Can someone please tell my ex to send me some money because therapy is really expensive and I didn't ask for it... Like seriously I wouldn't have to go through all this if not for the mental health issues he gave me.
Polyclinic consultation: $13.20 per session (I've gone for 5 sessions)
Medical tests: Probably around $173-185 (blood test, ECG test, CT scan)
Hospital consultation: est. $32 per session (I've gone for 3 sessions)
Talk therapy: $85 first session ($75 each subsequent session)
Medication: $5.20
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM): $80
That's a grand total of $505.20-$517.20 thus far. Because I only just started treatment (hospital appointments are really slow), I still have an indefinite number of sessions to attend (since there's no true cure for this particular psychological/mental health issue), which will likely amount to about $1,000 at the end of 1 year (which is a very generous calculation on my behalf, given how such disorders take YEARS to recover from). Holy shit man, I could've done so much with that money. And it doesn't even include the travelling costs lmao (which are really expensive btw as I had to take private transport most of the time due to anxiety-related symptoms). Heartbreak is so not worth it y'all; just do yourself a favour and stay single.
You told me that you'd like to be a teacher/lecturer someday. I never quite entertained the thought of becoming one, but I heard how you slogged so hard at school for a near-perfect GPA that would guarantee a respectable job. I started wondering if I could see myself teaching as a career. Years of contemplating finally led me to actually manifest it. I'm now a teacher, as you had dreamt so much 6 years ago. What about you?
Fit for practice in social work: To be an individual who can practise social work safely and effectively because they have the relevant skills, knowledge, character and health.
✅ Skills: Obtained from my social work internships, part-time work, and volunteer experience.
✅ Knowledge: Obtained from my Bachelor's studies in social work.
✅ Character: I'm an INFJ.
❌ Health: I'm not fit for practice because of my mental health. My breakup has inflicted a wound that can never heal. Every day I live in anxiety, depression, and loathing. I still wish my rich cybersecurity professional ex would send me some money to pay for my therapy.
If my health were fine and I had become a social work professional, here's what I would experience in an onboarding training programme on the topic of professional dangerousness:
1. Jot down questions, thoughts and suggestions on Padlet
2. Icebreaker activity: trainees to fit on a piece of paper. Communication is key. Analogically, everybody fits together because with positioning and as professionals with relevant knowledge, we can do it.
3. Skills and knowledge: supervision (supervision practice, supervision structure), clinical skills (crisis incident debrief), clinical knowledge (competency framework)
4. Character and health
5. Competency framework: the case for change
6. 5-step approach
7. Role of supervisor
8. Role of supervisee
9. Supervisions structure (use of self-disclosure)
10. Critical incident debriefing
11. Roleplay: critical incident debrief. Normalising feelings (it's normal to feel scared hearing this incident. 5 people roleplaying the incident, including the debriefer and the rest observing. Debriefing is about identifying and addressing feelings of persons involved in the incident, person-centred, sieving out coping mechanisms, letting every personnel have a say, clarifying doubts of participants, power differential between worker and management, and addressing power dynamics such as group norms like conforming to what others say. Objective/introduction of debriefer at the start to set the context for everybody, assurance of p&c and doesn't affect appraisal). Overall debrief at the end to synthesise thoughts. Educating participants that there is AEP support.
12. Mandatory reporting
13. Professional dangerousness - system failure in Gabriel Fernandez and Chin Swee Rd cases. Afterwards, participants sat in a circle tgt and trainer processed their feelings. Trainer validated their feelings and challenging and reframed (not to be hyper vigilant but have the right mindset to do the best for child undergoing abuse) and affirmed them for sharing, made eye contact with different members. Relaxation exercise.
14. Emotional self-regulation
15. Professional dangerousness: rule of optimism, Stockholm syndrome, role confusion, overwhelmed professionals and organisational capacity
16. Small group discussion: which professional dangerousness r u most susceptible to, how did it play out, how did u manage it or how would u like to manage it? Seniors did group sharing.
17. Vicarious trauma
18. Secondary traumatic stress
19. Self-regulation & self-care (integrated throughout the training there were activities like breaks, relaxing, crisis incident debriefing)
20. Self-regulation activities done tgt: box breathing technique, Peter Levine's self-holding exercise self-hug
21. Self-care activity: all participants sat in a circle and shared what self-care is to them (ie personal activities)
22. Fill up the Evaluation form
It's so difficult for me to journal every day. I don't know if it's laziness, lack of motivation, poor time management, or a combination of everything. I seriously need to get my life together. But anyway, this has been my attempt to journal for a week. If anyone's wondering how my birthday (yesterday, 25 January 2025) went: it was not too bad. I'm still alive, although there have been moments when I felt like I was gonna die. Also, I'm still waiting for my ex to send me some money to pay for my therapy.
