grade. I was afraid of failure. I built myself a tower of my own unhealthy expectations.

It took an unprecedented confession towards a friend to finally admit to myself that I was having a difficult time.

That admission lifted heavy weights off my shoulder and propelled me to find ways of confronting my mental health problems and healthy ways to cope with my depression. Despite having a collection of half-finished agendas and journals, I decided to purchase my very first bullet journal as a way to openly express my emotions through writing and art.

In the beginning, setting up weekly "to-do list" spreads and learning calligraphy became my greatest challenge. It was frustrating to mess up or choose the wrong colors. The bullet journal that I envisioned in my head did not match the results that I was getting. I quickly learned to stopped ripping each page that I did not like and value each entry, despite its lack of aesthetic or simply because I did not find it #studyblr worthy. I started writing entries, creating simple agenda spreads, and practicing my handwriting whenever I wanted. I finally started to enjoy and live up to the purpose as to why I purchased my bullet journal.

I created lists and wrote the things I was grateful for even the simplest or most mundanes ones. When I felt like I was relapsing into an episode of pure melancholy, I would draw about things that I loved or write about how I felt. Some Sundays, I wrote about my goals as a person and how I can grow through my faith. Most days, I created agendas where I listed tasks for school to plan and break down my heavy workload. On rare occasions, I would do mixture of all and create a spread with art, text, and reflection about a book that I adore, like the Alchemist.

I know that my journey with bullet journaling is probably different than most, but to this day I don't think I would have grown from my experience with depression as well as I did without it. My bullet journal made me appreciate people, life and myself more than I can imagine and in return it made me happier.