There was this guy who sat beside me and,
I would make fun of him everyday.
And on top of that,
I would extort money from him.
I see this person, who I perceive weaker than me,
I can now take control of something in my life.
So I felt joy in doing it.
Hi everyone.
Welcome to this episode of Ask TSL.
We asked you to share some of your personal struggles when managing mental health
And today we're going to be your aunt agonies (and) giving you our advice.
And we are joined by an expert, Dr. Harun today
Who will be providing some professional advice as well.
My name is Dr. Syed Harun.
I'm a consultant psychiatrist in private practice.
Essentially, I see adolescents who are 16 years and above.
I see adults and I also see some elderly as well.
And I'm here hopefully to be able to lend some insight into mental health needs of the community.
Happy to have you here.
A pleasure to be here as well.
Okay, let’s go!
Let's start.
By the way, I’m uncle agony not aunt agony.
Okay, uncle!
Uncle, ya.
The first one is “I enjoy creating content on my social media platforms.”
“However, since my accounts are public,”
“I tend to get a handful of negative comments.”
I try not to take these comments to heart, but sometimes it still gets to my head.
How can I overcome this?
For all of us, we are content creators on our own IG platforms and TheSmartLocal channel,
So I think it is something that it is pretty common.
There is this thing where I tell myself personally, I would say like, you know,
Not everybody in the world is going to love you,
But for every person that hates you,
There are ten more people that will love you for who you are.
The best thing that I do now is I don't even read comments
Unless they are positive.
Oh ya.
Ya.
(Brenda) Selective Reading. (Chow) Yes.
Correct.
At the end of the day,
We are looking at cognitive distortions.
Because what's happening is that
Our way of thinking
And how we shape our way of thinking over something that is going through in our lives,
The key word as you were sharing that was actually “a handful of negative comments”.
(It is) really just a hand full (of comments).
And if you take the data point,
You’ll have overwhelming positive reactions.
And sometimes positive reactions online don't seem to be as forthcoming as the negative ones.
So when you balance it right, then you realize
Oh actually overwhelmingly is positive over negative.
And you just go with the flow.
The other part which you also highlighted is
Not to take it personally.
That even if they criticize your content,
They might not actually be talking about you individually.
They are really talking about the quality of the content and their criticism is towards that content.
And when you are able to dislocate that and you recognize that it's not a personal attack on you,
Then you also take it a distance.
What if the comments are 90% negative?
The other part about bullying right
There are bullies everywhere.
If we look at it differently,
It's not only the bullying that's a problem,
But sometimes the bully himself or herself has a problem in itself.
If you manage your own self-esteem and your own confidence based on how you put others down,
To some extent, you need help.
If you take that view,
Then how you see some of the negative comments
Will probably affect you a bit less
Feel a bit more at ease.
Because our self-esteem and or confidence in who we are
Are not measured by how we put others down.
This person said “I always feel like I’m lacking behind when I see other people my age successful,”
“And I can't help but feel envious that despite being about the same age”
“They are way ahead in life.”
I think for me for sure,
Because I'm, you know, 25.
Becoming older than..
She has been 25 for about 5 years.
Ya.
She’s been in denial.
One motto I have in life is that comparison is really the thief of joy.
Yes.
Yeah.
Beautiful.
You comparing yourself with things online.
You're always going to lose.
Yeah.
Because people just want to put their best self forward.
So usually I don't like to compare with others,
I would like to compare with myself in life, like how I have progressed,
How I've grown over the last few years, etc.
I love that.
If I may summarize what you've shared,
It's about what your definition of success is,
And at the end of the day,
Recognizing that, especially online, that it’s not a fair comparison.
That there's a measure of happiness that can be relative,
But it's also absolute in terms of the things that you've achieved.
I have a love hate relationship with social media.
I love posting and keeping up with the current happenings,
But I've come to realize that I tend to post just to stay current and it's exhausting.
What can I do to avoid feeling FOMO?
Yeah, what can I do?
I relate to this man.
Did I typed this? I forget.
(Zhin) No la, I’m kidding. (Brenda) Can I see?