Today was a better day for me. Right now the only memory that my brain wants to rewind is the Chinese New Year lunch with my work colleagues. We had a buffet lunch at Swissôtel, including yusheng or lohei or prosperity toss—a peculiar salad that only Chinese people in Singapore/Malaysia have during Chinese New Year. Sounds odd when put in words, but it's one of those things whereby you get it when you actually experience it. I ate—a lot—for free, and chatted with my colleagues (but when I didn't, I felt awkward and lost).
Now I'm sad because work is piling up, and nobody cares that my birthday is coming up.
Wow, it's exhausting to keep a daily journal. How do y'all manage it?
I was late to work as usual but no one told me off. Sat through a very long and dry presentation about a survey of our university graduates'/students' and employers' perceptions of the employability of our university's fresh graduates. Kinda ridiculous how the university spent $50,000 on statistically insignificant research, containing research questions and responses that did not make sense. Like comparing employers' perceived job performance of XXX university graduates with XXXX university graduates when XXXX university does not even have a degree programme for that particular major/field they were trying to investigate lol. This was mind-boggling to me—did they not validate their methodology? I was confused most of the time; I felt so frustrated to sit through a presentation that felt poorly thought out and lacked credibility in its research. To add salt to injury, I had a very tedious task of populating 120 internship programmes onto an Excel spreadsheet. My only respite was when the Caucasian professors pointed out the flaws & other considerations of the research lol. In a room full of reserved Asians, only they dared to challenge the sweeping generalisations.
I had lunch on my own. I had initially wanted to get Soup Spoon, but as I was queuing I realised that my $5 birthday voucher was only valid with a minimum of $15 spent. So, I left the queue because I was too broke for that. I was overstimulated in the mall and could not decide what to eat; I even contemplated heading to another place. I frowned and tried to fight the depersonalisation/derealisation. I eventually settled for Old Chang Kee, since that had a relatively shorter queue and I could use ShopeePay to offset the amount.
I was bored out of my mind at work and unmotivated to finish my task. I dreamt about reaching home early, but my hopes were crushed as my best friend asked me out for dinner because she was sad. Her work supervisor was—as usual—very mean to her, and unfortunately, she is the unassertive type due to her past trauma. I wish I was there to berate her supervisor. Right before our dinner appointment, my best friend had a 2-hour long (crying) session with her psychologist. In between spoonfuls of soup (yes, I eventually got to eat Soup Spoon and enjoy the small discount—graciously paid for by my best friend lol), I told her—for the umpteenth time—to quit her job. We then fantasised about building a youth drop-in centre to engage with children & young people who do not have ideal environments to return to/stay at during after-school hours. Eh, easier said than done.
While window shopping, I was so overstimulated that I felt fatigued, out of breath without physical exertion, and wanted to go home quite badly. I slowly started feeling "normal" again once I boarded the train ride home. I seriously loathe how tired I get all the time when I'm not even doing anything crazy.
Shucks, I forgot to journal yesterday. So here's what went down:
Monday, 21 January 2025
Woke up exhausted even though I had at least 7 hours of sleep. It's always a struggle to get up quickly in the morning; I was barely motivated to perform miscellaneous tasks like washing my water bottle, but I eventually did so because I had to. Even though I rise early, I am chronically late for work because of morning diarrhoea. The train ride to work was not fun at all. I felt stuffy, faint, parched and short of breath; my bag weighed heavily on my shoulders and I contemplated alighting early to use the bathroom for the second/third time in the morning. I endured this feeling for almost an hour until I finally found my office desk and slumped onto my chair.
My workload for the morning was not too bad. I quickly became bored and decided to respond to all my texts and surf the internet for an hour. I met up with a guy, Clem**** S**, for lunch. He is an alumnus of the university where I work and a Senior Investment Analyst in the financial district. Nice guy, but our conversation made me realise I was losing out in the rat race - not his race as a finance bro but my own race. Even my colleague echoed this later on in the afternoon. I am a young talent with much-wasted potential, working in a lowly administrative job that stunts my creativity. I felt stupid not playing the game of life properly. But nobody knew that my anxiety disorder was limiting me. I am very comfortable in my current job because my anxiety and stress are rarely triggered. If not for my anxiety, I would be a social worker now - what everyone wanted me to become, saving the world and bringing home a modest salary. I don't know what I was feeling, but it was nothing positive. I searched for online resources offered by my workplace and found a mentorship programme. I promptly signed up as a mentee. My life can only go upwards from here, right?
