The historic all-female spaceflight, which included Nguyen alongside celebrities like Katy Perry, <\/a>Lauren S\u00e1nchez Bezos, and Gayle King, sparked global backlash<\/a> over the Jeff Bezos-funded endeavor\u2019s cost and publicity. For Nguyen, a 34-year-old civil rights activist, the criticism<\/a> led to an emotional crisis.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Gayle called to check in on my in the aftermath of the spaceflight, I told her my depression might last for years,\u201d Nguyen<\/a> wrote in a statement shared Sunday to Instagram. \u201cAnother dream turned into a nightmare.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything I had worked for – as a scientist, my women’s health research, the years I had trained for this moment, the experiments I operated in space, the history that was being made as the first Vietnamese woman astronaut, on the 50th anniversary of the US-Vietnam war, as the child of boat refugees, the promise I kept to my survivor self – that dreams are worth fighting for, especially when we’ve deferred them to fight for rights – were buried under an avalanche of misogyny,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n Nguyen said the negative reactions and media coverage were \u201can onslaught no human brain has evolved to endure.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI felt like collateral damage, my moment of justice mutilated,\u201d she wrote. \u201cI did not leave Texas for a week, unable to get out of bed. A month later, when a senior staff at Blue Origin called me, I had to hang up on him because I could not speak through my tears.\u201d<\/p>\n Nguyen said despite the backlash, the six-woman mission had some positive consequences, including raising awareness for her breast cancer <\/a>research and becoming the first Vietnamese woman and first Southeast Asian woman in space.<\/p>\n \u201cMy goal of science as a tool for diplomacy was achieved. There has been overwhelming good that has come out of this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The 2019 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee said that in the eight months since the 11-minute trip to space, she has climbed her way out of the depression that the spaceflight brought on.<\/p>\n \u201cI’m glad that the fog of grief has started to lift,\u201d Nguyen said. \u201cWhen the days have been bad, I have held on to every kind of interaction you\u2019ve shown me.\u201d<\/p>\n Nguyen, who has openly spoken about her experience as a survivor of sexual assault<\/a>, said that she relied on her strength to persevere and recognize the support alongside the hate.<\/p>\n \u201cEven through the tsunami of harassment, I was able to tell my survivor self \u2018I kept my promise.\u2019 I was able to tell her that millions of strangers have kindness and discernment. Thank you for protecting her. It has been the biggest grace to feel that support.\u201d<\/p>\n If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call or text 988, or visit 988lifeline.org<\/a> to access online chat from the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org<\/a> to find a helpline near you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,82,247],"class_list":{"0":"post-217378","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Scientist](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/GettyImages-2201951486.jpg\")
Scientist Amanda Nguyen has opened up about her mental health struggles since the Blue Origin spaceflight in April (Getty Images for TIME)<\/p>\n