Okay but I have a question.
Do you want to stay relevant because it is a value that you hold to yourself
Or because it's your job?
I think because it's my job.
Ya, it's very different motivation already.
What do you tell kids who are feeling super FOMO?
You want us...
Do you know what’s FOMO?
Yeah.
Eh, Chow!
Please la!
Because I took a while to know what FOMO was also.
So I was just wondering.
At the end of the day,
We will all only have 24 hours a day
If we're going to spend all day, every day online,
Trying to catch up with the next big trend that's happening,
There will be other things you might miss out.
But you don’t want to miss, (let’s) say your spouses’ birthday
Or you know,
Some important event within your family
Just so that you won’t miss out on something that's online.
Lesson of the day,
Gen Z slangs are not as important as friends’ birthday.
Wow.
Stop!
I have struggled with self-harm in the past.
Although it's been a while since I've had thoughts to self-harm,
It’s become increasingly difficult to overcome when I'm more exposed to triggers online.
Some content have no trigger warning,
So it's hard to just avoid them
When content like this appear,
I can't help but have urges again.
What should I do?
I really have no idea how to answer this.
Sometimes you wonder
What kind of material they are watching that can be so triggering to the extent where you self-harm
And sometimes online, we know that there are algorithms that continue to reinforce some of the things that you have been viewing.
In that space,
Perhaps it's helpful to view other things.
In a more deliberate and conscious way.
So if say tomorrow, all you view and search for is meditation.
Then the content that you view tends to skew towards these things.
And the content that may pop up on your feed will be less and less triggering in essence.
If you're already entertaining some thoughts of self-harm,
You feel it's difficult to be able to cope.
Seek help early.
You can go anywhere.
You can go to a GP to seek help as a start,
If you're not comfortable with going to see a psychiatrist directly.
I think coming from someone who
Who went through treatment with IMH (Institute of Mental Health) because of self-harm,
I would agree that sometimes, you know,
I tend to go into self-pity in the beginning
Because you kind of like indulge and you feel comfortable
In that darkness and feeling negative because that’s perhaps what you know.
And it took me a while for me to realize that
I had to go through a whole episode of literally attempting it
And people telling me you are given a second chance because it did not succeed.
So it is something that can be helped,
But it takes the first step
And you have to take that first step.
Yeah.
Proud of you.
Thank you.
As someone who has received multiple opportunities and created content for various organizations,
Have you ever faced imposter syndrome?
What's imposter syndrome?
Actually, what exactly is that?
For me, imposter syndrome is when I feel a bit out of place
And undeserving of the things that I've achieved and done.
So I actually have this experience quite a bit.
Whenever I managed to close a big campaign that I should be feeling proud of,
But instead of feeling pride, I kind of just feel like I don't deserve it.
I feel like everyone around me
And I am basically an imposter.
I have just kind of slid in out of sheer luck.
I'm not aware of the actual formal definition of imposter syndrome
But akin to what Chow was saying,
You're almost in this space where you feel everyone else
Deserves to be there except you.
And in some ways, you know,
It sort of grounds you to the extent where you're not in a place where you feel grandiose about
About where I belong and
I'm in the room, I’m the star and so on.
In truth it’s always a mix of that right?
But how I tend to share with some of my clients (and) my patients,
I let them know that actually where you are at that point of time
Means you're in a place of growth,
In a place where you are slightly uncomfortable by the crowd,
And you know you deserve the place there.
People trust for you to be there.
So, take it in.
So take it in by the same time with a dose of humility and desire t o want to learn and grow.
Yes.
Then you manage it as you go along.
Yeah.
But I think one final important thing s your support system.
Because sometimes when I faced this,
I would text my friends or best friends like
“Oh my God, I'm inside a room, beside Pierre Png” that kind.
Oh my god, Pierre Png!
She will tell me like
“Babe, you deserve to be there.”
Then when she said that I'm like, “okay”.
Whenever I see skinny girls receive a lot of love and compliments online,
It triggers my ED (eating disorder).
I can't help but want to lose weight as quickly as possible no matter what my weight is.