I met with a friend, Is*** T**, for my advanced birthday dinner. He is a university (a different one) student, majoring in history. His mindset is a lot like mine - just chilling, romanticising life, and remaining oblivious to the realities of adulting. I felt more comfortable and natural in this setting. I guess that's the difference between the finance and humanities fields. I don't know how the finance bros stay stressed all the time; it's not sustainable for me.
Tuesday, 21 January 2025
Today was rather unproductive as I was WFH, and had barely any motivation to complete my to-do for today: play the ukulele, play the piano, clean my room, list items for sale, read, and exercise. I just felt so lazy, and I hated myself for that. I'm (physically) healthy enough to do these things, yet no energy is channelling. People out there are working full-time without any WFH privileges and surviving, but every day I feel close to death even when I am WFH and idling away. I don't know what's wrong with me. I need to read Atomic Habits.
So this coming week (my birthday week! 🥳), I will be journaling here daily to track my thoughts and feelings, especially those related to my anxiety disorder.
Is this what the therapist told me to do? Nah, I've decided to stop going to therapy because of financial reasons. Over the past few years, I have spent more than S$2,321 on all things concerning my anxiety - be it doctor's consultations, medication, therapy, transportation to and from health services, etc. And that's a very modest calculation, given that I did not include indirect costs - like loss of time, productivity losses, lost wages (as I was not fit to work on days when I was unwell due to the anxiety), emotional stress, and lower quality of life.
Instead, this is my valiant attempt at crafting a self-guided therapy plan. Yes, tailored for me (or if I were to disassociate - tailored for addressing anxiety disorder), by me. The goal is to be able to better manage my anxiety and reach my fullest potential without spending a single cent on professional services. I hope to achieve those things through consistency, patience, and reflectivity.
I'm a stellar social work university graduate who failed to become a social worker.
So what if I attained the highest scores in my tutorial group for my social work assignments and examinations? My piquant ability to critically analyse cases, apply social work theories holistically, and display highly logical yet reflective thinking within constrained periods does not matter in the eyes of social service organisations.
So what if I performed consistently well and graduated top 10% of the cohort with Second Upper Class Honours (in a school where virtually nobody obtains First Class Honours)? My ocean-deep dedication and passion for the subject, my unwavering determination to produce quality work every time, and my resilience to overcome all adversity do not matter in the eyes of social service organisations.
So what if I did a social work internship at the most established social service organisation (graded "A") and wrote a research piece for them (graded "A-")? My sparkling credentials, positive testimonies, and desired competence do not matter in the eyes of social service organisations. Wait, is the social work value of "Competence" no longer valuable?
So what if I told them my goal was to become a social work professor? Have we stopped advocating for the professionalisation of social work—for recognition and compensation that social workers rightfully deserve, and more effective services for the betterment of society? One of Biestek's 7 Principles of Social Work is "Non-judgemental Attitude", but I saw you judging me for my lack of work experience as a fresh graduate and selecting other candidates due to favouritism. You preach empowerment, yet you diminish the dreams of those who seek to elevate the profession and contribute to its academic growth. It's ironic, isn't it? In a field that prides itself on inclusion and diversity of thought, my aspirations are reduced to a lack of experience rather than the knowledge, vision, and commitment I bring to the table. If we are to uplift our clients, shouldn’t we also uplift those within our own ranks—especially those trying to pave the way for a stronger, more informed future of social work?
Saleebey's Strengths Perspective speaks about seeing the potential and hope in the direst of clients, but your rejection speaks about your inability to see the potential in a passionate, driven individual eager to make a difference in the field. This rejection doesn’t just say no to me—it says no to the potential ripple effect of every student I could one day mentor, every research project that could advance the field, and every policy change I could influence. Competence is not just built through experience; it's fostered through a commitment to learning, reflection, and growth. If we truly believe in empowering the vulnerable, we must also empower those who seek to lead the profession into its next chapter.
Written in these walls are the stories that I can't explain
I leave my heart open, but it stays right here empty for days
She told me in the mornin' she don't feel the same about us in her bones
It seems to me that when I die, these words will be written on my stone
And I'll be gone, gone tonight
The ground beneath my feet is open wide
The way that I've been holding on too tight
With nothing in between
The story of my life, I take her home
I drive all night to keep her warm
And time is frozen
The story of my life, I give her hope
I spend her love until she's broke inside
The story of my life
Recently, I graduated from polytechnic with a Diploma in Mass Media Management. I promptly applied for university and was offered an undergraduate study in Social Work (which I accepted). Many people (well, mostly my peers) have posed me this question, “Why Social Work?”, and often follow up with “Why not continue media/communications/business?”
