Let's keep talking about mental health

Assalamualaikum and hi everyone, how are you guys doing? It's my first post in 2025! Happy New Year!! hahaha

I would want to say that this blog has been the place that witnessed my mental health journey, good or bad. I've been publicly talking about mental health since 2016 on this blog. It starts with wanting to help people and slowly realizing that I also need help. I officially seek professional help in June 2021. Crazy to think how long it took for me to reach here today in 2025, it was not an easy journey but it was all worth it.

I would not say that I am all fine now, I am still struggling in lots of areas in my life. But I would say I am getting so much better. I can prioritize myself, take care of my peace and just learn how I can rationalize with a lot of stuff that happened. I will tell you more about what my journey looks like, hoping it may help anyone or give some hope to anyone.

Growing up, I've always felt like I have no purpose in life. I romanticized being unalive, so I could escape this world. With some stuff happening in my own life, how people treated me since I was young, I would say I have a lot of anger pent up. I was wondering why I can't be happy or why can't my brain just shut up? I felt there was something really wrong with me. 

As soon as I get my first job, I have all the means to make myself happier. I want to get out of the pain, I want to experience life, and I don't want to be stuck in the same pain memories, same anger. I do believe there is more to life than just being angry about the things I can't control when I was 5 or 15 years old. I went to my first therapy and honestly, it was really eye-opening, it taught me the basic tools of your circle of control, grounding rules when I'm having anxiety attacks, and a lot of other stuff. But I have to stop seeing that therapist because my schedule can no longer align with hers. 

I then moved to the next therapist on another platform, I took a package for 8 therapy sessions (I actually took it by accident cause I'm dumb like that) This one was the most brutal therapy I ever attended. Most certainly the one that leaves me crying, sobbing, and shaking during each session. I then stopped going cause man, it's brutal and I felt like I rather go through daily life pain than sit on those sessions. 

I skipped therapy for a year until I attended the ADHD webinar because I was suspecting myself. After the webinar, it wasn't an instant decision to get it tested or seek therapy because I thought I was just being overdramatic. ADHD symptoms can overlap with a lot of other mental illnesses including Bipolar, Depression, etc. Also, people are making ADHD a trend on social media cause it's a "quirky" or "I just can't focus" type of thing. I am against self-diagnosing and definitely can't believe everything on social media. Until I saw, that frequent burnout is a big sign of ADHD, this "sign" is rarely talked about and I was convinced.

I took the screening test and I was most likely have ADHD but my therapist said, let's go through therapy sessions first. She said there are 2 ways to diagnose, either after multiple sessions of therapy or an IQ test. After a few sessions, my therapist decided it was time for me to take the test and I did. The rest is history. I do make an entry about it, you can always go and check them out :)

Through my journey of getting professional help, I’ve learned a lot about people, including myself, others, and just how we all experience things. I feel lucky that I had some knowledge about mental health before really realizing what I was going through. I'm grateful for that because when your mental state is in a bad place, you can go down either a positive or negative path. Thankfully, I've been able to choose the positive one. This is why I don't like to judge people, what they’re doing might just be their way of coping. Maybe they never had the chance to find a more positive path. 

Another thing I learned is that seeking help from professionals does not make all your problems go away. I still remember my first therapist telling me, "I have no magic wand to make all your problem poof". You have and must work on yourself, the therapist is there to assist you to find the right tools for you. You know we are all different some things might work for some but not for others. That is where the therapist's role comes in to customize the good tools for you but it is a try-and-error process.

I also have to admit, that therapy does not work for everyone, especially when you are expecting a certain result after your session. Trust me first few sessions don't really make sense but you have to trust the process. In my recent sessions, my therapist told me "Do you notice how all these positive changes happen without you needing to make the changes actively?" that's true, I never have to write a list of my dreams or anything extravagant. It's just about how I cope with my own emotions and mental well-being. But hey, you know yourself better as long as you have the intention to make your life get better you are making progress even though some days it doesn't seem like having any progress at all. 

