It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything here. My last entry was April 21st, which was my farewell drinks with colleagues from work as I quit my job as a Mental Health Nurse the day before. There was no obligation of fulfilling my one month’s notice & I was given the choice to have my last day at work at any time from when I tendered my resignation. I have never knew such a thing was remotely possible. In my birth country (Malaysia), this would be unheard of and utterly impossible.
I titled this post with “To Have Space for Myself” because, I’ve never had space for myself. The truth is, I have only recently realised that I’ve lived my life, not knowing that I was living it based on expectations set by my late mother (my father was never really present, he was indifferent and let my mother call the shots for most of everything) and based on what I thought are pragmatic choices. There is nothing wrong with making choices that are pragmatic. It only becomes problematic when EVERY DECISION you make is a pragmatic one, slowly eroding your sense of self and the eventual erasure of who you could have been if you were given a chance to have some ‘space’ to blossom.
I’ll be turning 43 this November and since quitting my job, I have been given the ‘space’ to blossom to be the person I could have become, but, I am truly lost as I have finally realised that I have no self. I don’t know who I am, what I want, or what I need. I have been so conditioned to not want to want anything for fear of crushing disappointment as well as the core belief that I am not worth anything.
What I am trying to say is that, I am so blessed to have this opportunity to have ‘space’ to figure myself out, to grieve what I have lost and to make sense of all the abuse inflicted on me growing up. This whole notion of finally accepting that the abuse was really bad, is still a notion that I struggle to embrace because I have truly believed that what happened to me was not at all that bad and I must have been such a bad sister/daughter that I deserved it all.
This post is dedicated to my spouse for always being there for me. I can very surely say that you are the only person that has shown love and kindness that I never thought I deserve.
Living with Depression 