憂鬱 (Yuutsu): When Mental Health Is Mistranslated
How could I navigate my Japanese-language emotions in pursuit of a Western psychiatric label?
This is Mistranslate, a monthly column by Nina Li Coomes about language, self-expression, and what it means to exist between cultures.
The Magic School Bus,
Crazy Like Us,
aha! Instead, the DSM provided only disappointment. Awash in checklists and qualifiers, all I found were metrics for what an insurance company would pay for and what amount of distress would fall under the category of “Mental Disorder.”
Even so, later that semester I found myself in the waiting room of the undergraduate mental health center, wishing I had found a label to describe how I felt, so I could stride into the office, sit in the chintz armchair and spit out a diagnosis, easy to understand and easy to treat. I was left only with confusion for how to translate this yuutsu. How could I navigate my Japanese-language emotions in pursuit of a Western psychiatric label? Did my heart have a cold? Should I be medicated, in therapy, or both? Was I depressed, anxious, or disordered? I tried each word out, spinning them like coins on the tip of my tongue. Every time, they fell flat and false.
Nina Li Coomes is a Japanese and American writer, currently living in Chicago, IL. Her writing has appeared in EATER, The Collapsar, and RHINO Poetry among other places. Her debut chapbook haircut poems was published by Dancing Girl Press in 2017.
Enter your email address to receive notifications for author Nina Coomes
Success!
Confirmation link sent to your email to add you to notification list for author Nina Coomes
More by this author
You’re Going to Be Cared For: A Recipe for Braised Chicken Thighs
A Le Creuset Dutch oven telegraphs contentment and cheer—but for me, mine is a token of complicated bitterness and longing.
‘Bad Sisters’ Captures the Intensity of Having and Being a Sister
My sister is not my best friend. She is my sister. Those are fundamentally different relationships.
I’ll Teach You Everything I Know: A Recipe for Ninjin-gohan
What a gift it is to be asked to feed a person, but what a further gift for that person to ask if they might be taught to make what you make.
More in this series
切ない (Setsunai): When You Need a Word to Hold Both Sorrow and Joy
‘Setsunai’ implies something once bright, now faded. It is the painful twinge at the edge of a memory, the joy in the knowledge that everything is temporary.
愛してる (Aishiteru): How to Say “I Love You” When the Language Doesn’t Exist
When he asked me how to say “I love you” in Japanese, I translated linguistically, but mistranslated culturally.
FMA and Me: Reckoning With Anime as Japanese and American
The affectations of white anime enthusiasts made me feel fake, confusing my yearning for the language and familiarity I craved.