She turned down Le Cordon Bleu and joined a Forbes-listed startup. Now she is baking her way to better health
For home baker Jessica Tan, surviving depression was only the first step to healing. She tells CNA TODAY how she rebuilt broken family relationships, redefined success and learnt to put herself first.
Ms Jessica Tan looking at her homemade brownies in her kitchen on Jul 8, 2026. (Photo:CNA/Wallace Woon)
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As Ms Jessica Tan smiled and posed for my colleague's camera in her family kitchen, her mother drifted in and out of the room, proudly photographing her daughter on her smartphone. It was very Kris Jenner – matriarch of the Kardashian brand – and I half-expected her to proclaim, "You're doing amazing, sweetie".
At some point, Ms Tan's mother bustled into frame, insisting on removing a bunch of bananas she felt were spoiling the background.
Watching Ms Tan laugh good-naturedly at her mother's fussing and the easy rapport they shared, I was surprised to learn there had once been many unhappy times that had driven mother and daughter apart.
Growing up, Ms Tan, who is now 31 and just launched a home baking business late last year, had coped largely in silence with depression, grief and the pressure of living up to her parents' expectations.
Those struggles may sound all too familiar to many young Singaporeans.
For Ms Tan, however, they would unfold with a severity that few people experience: a diagnosis of treatment-resistant major depressive disorder at 14, the sudden death of her boyfriend in an accident at 20 and, years later, four suicide attempts while outwardly thriving in a dream corporate career.
THE WEIGHT OF EXPECTATIONS
When I arrived on a Tuesday afternoon at her house, the doors were wide open and Ms Tan greeted me warmly, a childlike brightness lighting up her smiling face. It almost felt like we were kids on a playdate, rather than a journalist and her interviewee.
But childhood, for Ms Tan, was never about fun or leisure.
Born into a family where excellence was the norm, she grew up acutely aware of the constant pressure to measure up to the lofty achievements around her.
Her paternal grandfather wrote mathematics textbooks used across Malaysia. Her father, Mr Eugene Tan, studied law at the University of Cambridge, while her mother, Mrs Michelle Tan, and two older brothers also excelled academically.
From the age of four, she trained as a competitive artistic gymnast before taking up track and field, representing Singapore schools in the 100m and 200m hurdles at international competitions.
"It was just wake up at six, go to school, train from 1pm to 8pm, go home, do my homework, and the day starts all over again. I got, maybe, five days off a year, and that was it," the former athlete recalled.
Under a coach who had once captained China's Olympic gymnastics team, mistakes were rarely tolerated. Ms Tan recalled having to complete 100 handstand push-ups in a row, sometimes remaining upside down for as long as half an hour until she finished every repetition.
"We were trained to push through everything. That's how I developed the mindset of not complaining, not sharing my emotions and just bottling everything up."
During one of her first major gymnastics competitions when she was eight years old, she was suddenly paralysed with fear and couldn't attempt a move she had practised many times before.
Her mother lost her temper in front of her teammates, their parents and her friends.
"She said, 'We spend so much money on your training, but you don't even have the guts to do this move'," she told me, her tone turning sombre.
"That's when I realised this wasn't really fun and games anymore. I had to make sure I won something to make my parents happy and proud."
By secondary school, Ms Tan was involved in competitive sport and the student council, and studying for more than 10 O-Level subjects.
Around then, she began experiencing debilitating brain fog and dissociation, symptoms she didn't realise were linked to depression.
Fearful of others' reactions, she brushed them off as exhaustion, but soon began self-harming in secret.
Concerned by the change in her demeanour, her form teacher called her parents for a meeting.
"When I look at Jess, I don't recognise her," Ms Tan recalled her teacher telling her parents.
She was taken to a psychiatrist and, at 14, diagnosed with depression. But the diagnosis brought little clarity or comfort.
Mental illness was scarcely understood by either Ms Tan or her family, something that became painfully apparent moments after the consultation.
Standing at the pharmacy counter within earshot of other patients, Ms Tan recalled her mother saying loudly: "Your medicine is costing us a lot of money. Can you get better soon?"
