Chucky ignited

Posted in All in a days work by

I was anhedonic for a prolonged period of time. The cause was multifactorial. At times, I was on the verge of being catatonic. I wanted to be energetic and responsive to my surroundings, but the effort left me so tired. I was exhausted, but I still prayed for the energy not only to breathe, but to keep going.

Allah answered my prayer to feel better in the most unlikely way. An incident happened at the workplace. It was bad. It was horrendous, but the funny thing is, the incident was enough to reignite my inner Chucky and unleash its fury. In an instant, I was alive. I feel things. I was talking like popcorn. The energy kept rising for a few days; up to a point, my meekness jumped out the window. It was an incident of betrayal, and naturally I responded with wrath. I was prepared to bury this monstrous being to the ground.

However, over the weekend I began to realise the silver lining behind it. This altercation not only sparked my motivation to continue living my day with meaning, but also served as a catalyst to strengthen my application for an early pension. Concurrently, my ego was suppressed, resulting in me communicating with my husband, as I was desperate to gossip about the matter with him. His response could be more sadistic, but it’s ok; it was still a two-way communication. I want to hear something like, “To hell that person goes”, etc. His was more calm and collected. He was sensible. Nauurrrrrr.

This incident has yet to end. I look forward to a fruitful ending that will chuck this monster out.

A year done and dusted at MCH

Posted in All in a days work by

I completed my one-year rotation at the Maternal and Child Healthcare Clinic (MCH) last September. I started mine in October last year. Initially, I wanted to assemble a new team in January 2026, but I didn’t have any capable options. So I extended my 3-month MCH rotation to a year. Then I began selecting my team members for the year. My first team member was an easy pick, as her leadership and accountability shone through. The initial 3rd team member required a bit of planning, and finally I decided on one. Also a wonderful person with a great personality and attitude to work. We were a team of 3. I felt so lucky and honoured to be working with them.

The best thing about my MCH rotations was the cute babies. That’s all. That was what kept me going. The rest gave me a headache, as it made me question my decisions on how I manage my cases on a daily basis. To be honest, I would experience the same amount of anxiety if I saw my outpatient and NCD cases. There is always this afterthought: did I do this right, or not?

My workstation was a desk that faced a wall. It was situated underneath the air-conditioner (meaning the cold air was blowing above my head) and did not have its own PC to work with. The idea was to fight over the laptop at the office upstairs in the morning and return it at the end of the day. Everyday. Despite my efforts to lose weight, the stress of risking using an underperforming laptop resulted in me using my own. I downloaded the CCMS system onto my Lenovo, brought my own wire extension and a Baymax fan to keep me cool at work. I am, after all, Olaf. I cannot stand a warm room. It makes me angry.

I came with 2 bags and left with the same. A laptop bag and the miscellaneous bag.

Now that I am floating in the Outpatient pool, I am narrowing it down to only 1.5 bags for my belongings. The 0.5 is my telekung bag. Simple enough, just in case I am leaving one day. So, unlike most who leave with the iconic box, I am leaving with what I carried with me in the morning.

Nadai Mutual Energy

Posted in All in a days work, Ponderings & Personal Development by

Even as adults, we are learning new things about forging relationships with other people. In my situation, it still hurts when people do not reciprocate your energy in building that relationship. At one point, you just get tired and prefer to spend that little amount of dignity you have towards yourself.

I wanted to make a few of my vegetarian friends feel included in our workplace get-together potluck. So I brought some candies with me as options for the vegetarians to snack on alongside other veggie-friendly food. In fact, I bought some for all my other colleagues so that we could try and enjoy the same thing. I had it myself, and it was a delicious gummy. Good things are meant to be shared, right?

Two colorful candy packaging bags featuring cartoon creatures: one for 'Grumpy Candy' with a blue monster and the other for 'Fruity Gummies' with a blue creature sitting among strawberries. Both bags indicate they are suitable for vegetarians.

Unfortunately, the one that I wanted to hopefully feel included did not turn up to the event. Not only that, but all the other food was also flatly refused. It was a sad yet shocking experience. All the husnuzon just went down the drain. Even if you do not prefer something, just accept it graciously and chuck it into the bin secretly later on. Sigh.

Some people just don’t deserve our energy, after all.

Her colourful, unstable brain

Posted in Everyday Life, Ponderings & Personal Development by

Not all doctors are prepared to manage mental health illnesses. Let alone family members. I knew at least a few doctors, my own batch, who once said, ‘nak sgt mati, terjun je lah’. To them, mental health is all just in the head and that what these patients are experiencing are merely pettiness and poor resilience. It is very difficult for this particular group of doctors to accept that these people are suffering physiologically as well. It takes an empathetic doctor to sit with this patient and explore the symptoms. In a fast-paced world with medicolegal implications lurking around the corner, empathy can be hard to train.

I have always thought that it is brave for someone to admit that they are unwell mentally and seek help for it. People with depression have anhedonia. They have poor appetite and sleep quality. It is not because they are not trying, but because something is always in the way of their recovery journey. A patient once described that she was actually ready to leave the world by paying off all her debts and decluttering her things. She noticed that the duration of her low mood got a bit longer than usual. It was no longer during the premenstrual period but almost every 2 weeks. Not only that, she was experiencing uncontrollable bursts of rage from time to time over small disputes happening at home and at work. She was beginning to hallucinate. It was either her name being called or doors being slid open when they were not. Or doors being closed shut when no one else was at home. She forgets things easily and tells the same stories all over again. But then at other times, she sometimes wonders if the things she knows about a person or an event are really true or if the ideas were something she conjured in her monologues before, and accepted by the brain as a fact. This went on for at least 6 months.

At one point, she contemplated the least painful way to die as she felt that her support system had crumbled. She felt that her husband was slowly pushing her to the edge so that SHE would be the one filing for divorce to get out of the painful marriage. The spouse also kept the kids close to him, probably as an attempt to win their favour in case there is a battle of custody. Not knowing that she was prepared to give it all up in return for her life. Every behaviour is deemed a nuisance and unnecessary by the spouse. Soon, heartfelt conversations are no longer shared because the patient doesn’t feel safe and supported. Everything just comes back to her for either being ‘stupid’ or ‘weak’. As a result, the partner would narrate the situation to the kids, in what he thought was a harmless manner, portraying the patient as an incompetent mother who has no brains to figure things out on her own.

The last time I met her, she was still refusing to start her meds as she felt she could still manage her emotions and that she could still function at work. She said she just needed someone to talk to without passing judgment. She is also refusing a CT Brain – I wanted to eliminate as many organic causes as possible. She was confident that if there was anything wrong with her brain, she would experience relentless headache and nausea. Or her limbs would just give way.

I hope that her resilience and protective factors would shield her from self-harm or suicidal attempts. I am rooting for her to still have a chance to have a seat in Heaven in the Hereafter.