As a kid, I often had this recurring daydream about leaving everything behind to just move somewhere where nobody knew me and figure out how to survive there. I’m not sure if it was just a form of mental escapism from a challenging childhood and adolescence, but when the opportunity to do just that presented itself tangibly in late 2022, I found myself overcome by excitement. But the overriding emotion was that of anxiety and fear.
For as long as I can remember, I have been a fairly anxious person. I tend to worry about everything, struggle with self-esteem and have generally been risk-adverse in my choices. Some of it is probably due to the Singaporean conditioning (‘don’t rock the boat’, ‘no need to take big risks’, ‘if got no backup plan then jialat liao1‘), and sometimes you’re also just genetically ‘blessed’ with these traits. I also saw things I shouldn’t have seen when I was a kid. Yet, I couldn’t help but sense that my anxious self always felt like a spectre, a lovecraftian monster, constantly hovering over my actual, unbound self.
Mental health is an interesting thing, if fickle. On good days, the sun is shining on you, every step forward is the right one, and the world is full of possibilities. On bad days, the world around you shrinks until you’re trapped in a room with four corners and no windows, leaving just you and your mind fighting for control over who gets custody over your sense of self. And no amount of rational argumentation can appease your mind when you’re in the throes of an anxious episode2. I should know, I was in competitive debating for over a decade where I spent thousands of hours constructing arguments and counter-arguments. Your anxious mind can always find a new way to mentally punish you. Why would you even do this, you’re crazy. Something is wrong with you. You’re gonna end up alone. No one cares about you.
When I was 16, I started to suffer from night terrors. As the name suggests, it is an absolutely terrifying experience. You’re sleeping, and then suddenly wake up screaming (it is a blood-curdling, horror-type scream, mind you). Your mind is aware that you are screaming, but your body cannot stop itself from screaming. The worst part was that I often couldn’t go back to sleep afterward, and would also lose my voice, because one’s throat is just not meant to be capable of screaming at such a high pitch. At one point, it got really bad where I used to get night terrors twice in a night and started to actively dread nighttime, hoping I could just skip to the next morning.
The weird thing about these above experiences was that for the longest time, I thought that was just who I was, and what I had to manage. These were the cards I was dealt, and I couldn’t reshuffle them or find the dealer. When you’re younger and struggling with your mental health, you cannot really conceive of an alternate reality where you are able to thrive in spite of such struggles. You look to the adults around you for guidance, but when they seem to be doing fine themselves, or worse, downplay what you’re feeling, its easy to think that this is your cross to bear for eternity.
How do you deal with difficult emotions if you have never been taught to do so? The only solution then, is to pretend like you’re fine and suppress these feelings. At least that was how I handled it for years, I suppose. These bouts of anxiety would come and go, and the night terrors stopped for a while as I entered the cusp of adulthood. But the thing about unprocessed emotions is that they will eventually rise to the surface and demand to be heard, because no lid is big enough to hold them at bay. A fairly nasty panic attack a few years ago drove me to seek therapy.
Therapy? I thought only siao lang3 go for therapy one? Therapy and taking care of one’s mental health is a more accepted state of affairs these days post-pandemic, but it wasn’t that long ago where there was a stigma (arguably there still is, albeit less pronounced) associated with it. While I knew to go for therapy, I didn’t quite know who or where I should start. I will forever be grateful to a university lecturer of mine, who was able to point me in the right direction. I’ve experienced quite a bit of grief over the past few years, whether it was the loss of loved ones, heartbreak, or a sense of longing, and therapy has helped immensely to tide through these experiences.
To me, therapy’s power lies not so much in “fixing your problems”, but more in validating your struggles and realising that you are so much more than the things that you’ve experienced. You cannot change what has happened to you, but you are powerful enough to heal from it, and write a new narrative for yourself. As the late Robin Williams would say in Good Will Hunting, it’s not your fault.
Finding the right therapist is a challenge by itself, but I was thankfully able to find someone who was able to help me. I always associated therapy with talking, but the first time my therapist saw me, she immediately noticed that my shoulders were tight, almost coiled. She made me lie on a bed. Noticing that my breathing was irregular, she asked if I had trouble sleeping. When I brought up my night terrors, she immediately connected all the dots, telling me how my body was storing trauma it was struggling to heal from, and the screaming was the only way it was able to express itself. I can still remember the absolute relief I felt when my therapist made this connection to me for the first time. I finally felt like I was understood. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van der Kolk is a really good book which touches on this phenomenon.
Therapy has changed my life immeasurably, and I am doing a lot better these days. Over the past few years, I have been doing yoga, I meditate every morning, and run regularly. These activities keep my mind in a more balanced state, and remind me that I am resilient. I have also learnt to befriend my emotions, even the negative and anxious ones. Life, for better or worse, is about experiencing the full range of emotions, and the best gift you can give yourself is to be self-compassionate. I’m not always successful at it myself, but I do my best.
Now how does all of this have any relevance to NZ? When I was contemplating the work holiday visa, my anxious mind decided to dredge all of these negative thoughts and worries, and it was difficult to manage them. You thought therapy would remove your anxiety? Haha I’m still here dude, we’re not going anywhere. What if you don’t make any friends? What if you fall into a depressive episode here and want to return? What if you regret the move after a month? The reality is that anxiety is a core emotion that will always be with you. No amount of therapy, mindfulness or ayahuasca retreats will eliminate it, because its not meant to be removed. Instead, I have learnt that the best I can do is to still make my choices and not let fear or anxiety dictate my life.
The title of this post is a reference to a conversation I had with a friend recently about managing fears. She mentioned that even if you are scared to do something, sometimes you just have to “do it scared”. In my time in NZ so far, life has been wonderful. I have no regrets about moving here. There are still difficult days, and I still struggle with anxiety. But I would not trade it for anything else. I have been “doing it scared” for the past 7 months, and will continue doing so for the next few months.
When I was 15, one of my favourite songs was Sorrow by The National. And the two lines from the song that always stuck with me was:
Sorrow found me when I was young
Sorrow waited, sorrow won.
Looking back at the song (its still a brilliant song), I know now that sorrow is unavoidable but not permanent, and I am capable of overcoming it and finding contentment. Sometimes I think back to that daydreaming younger self and remember how proud I should be for actualising and manifesting my dreams into reality. We did it, Subra and I’m proud of you.
PS: Some resources for mental health
While writing this post, I realised that it was World Mental Health Day two days ago. Appropriate timing, I guess. For anyone that’s reading this who might have experienced similar things, I hope you know that it is possible to climb out of the pit of despair, and help is available. I have included a list of resources that have been helpful with regards to my mental health, and hopefully you might be able to find similar comfort in it. I’m also happy to chat more about my own experiences if you are interested, just drop me a message.
Books
- Maybe You Should Talk To Someone, Lori Gottlieb
- The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety, John P. Forsyth and Georg H. Eifert
- The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel Van Der Kolk
- How To Be Sad, Helen Russell
- Thriving With Anxiety, David H. Rosmarin
Podcasts/Apps
- 10% Percent Happier with Dan Harris (They have an app as well)
- Insight Timer (meditation app)