After that, Ms Tan didn't ask to visit the psychiatrist again. "I felt so guilty that I just pretended I was fine."
LIFE'S BLOWS
Junior college brought little respite.
While competing in track and field, Ms Tan said she was bullied by some of her teammates. Once, she overheard some of them talking about beating her up.
But having secured a place in the school through the Direct School Admission (DSA) scheme for her sporting achievements, she felt she had no choice but to continue training and competing.
"I had to live with it until I graduated."
Upon graduating, Ms Tan enrolled in the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 2014 to study psychology. After a few months, she realised the research-heavy programme was not for her.
She applied to and was offered places in three different educational institutions: the business management programme at Singapore Management University (SMU), the bachelor of environmental studies programme at NUS and, perhaps most unexpectedly, world-renowned culinary school Le Cordon Bleu.
If she had been left to choose on passion alone, Ms Tan would have enrolled at the prestigious French institute. However, her father advised her to earn a degree in business management first, saying that she could always attend culinary school later.
Then, about a year into her studies at SMU, her 21-year-old boyfriend died in an accident while on a trip abroad – a tragedy that prompted her to seek psychiatric help again after six years without treatment.
"He was alive, and then eight hours later, he was gone," she recalled of the day she last spoke with him before receiving the news of his death.
At just 20, it was the first time Ms Tan had lost someone close to her. However, rather than being given space and support to grieve, she recalled feeling pressured to ignore or suppress her emotions.
She remembered her grandparents saying to her after she told them the news: "Don't cry, because it will make your parents sad."
At the funeral, a pastor approached her and, instead of offering words of comfort, urged her to "move on".
"I felt so alone in my grief," she said.
"I had just lost the person who meant everything and the world to me, and all people could say was, 'Forget about him and move on with your life'."
Looking back, Ms Tan believes that those around her meant well, even if they did not know how to respond to or help her cope with her loss.
"I feel like a lot of people are still uneducated about how to deal with depression and grief, and the discomfort it causes makes them want people to speed up their healing process."
I had just lost the person who meant everything and the world to me, and all people could say was, 'Forget about him and move on with your life'.
Around the same time, feelings of inadequacy peaked as classmates compared internships at banks, consultancies and multinational firms, while she wondered whether she was on the right path in her own decision to intern at startups.
After graduating with a business degree from SMU in December 2019, Ms Tan joined American business news channel CNBC as a marketing and communications assistant.
About a year later, an opportunity arose when a friend who had co-founded a cryptocurrency firm invited her to join the fledgling company.
She rose from being the marketing and communications lead at the startup to chief marketing officer a year later.
At just 25, Ms Tan was leading the venture's marketing and communications strategy despite having barely any formal training in the field. She learnt on the job, often relying on online resources while adjusting to the relentless pace of life at a startup.
Within three years, the company earned a spot on the Forbes Asia 100 to Watch list, with Ms Tan leading the public relations campaign behind the recognition.
"I jumped out of my chair and told the CEO, 'We're on Forbes Asia 100 to Watch'," she recalled. "It felt like a huge weight off my shoulders."
THE TURNING POINT
From the outside, Ms Tan appeared to have built the kind of career many young professionals dream of.
Behind the scenes, however, the years of pressure and unresolved grief were catching up with her.
Three years ago, while still at the startup, Ms Tan attempted suicide four times and was eventually admitted to the Institute of Mental Health (IMH).
After discharge came months of intensive treatment, including family therapy sessions with her parents, where years of unspoken hurt finally surfaced.
"I said very bluntly, 'You only took my depression seriously when I tried to kill myself'."
That, Ms Tan believes, was a crucial turning point.
The family spent the next three years rebuilding their relationships and learning how to manage her mental health and relapses together.
Looking back, Ms Tan better understands why those conversations had been so difficult.
Her parents had moved from Malaysia to Singapore before she was born, with little to their name, focused on making enough money to build a stable life and provide opportunities for her and her older brothers.
Open dialogues around mental health were far less common then.
"Conversations about mental health just weren't at the top of their minds," she said, recognising that they did not have the knowledge or resources to make sense of what she was going through.