Lastly, your journey will never be ups only. There will be a lot of ups and downs. Sometimes you will question yourself as to why those bad days keep happening despite your efforts to make it better. All I can say is, that life always finds a way to mess you up. It's just maybe now you know how to deal with it. And like I always say to people around me, seeking therapy or starting your healing journey doesn't mean the end goal is to make you happy but rather enable you to feel your feelings like happiness, euphoria, overwhelm, sadness, anger, disgust, etc. What a lot of us missed is that during a bad mental state, we usually feel numb or a certain emotion intensely. If you can understand your feelings better you'll understand that emotion is there to help us, it makes us feel alive and we are human.

After all, we are all humans. We have the basic needs of safety, love & belonging needs. When one of them is missing, we react to protect ourselves. Be kind to yourself. You've gone through so much and hey, I'm happy to see you here. 

This is rather a long post, sorry if it bores you. I am not sure when I'll be back here. Let's keep talking about mental health, creating a safe space, and removing the stigma around it. Until then see ya <3 

speed running life.

 Assalamualaikum and hi everyone~ it's Sarah's irregular entry. It's back. This will be a rant post or me just looking back on life. Let's just ride with my feelings at this moment.

2024 is almost done, almost wrapped. I honestly don't know where to begin. So many things have happened and it was a ride. Let's just start with my mental health journey, because this blog was always a safe space to talk about my mental health.

In 2023, I stopped going to therapy, but this year, I decided to resume my sessions. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was diagnosed with ADHD. If I'm being honest, my mental health isn't the worst. I feel like my 2023 was the best and 2024 it dropped. I believe it’s largely because I’ve been struggling with work-life balance I neglected my self-care and became overwhelmed. I am facing challenges with executive dysfunction, it was hard planning, executing tasks, and staying organized incredibly difficult. However, I've made some big decisions to have a better working life next year. After all, some sacrifices need to be made. Hope it is all worth it.

I’ve also been struggling a lot with my self-esteem and self-worth, and honestly, I think this has been the biggest challenge I’ve been working through since I first started therapy three years ago. It feels like I’ve made very little progress in this area. I still have this really strong feeling deep down that I’m unlovable,  not just in romantic relationships, but with friends and family too.

Alright, let’s leave all the negative stuff behind for a moment! There have actually been a lot of positive and happy things that happened this year too. I've been able to make lots of new friends as well this year. There’s one person in particular who I’m so grateful to have met. I’ve had all sorts of weird feelings about this person, which I ended up talking about with my therapist. Just to realize, that this person has helped me find a huge piece of myself that I’ve been searching for all along. I really hope this friendship stays.. If I could be selfish, I hope it stays forever.. 

If you know me personally, you know how I love content creation. If you stay long enough on this blog, you'll know my creative endeavors. I'm happy to tell you guys that I am still doing it, maybe more than I could do before. To the people who've been supporting my creative journey (a.k.a my younger self) rest assured, I am doing amazing. Definitely not easy, but I've been enjoying it so much. In regards to writing, I am still writing but it's all in my notes, I don't really publish it anymore.

Moving on to the topic that I need to mention every year is about having a romantic partner/Jodoh. I feel like this year I am the most chill and I don't know. I kind of lost interest in finding one with whatever happened on previous year. But I still want to have one (T.T). I am actually interested in someone but I don't know, I feel like it's almost impossible. I have the urge to run away and just ignore these feelings but I think I'll go with the flow for this one. I've spoken to my therapist and she's assuring me I'll be fine. I also put my trust in my creator, I trust whatever is best will be in my way.

Oh! I think this is the last update, my best friends are getting married and I'm receiving good news from each of them. You know I am genuinely happy for them. Like knowing their life journey and receiving this good news is just, I don't know. If they are happy, I am happier.

That is all for these updates, I will see you guys soon on the next update. Please have a nice day ahead and let me tell you, you've been doing so well surviving 2024! See ya~