Singaporean actor Andie Chen was one of the first local celebrities to speak out about his experiences with depression. He opened up about being emotionally and financially drained after relocating to Taipei. His transition happened to line up with the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. He struggled with severe anxiety and a sense of being an inadequate father as he adjusted to life with spinal cord injury and raising two young daughters.
In 2015 Chen relocated to Taipei to pursue his professional career, signing with Taiwanese talent agency EeLin Entertainment. The ongoing impacts of the pandemic have made it much harder to find a job. Therefore, he had to depend on his savings to survive in Taiwan for the first two years. His financial situation weighed heavily on him, he said, and the more he ran out of money, the more anxious he became.
For the first several months in-country, I felt like I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. I had no idea how to do things like pay my electricity or water bills at convenience stores in Taipei and I was really embarrassing myself. I assumed there would be more opportunities throughout my career, but the pandemic stopped a lot of work in its tracks. Job opportunities dried up, leading me to feel like my career was treading water,” said Chen. On top of that, I still had two young children to tend to.
The actor was in dire economic strain. In very short order—in desperation—he started taking out loans from his parents, and he was incredibly ashamed of that. He confessed, “I thought I was pathetic just being in my 30s and having to ask my parents for money. This helplessness only added to his depression, which had him crying for no reason on several occasions.
Parenting solo in an unfamiliar metropolis further compounded the challenges for Chen. Each time his wife went out of town for a business trip, Mr. Input just as easily to constraints on back-to-school for summer. This new difficulty usually exacerbated his battle with mental health adversities. At first, he kept his struggles a secret from his wife but let her in on the news when his symptoms took a turn for the worse.
Don’t punish yourself for your feelings and don’t be ashamed of them. If that means being depressed and ill, then so be it. Don’t shame your emotions or suppress them,” Chen said to anyone who might be experiencing the same struggles.
Chen’s new life in Singapore could not have been more different from his time spent drumming in Taipei. In Singapore, he had a consistent pipeline of gigs and revenue. He was backed up by two domestic helpers at home. It’s no wonder then that the sudden shift in environment and lifestyle exacerbated his sense of inferiority and isolation.
Despite these challenges, Chen remains resilient. He is set to star in the upcoming Channel 8 time-travel series “Fixing Fate,” alongside actors Xu Bin and Carrie Wong. Those experiences deeply informed his outlook on mental health. Today, he’s a powerful advocate for giving oneself space to be kind and forgiving during tough times.
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