Hi, I'm Zoe,
I was diagnosed with dyslexia during my secondary school days. I was diagnosed with mental health conditions in 2019, it was major depressive and borderline personality disorder. In my early years when I was young, I had difficulty in schoolwork. During primary school time, my classmate always bully me. As I grow up, I find it hard to pass all my subjects, I find it hard to do well in my studies, I lost hope in school, and I avoid going to school. I was once in an abusive and violent environment.
I found it hard to pass my exam yearly. I started to develop self-harm behaviour when I was in secondary school. I also don't want to go back home early every day due to family violence at home and I don’t know what to do at that point of time. It’s very often that I could see items flying within the house area, for example, cups, chair, tv control, spoons, book, bag, toy, just simply whatever it could be able to grab and throw… I was once being tie up by him and turned upside down for a couple of hours till I could be released. The moment I got released, I lock myself inside the toilet till he has gone out of the house. Then I come out of the toilet with him in the house it makes me feel scared, don’t know what will happen next to me… as time goes by the violence start to be more and more often, I don’t know how to handle but to choose to avoid going back home stay out till late night outside… some time I do think that why am I here suffering alone?
I used to self-harm during my younger days when family violence happened day to day... Each time it will be deeper and deeper of cutting which I feel that it not helping me from anything but to give me scar and let me feel numb in the heart area. I lost all my control. I became a heavy smoker, and I used alcohol to make me drunk so I could just get numb and lose vision for that time. As the next day starts the whole feeling and emotion I feel will be back again and the routine continues daily. When I am addicted, I will look for more and it will become heavier and heavier, and I will go for higher doses. I decided to seek help when all of this is not giving me anything good but making my physical condition worse. I decided to stop having this kind of life. During the family violence, I had no one at my side helping me or even protecting me at all. I keep all by myself and no one could understand how much hurt I felt and how much pain I had been through. My parent isn't that supportive my mum could not understand why I self harm or even make myself addicted to smoking and drinking alcohol so much. Then I decided to get treatment to stop all these unhealthy habits.
I took the courage to seek help and looked for alternatives for myself to stop those violent. I cry out for help talking to people and expressing what I have been through and also learn to understand the way that I can help myself to grow and become better and not leave the condition untreated… I reached out to get help and seeing a counsellor helped in some way. I have learned how to cope with my emotion, impulsive behaviour, and also my self-harm behaviour. I replace all these negative behaviour with healthy behaviours such as breathing techniques, drawing out the feeling of emotions, acknowledging them, and talking to the counsellor with the drawing. As I share my drawing it makes me reflect on how do feeling feel and how I could make it better by not suppressing those feeling.
I have overcome by releasing that no one else could change my situation but myself, I'm the only SOLUTION for my situation to change and stop myself from being pitiful and looking for people's attention, change my whole thinking and start thinking for solutions that come from me myself and I, not waiting for solutions come from other. It takes a big step to move myself from feeling stuck in that hopeless situation when I'm looking for solutions that comes from other but not myself. But once I start seeing myself as a part of the solution it makes it easy to move myself out of the darkness or hopelessness. Start within myself and it will change how bad the situation is when I have the solution come from me. I have overcome by facing the problem and situation and stop avoiding those issues and shut down myself so that I don’t face them.
I have learned a lot in this CPTSD course, it makes me understand how come I react this way, why my emotion feels this way, how could I help myself to feel better, and how could I change myself to react better and acknowledge the emotion and anger and give myself a pat when the thing I have achieved. I also learned self-care and self-love for myself example grounding myself and breathing techniques. It is never wrong to feel angry sad or disappointed but to acknowledge them and comfort the feeling when the time to cry just cry don't suppress the feeling and blame myself for feeling this way.
My hope for myself is that I could survive without taking medication as time goes by... I dream of myself helping more peers going through season of depression or even shy in seeking or reaching out for help I do dream about myself could be a counsellor or even a social worker to help other who is in need (:
I will encourage the survivors to seek help when you feel stressed or even depressed don’t be shy to seek help… I can overcome myself you also can overcome do seek help don’t keep it to yourself (: