About Me

Welcome! “The Quiet Voice” serves as a space for me, Thomas, to share vulnerable thoughts on mental health, society, and life at large. I emphasize vulnerability because we live in a world that shames people for their mental health issues and personal challenges, when we should instead encourage a culture of help-seeking and empathy. If we practice compassion towards others and ourselves, we can work as a collective to overcome our hardships and seek healing. As a gay Asian American man, I find it even more important to discuss my life and my hardships with honesty, because queer individuals and people of color often experience even more stigma for mental health conditions. As essayist Leslie Jamison writes, “suffering is interesting but so is getting better.” Thus, this blog aims to address both the roots of suffering as well as the steps we can take to get better.

Idealism aside, a little bit about me: I graduated with degrees in Psychology and English in 2017, and I am now a graduate student in Psychology living in the D.C. Metro area. I started this blog almost a decade ago in high school as a way to share my thoughts about family and life, and now, it serves both as a keeper of my past and as a platform for my present. A few things I love: quality time spent with friends, dismantling patriarchal gender roles, upbeat and empowering pop music (e.g., BlackPink, Twice), books, and fanboying my favorite writers (e.g., Caroline Knapp, Hanya Yanagihara, Audre Lorde, to name a few).

Through my writing, I seek truths – truths about society, truths about my life, and how these truths intersect. I want my writing to inspire us to question society’s conventions. I want my writing to make you feel less alone. May this blog serve as a space for healing, growth, and working toward creating a better world, one step at a time.