It’s personally a tough question to answer. There isn’t a specific event/reason that defined my decision; no way I could respond succinctly.
Hence, today, I'm taking the time & effort to answer this pressing query once and for all. For easy reading, I’ve broken this into several segments. This is the (complete) story of why I chose Social Work:
1. I Wanted To Be A Nurse (or so I thought)
7-year-old me saw nursing as an honourable career. To serve and heal people when even their own kin cannot is so noble, so meaningful, so privileged. But 12-year-old me began to think otherwise when I started frequenting the hospital because of my father and grandmother’s hospitalisation. I didn’t want to wash some old stranger’s buttocks. I didn’t want to hear “Missy” hollered relentlessly. I didn’t wanna face death every other day. But I still wanted to serve and help though. I supposed social work was a good compromise.
2. Guilt-ridden
Sometimes, I feel that my family circumstances had inadvertently led to this. One part of it was my father’s demise. 12-year-old me was immature, distracted, and did not care for my father as much as I should have. I was swept with grief and guilt when he passed away. As I had failed to alleviate my father’s psychosocial emotional needs in this lifetime, I should at least do it for others, so he did not die in vain.
3. Media Projects (this is the reason I shared during my Social Work interview)
During my last semester in my diploma course, I produced a short film for HBO Asia Competition themed ‘Invisible Stories’.
Story From The Slum is a mini-documentary unravelling the story of an elderly resident in Jalan Kukoh — deemed one of the poorest estates in Singapore.
Through conversations with the residents and founder of GOLD Ministry (a community support group), I realised there is a deeper issue outweighing the financial struggle. Hence, this heartfelt film sheds light on the real 'invisible' problem in this misunderstood neighbourhood.
This meaningful, intimate experience kindled my newfound desire to make a social impact. Before embarking on my polytechnic journey, I had self-loathed in my lack of drive. Now, I want to change the public perception of fundamental topics and issues.
4. Struggle With Self-Esteem and Mental Issues
I think this is self-explanatory. Humans are strange; we’d help others who are in the same/similar predicament as us, but not before we help ourselves.
5. A Change Of Mind
I consider myself fickle-minded and was never dead set on one career goal. I have friends who knew they wanted to be a policewoman, an aerospace engineer, a businessman for many years - heck, ever since they developed the ability to imagine. That’s not me. I wanted to be a journalist for the local English newspaper, but this COVID-19 pandemic has got me thinking about other prospects.
6. A Change Of Heart (Religion)
When I need to review my purpose in life and personal morals, I turn to my religion, Buddhism. It has taught me to do good (aka social work). And you cannot go wrong with accumulating good karma... Right? Right...?
7. I Didn’t Choose Social Work; Social Work Chose Me
Long story short, I did not make the cut to the top universities in my country (aka the big three) no matter how many appeal letters I scribbled, so I could not continue my education in media/comms/business. This crazy, little university that is unheard of in my community decided to take me in. I don’t know what the Director-General of Social Welfare at the Ministry of Social and Family Development saw in me, but thank you for choosing me and changing my fate.
I’m erasing myself from the narrative
Let future historians wonder how Eliza
Reacted when you broke her heart
You have torn it all apart
I am watching it
Burn
Watching it burn
The world has no right to my heart
The world has no place in our bed
They don’t get to know what I said
I’m burning the memories
Burning the letters that might have redeemed you
You forfeit all rights to my heart
You forfeit the place in our bed
You sleep in your office instead
With only the memories
Of when you were mine
Eliza, I don't have a dollar to my name
An acre of land, a troop to command, a dollop of fame
All I have is my honour, a tolerance for pain
A couple of college credits and my top-notch brain
Insane, your family brings out a different side of me
Peggy confides in me
Angelica tried to take a bite of me
No stress, my love for you was never in doubt
We'll get a little place in Harlem and we'll figure it out
I've been livin' without a family since I was a child
My father left, my mother died, I grew up buckwild
But I'll never forget my mother's face, that was real
As long as I'm alive, Eliza, swear to god you'll never feel so
I do, I do, I do, I do
Eliza, I do, I do, I do, I do (helpless)
I never felt so (helpless)
Yeah, yeah
Down for the count and I'm drownin' in 'em (I'm down for a count and I'm...)
Yo, my live is gon' be fine 'cause Eliza's in it (helpless)
I look into your eyes, and the sky's the limit, I'm (helpless)
Down for the count, and I'm drownin' in 'em
