Turning the tide

"At that time, every day I thought of death and planned how and when to commit suicide. I knew I had many reasons to live, but I also had strong desire to die, which made me extremely tired," Zhang says.

"Negative feelings or things, like death, are often hidden from discussion, which is a taboo that we should break. Being open to breaking it can make you treasure life more," she adds.

After taking numerous psychology courses and gradually recovering, Zhang became a psychologist in 2020.

Looking back, Zhang finds that it is the existential anxiety that lies behind her own story, and those of most of her clients, which make them doubt their purpose in the world and question their existence.

In China, as in many traditional societies, the social pressure to conform starts when a girl is born. Inheriting their father's surname, daughters are often treated as wairen, people outside their families, as they are to marry and leave their parents' family afterward. There is an old saying that goes: "A married daughter is like water spilled away."

"Before I went to college in Beijing, a neighbor told me that after I left home, I would no longer belong to my family, because I would get married after graduation. Although I did not find anything wrong with it, I knew that I did not have a home from that moment," Zhang says.

"It is terrible that you are unconsciously trapped in such a concept so deeply embedded in our culture. Compared to gender discrimination in the workplace or intimate relationships, this kind of unconscious attitude is what really scares me. I was born as a woman, but on many occasions, my existence is not recognized or accepted," she says.