My Journey with Depression, Addiction and Telling My Truth

My name is Eddie Cheng. I am 37 years old, I am Taiwanese and I am Gay. I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia and I’ve been living in San Francisco for the past 14 years. I’m a photographer, a trained chef, an e-commerce marketer, and a world traveler. But I’ve been suffering from Depression for most of my adult life and more recently, drug addiction for the past 3 years and I've been drug free for the past 11 months.

For most of my life, I’ve created many different versions of myself to hide behind. I would put on a different mask for the different people or groups I was with. There was the obedient Asian son (my cousins called me the golden child because I was my grandmother’s favorite grandson), the musician (I played the violin in high school), the foul-mouthed line cook, the depressed introvert, and the sassy gay with impeccable taste in clothes and accessories and the e-commerce marketer… and more recently the drug addict. Those are all parts of me, but I’ve compartmentalized them so neatly and separately that I can fool myself into believing that the mask I had on at that moment was my true self. This system that I’ve built up over the years worked very well until it didn’t… my world started to cave in around me and I wasn’t sure who I was anymore.

But Something happened in the past 2 weeks that have been somewhat of an anomaly for me. I began breaking down the system that I’ve worked so hard to build and I started to tell and show everyone my true self.

The truths I revealed about myself is the fact that I’ve been dealing with depression and drug addiction to everyone. My decision came after two major events that came to light the past week: the deaths of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain. Both died by apparent suicide, 3 days apart from each other.

The first event was the death of Kate Spade. The news came out on June 5th, 2018. This news came as a shock, but it was not really that upsetting to me. I felt sympathy for her family, friends, and fans around the world must have been dealing with. But I couldn’t relate to her. The shocking part was the fact from the outside, she seemed to have it all… her own company and brand name, wealth, and family. News came out after her death that she had been battling depression for years.

Three days later, I heard that Anthony Bourdain had died of apparent suicide. This hit me like a brick wall. I was in shock when I heard the news. All the posts on my Facebook were news of his suicide. All of sudden, I knew what this was, and it was instantly relatable. I had looked up to Anthony Bourdain throughout the years. I’ve been a fan of his first book, Kitchen Confidential. I read it a couple of years after I finished culinary school and was working as a line cook in San Francisco. I often seriously joked that if I had read Kitchen Confidential before I decided to attend culinary school, I wouldn’t have gone into the industry or gone to culinary school… who knew what my life would have been like. The book was brutally honest about the industry, the misogyny, long hours, low pay and drugs. I experienced all those things except for the drugs part. I also, admired his television series, No Reservations, Parts Unknown and his other books. He was always so honest about himself and the world around him. He gave his viewers a greater understanding about the people in the places he visited and the food that he ate. It was not about him, it was about the people, the food. He was just a storyteller of their stories.

Within 30 minutes of hearing this news, I felt the need to share my own battle with depression and more. I felt the need to let my friends know what I’m going through. I needed people to understand me, all of me, not just the different faces I’ve put on when I’m around others. So, I wrote a very long post on Facebook revealing everything… all the good, the bad, the ugly. It took me about 15 minutes to write this post and it felt cathartic letting it all go. Shedding all the different masks.