Tag Archives: love and relationship

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.

Different versions of a person

Posted in Everyday Life, Parenting, Family and Relationships by

My sister was telling me the other day that our dad arranged an umrah trip for him and his missus. Meaning, our stepmother. It was a good package, fully funded by our dad. Of course, I would not expect any less from someone in the role of a husband (who has the money). But wait, why did this version of my dad not surface before? The version of putting the comfort of the wife in mind and not rubbing it in about how much he will be spending on the umrah. In fact, this version of him in this second marriage is totally different to how we remembered him treating our mother before.

Maybe this new wife befits his evolving taste for a woman with a career that he could parade to his friends and relatives. I have nothing against this lady. She has led her own fair share of hardships in life, as well as being a single mother. And her kids turned out to be great human beings. Or so we were told. The only thing I made clear to my dad was that I do not wish to participate in her life and her kids. That means if we are having a birthday party, with her being present, I am not going.

Anyway, back to the umrah story. This is not my dad’s first umrah trip. He went for umrah with our late mom many years ago, but I remembered him being a nuisance about it. Everything to him was either expensive or tedious. Up to the point that our mom, who was a housewife by the way, living on the pocket money that we (working) daughters gave her every month, said that she would fund the trip. In other words, she had saved enough money to fund an umrah package and proposed the trip to her husband to come along. She really wanted them to experience umrah together. Only to be met with defiance. Aisyah Retno’s song Tidak Adil is so fitting of the situation back then. Dad still went as a man with Nuisance as his middle name. Only Allah knows how it was there. My mother made the best out of the trip.

Hence, this different version of him is new to us. Maybe it is because he is getting older and is having more time with his pension money. Maybe his love towards our mother waned with time and they just decided to give up on each other. They were housemates who co-parents their kids.

Inevitably, it happens to the best of us when you don’t recharge the spark and keep the romance burning.

Love your family, but live for yourself

Posted in Everyday Life, Ponderings & Personal Development by

Once upon a time, there lived a man who tirelessly worked day and night to provide for his family. His dedication enabled him to accumulate significant wealth and purchase luxurious items for his children. With his fortune, he confidently sent his kids to prestigious schools and treated them to incredible holidays. The man believed wholeheartedly that he was doing everything right by shielding them from life’s hardships.

Time has passed, and his children are now adults. Living a sheltered life has shaped their personalities, leading them to perceive many aspects of life as toxic and misaligned with their values. They now view tasks requiring grit and resilience as challenges that push their boundaries, which they mistakenly see as threats to their mental health. Constructive advice from experienced individuals is often dismissed as condescending and disrespectful of their autonomy. Patience and resilience have become uncommon virtues. It would be surprising if they truly grasp the importance of delayed gratification.

Soon, the wealth passed on from the man to his children is depleting. The kids, unaware of the immense effort that went into acquiring this money and these possessions, treat everything as mere pocket change to be squandered or discarded. Gifts of expensive watches are carelessly sold off, houses are up for grabs, and gaming units are auctioned at a bargain. The man reflects, “What’s the point of saving millions in my bank account and working hard day and night, only for my kids to squander it and sell when they need quick cash?” Had he known this earlier, he would have chosen a different path, refusing to sacrifice his own life for such foolish gains.

Witnessing this first-hand made me realise something. I believe there is a Chinese saying that goes 富不过三代 (fù bù guò sān dài), which literally means “wealth does not pass three generations“. It means that the first generation creates the wealth, the second generation increases the wealth (due to education and building on their parents’ systems and connections), and the third generation- maybe due to decadence or decline- leads to bankruptcy!

While I love my kids, I should teach them how to fish instead of giving them all the fish. It is ok to build on their savings accounts, but keep some of the salary for myself to enjoy as well. I should not withhold myself from the simple joys of life, especially when I can afford it. Go for that movie, buy those pretty jeans and eat that nice steak. Enjoy the coffee and plan for staycations. At the same time, I should teach my kids to be resilient when facing the hard stuff of life.

Recently, I enrolled my daughter in a swimming class. The coaches are Malaysian Chinese. I am fine with that. And I want my daughter to be fine with that too by stepping out of her bubble. Schools have been so segregated nowadays that you hardly see any non-Malay students in Sekolah Kebangsaan. I am hoping that frequent, tiny exposures to people outside her race would make her feel more accustomed to them one day. I understand that learning to swim is already a challenging feat. What’s more, having to learn to communicate with people that you rarely see and interact with daily. I put good faith towards the adults there to help her feel at ease with her lessons and also welcome her into their bubble. It is still a bit hard for her at the moment. She has been saying that she doesn’t want to go, but I am instilling some motivation into her to try her best.

I am teaching her how to fish at the moment. I am not sure if my pep talk is working. She looked like she was holding in her tears. I hope that she can persevere through these 12 weeks of learning and come out as a strong swimmer and with a positive outlook on life.

How to end a relationship

Posted in Ponderings & Personal Development by

Simple. Stop having meals together. Stop celebrating special moments. Relationships require effort. Enjoying food together is one of them.

When you share a meal or a table, you will talk to each other. Or during turbulent moments, you have to brave through the silence. Until someone breaks the ice. If you choose not to participate in a relationship, you eat alone, or you don’t eat at all. Simple, right?

Today is my late mom’s birthday. Before she died, it used to be a time when we, the children, would make time in our busy schedules as young adults to celebrate her. It could be a short weekend lunch at a restaurant or a hotel buffet. Now, it is just a brief moment in our busy lives to pause and recite a doa. The thing is, when we celebrate her birthday, it is not really about her alone. It is also about us coming together as a family to strengthen the relationship as father-son, siblings, mother-son, father-daughter, etc. With her passing, the traditions of celebrating things together somehow died with her. There is still the occasional get-together, but as I’ve mentioned earlier, it takes effort to bring the matter up, discuss and decide on an opening in our life calendar. Guiltily, it is almost always my younger sister, a wonderful mother of 3, an enthusiastic teacher, who is trying to glue all of us together.

So. Yes. That is how we end our relationships between family members, spouses, friends. Stop eating together.