How and Why?
This blog post will be regarding about how i develop mental illness. It's part of the most requested blog post. I apologised for not posting much because i have a fight with my demons at the moment. And posting about my mental illness is very challenging as i need to recall of what happened and etc, it does help for others but for me, it doesn't. It gives me anxiety and also trauma. It triggers me most so i had to just give time to myself, to even post one.
It all started back when i was younger. I was only 6 when i started to notice that i wasn't happy. My family fought along with each other, especially my father's side. I just don't know why but they seems not to accept my mother and me. They would often tried to find fault with my mother and I. They would often said to my father, why my mother don't pray or why she never wear tudung (headscarf). Long short story, they judge my mother to the point that she had enough. I was young back then, so i doubt i know what is happening. I saw tears coming out from my mother but i don't understand much. I kept wondering why they dislike my mother so much. Not only that, they like to compare myself and I with my cousins and nephews and nieces who studied religion vigorously, like more serious than I. They often pick me and said why I never read Quran? Why i never wear tudung (headscarf), why i wore tshirt and shorts? Why i never pray? They often call me lazy and would tried to make me do stuffs like carrying a bowl of hot soup when i'm only 8?! Imagine how small i was and i had to carry a bowl of hot soup when they could just carried it. It always happen when i came to visit them and i was pushed aside. They never showed me affection or love. All i get from them is just comparison and humiliation.
It got worse when i turn 13. And also that point of time, my parents and i struggled with financial issues and that point of time when my father quit his job without telling my mother and i and we found it ourselves when he didn't go to work at all and my mother asked him and boom. They started to fight and i was crying because i didn't asked for this to happen and it did. And there's one point of time, he threaten my mother that he wants to leave the house or he wants to jump down from our block and he once blame me, saying that, this all happens because of me. I was young and trying to figure out, why? What did i do wrong? Why does things happen because of me? Why? And so we get alot of heated arguments. We struggled to lived. We struggled to survive. I stopped coming to school because all my mind could think off is that, we need money and we don't have at all. I mean a few scrapes of cash that could probably survive us for like 2 weeks? It was tough. I didn't asked for help or said to anybody. I grew distance away from my school friends and i felt that i was stared at most of time as i kept to myself all the time and i left with no friends at all. I told myself that i could not be there anymore so i stopped coming to school. I kept having panic attack whenever i stepped in my secondary school. I got no one to talk to so I kept it all inside and then, i was in class where i felt pain on my chest. I felt extremely painful. I cried and it felt like a whole atomic bomb on me. My teacher called my parents and they bring me to the hospital and it was so painful that i can't barely walk. When we were there, doctors decided to admit me because i kept complaining that my chest is so painful. Long cut short, after all the necessary test that they have done, they concluded that i was extremely fine but they just couldn't figure out why, so they came up with this conclusion that i was so stressed out that they called a psychologist in.
From there on, she asked me what happen and all that stuffs, and from there, i realised that i cried while telling her. I told her how we struggled with financial issues, how my father's side of family would humiliate me and my mother, how they judged us and also how my father would often threaten my mother and i that he wants to kill himself out of anger and how he often said that it was my fault that bad things happen. And so from there, she suspected that i have depression and i need to see her as often as i could. At that point of time, I felt relieved that i could let things out. After a few sessions, she concluded that i have mild depression, not that serious. The sessions went on from okay to bad. Because at one point of time, she triggered me so bad that she said i had to see a psychiatrist and i stopped meeting her. I just went for a psychiatrist appointment and it was just for the medications. For a lot of times i tried to kill myself but it was always a failed attempt because of the thoughts of wanting to survive is there. It also got me even more depressed and made me to have anxiety of going out, making new friends and letting people back in. I stopped going out. Stopped meeting people. Stopped going to family events. I hated myself. I overdose on my psychiatry pills but it doesn't take me away from living. I was in and out from IMH because i thought of killing myself and think of suicide plans. It became my second home. Either i'll be there for a week or the most is 3 weeks. If you were to asked me if it's tiring, yes. Because your thoughts is open and your mind works for 24/7 and you can't help but to think of it.
It angers me the most when someone asked me why i got depressed and why i told them why, they started to involve with religion. Oh, i need to pray alot, and pray to Allah for ease or it's an evil Jinn in your body. You need to pray. I did. I did all that, but it doesn't change the fact that i'm mentally ill. It doesn't associate with religion. You can't say to a patient who suffer from cancer that they have Jinn in their body that cause them to have cancer. You can't just throw a person who can't swim in the ocean and expect them to swim on the spot.
I suffered for 5 years, being diagnosed with 1 illness to 5 illness. It's exhausting and tiring but people just don't understand. Getting a job is also very hard because the stigmas of mental illness is there. But one thing i could be proud of is that, when having this illness, it made me change. It made me to understand people's feeling. I showed empathy instead of showing arrogance. Which is why, when someone posted about depressing, suicidal or sad photos or words in Instagram story, i took a step forward to ask them because i've lost 6 friends to suicide and i don't want it to happen on people who i cared. I don't want them to feel what i feel.
How i was diagnose? That's pretty hard to say. How i get help? For me it's from KKH since i was admitted there for chest pain. So i met the psychologist there which i don't really attend, she referred me to her friend who is my psychiatrist from CGH but attend to KKH on Tuesday for adolescent. Since i don't meet a psychologist there anymore, she transferred me to CGH where she could see me and also her friend whom is a psychologist. And up till now, i'm still a patient in CGH only for seeing them thru appointments.
That is practically how everything happen and why and how. If you asked me if i'm cured or whatsoever, nope. I don't. I'm still struggling and i doubt it last till the future. I don't see hope in myself or see myself in the future to come. I just don't look forward to it. That's all i can say.