As she showed me around the family's garden, I spotted a willow tree.
"My parents planted that for me 16 years ago, so I could look out (my bedroom window) and see it," she said with a smile.
The tree has become a reminder that even when her parents did not know how to help her, they had always cared deeply.
These days, that care can be as simple as her father sitting down to play an online game of Mobile Legends with her.
Ms Tan's mother later told me that she wishes she had done things differently.
"I really regret that I didn't realise how much Jess was struggling, or pay closer attention to what she was going through."
Since then, Mrs Tan has attended a caregiver education programme by Caregivers Alliance. The 12-week course gave her a deeper understanding of depression and taught her how to respond to her daughter with empathy and validation, rather than immediately trying to offer solutions.
She urged other caregivers not to cope in silence.
"Don't be afraid to seek help. There are really trained and experienced people out there who are trying to support you."
ON HER OWN TERMS
By mutual agreement, Ms Tan left the cryptocurrency startup so that she could focus on her recovery.
She spent the following year travelling to places such as Antarctica, Mongolia and Pakistan while continuing therapy, gravitating towards the vast natural landscapes she had always longed to explore.
"I realised the true value and fragility of life."
Upon returning to Singapore, she briefly re-entered the cryptocurrency industry. She cast around for her next role, but after a year of travel and amid a cooling job market, she could not shake the feeling that the typical corporate life was just not for her.
"For a long time, I thought I had to compensate for my mental illness by overachieving," she said.
"That mindset pushed me to succeed in sport and in my corporate career, but it also kept me (from pursuing my passions) because I was terrified of failing."
She thought back to an exchange programme she had taken in the second year of university, where she had spent time in the United States at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, working as a waitress.
"When guests smiled and thanked me for helping them have a good dinner, I felt this warmth in my chest. That's when I realised that service is my love language."
Instead of reapplying to Le Cordon Bleu or another culinary school, Ms Tan decided not to wait for a professional qualification before pursuing her long-cherished dream of baking.
In December last year, she launched Get Baked, a home-based baking venture, handling recipe development, marketing, logistics and customer orders. Her parents have been pitching in, helping mostly with deliveries.
She deliberately limits production at around 10 to 15 boxes of brownies a day – a decision she admits her younger self would never have made.
"A bakery is still a business, and you should always do your best for your customers. But it's really about finding that balance.
"It took me 17 years to learn how to say 'no' and to realise that sometimes, you have to put yourself first."
Baking less also means more time spent interacting with customers, some of whom have proudly told her about hand-carrying her brownies to Australia, Europe and Malaysia.
Building the bakery has become only one part of Ms Tan's healing.
Another has been finding the courage to speak openly about the grief and depression she had spent years keeping to herself.
On the 10th anniversary of her boyfriend's death earlier this year, Ms Tan spoke about him publicly for the first time via an Instagram post, simply because she missed him.
The response surprised her.
Friends who had rarely spoken about his passing reached out with memories and photographs, while strangers shared stories of their own losses and asked how they could better support loved ones struggling with grief or mental illness.
"I cried tears of joy, especially because I lost all my pictures of him two months after he passed," she said. "I'd forgotten how much he made us all laugh."
What began as a deeply personal act of remembrance has since led Ms Tan to speak more openly about her experiences.
Earlier this year, she was invited to be a panellist at an IMH event, and is now preparing to work on a project that's still taking shape with social advocate and lawyer Peggy Yee, who is well-known for her pro-bono work supporting people with invisible disabilities.
Ms Tan still attends therapy every week and remains on medication.
Recovery, she said, has never been about making her mental illness disappear.
"It's about learning to manage it well enough that it no longer gets to make your decisions for you."
These days, she dreams not of another Forbes list or corporate title, but of one day opening a hawker stall serving brownies fresh from the oven – and perhaps, eventually, earning the Michelin recognition that home bakeries are ineligible for.
Before I left, I asked Ms Tan what she would say to the 14-year-old girl who believed she had to suffer in silence.
"It's going to take a long time, but you're going to be okay. Your diagnosis is part of your story, but it is not your identity."