I would restrict my meals and purge when I feel it's necessary.
Okay.
I do go through this in life because I'm not skinny,
But then something that helped me with this is that
Honestly, nobody's perfect and
I speak to people about this before.
And even if my friend is skinny right,
She still has body issues.
When it comes to body image and eating disorder,
It’s very, very sensitive.
Ya.
Nobody really sets a benchmark of how your ideal figure should be
Your ideal weight should be.
And a lot of it is in our own heads.
As a starting premise,
All of us want to feel good and look good in ourselves, physically and mentally.
The challenge comes when we take it to an extreme.
To the extent where very clearly there are physical health concerns
Where you put yourself at risk,
Then that comes in the realm of a disorder.
The other aspect of that question is weight or just how they look,
The only measure of an individual.
And if we say that that is not the ultimate measure or the only measure,
And there are other things that we want to be measured by
Then we shouldn't be taking those extremes.
So if you feel that you need help with maintaining the certain weight,
Seek out a professional.
It can be a psychologist or psychiatrist from a mental health perspective.
But if it's not to that extent and you feel you need to hire a fitness coach
To keep your weight in check at either end,
Then they will be able to tailor a program for you.
But it's in a sustained (and) gradual way
For you to be able to live a healthier life physically and mentally at the same time.
Some people from my school made an account to frame me.
They posed pictures of me that were misleading,
Like smoking in my uniform
When in fact, I wasn’t.
Each time I take an account down, another one comes up.
It's been years, but I still struggle to trust people and make friends.
The immediate aspect of it is to make sure that you find some level of safety from the bullying right?
If the bullying is so extensive, then, you know, bullying can turn into harassment
And harassment you can file a police report.
And that can put a barrier in terms of the continuity of somebody's actions.
The other aspect also is that at some point, if you recognize that
The bully wins only at the point where you are affected
Ya.
Once you cut that out of the equation and you develop the resilience,
The irony is that the bullying will stop.
I want to share about my experience
As a bully, actually.
(Chiara) Eh? (Brenda) Not as the ‘ bullied’.
No, in primary school.
There was this guy who sat beside me and
I would make fun of him every day
And on top of that I would extort money from him.
And thinking back,
I can what issues I had as a bully
Why I would actually inflict this pain on the person
Is because at home, I don't have power over my own decisions.
And now when I go to school, I see this person who I perceive weaker than me.
I can now take control of something in my life.
So I felt joy in doing it.
But,
Say sorry.
Very, very sorry.
I know no amount of sorry would repair whatever the guy is feeling now.
So basically I dealt with like framing before where
False stories or things were said about me.
So I didn't want to give that reaction.
So what I did was I literally cut all these people
That, you know, were involved in this story making process.
And I made my circle of friends small,
And I made sure that this circle of friends and support system is the one that I can really, really trust.
Ya, but right
Can I just put a disclaimer during that dark period where I was going through stuff,
My strongest support system was my therapist.
Oh, okay.
So in the event that perhaps you don't trust anybody else,
Then go to a therapist because that is someone whose job is to understand you
And to keep it confidential from everybody.
That's true. That's true.
It's quite interesting how the discussion is unfolded,
Where you actually see both sides of the bullying spectrum.
And actually Brenda, you know, thank you for sharing
Because it's actually quite brave right,
To have to look back and say
I was once a bully,
But that also tells you that people's behaviors are not static
And things eventually change
(Chiara) That’s true. (Dr. Harun) There’s a certain realization that, you know, what
What we did maybe in the past was not right.
And I guess the last point on what Zhin was sharing was that
I think the word you are looking for, (is) to say it's a safe space
Knowing full well that it's kept within those walls,
Yet you're able to express it in a comfortable way.
So yeah, thank you for sharing it.
It's actually been very enlightening for me
And I've learned quite a few things from this session as well.
Beautiful.
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing.
Yes.
It is really important if you are dealing with any of these issues or even more with the online sphere,
The first step is to always talk to someone.
And if your symptoms persist, always remember to seek help
And know that you can speak to a GP or a mental health professional.
Of course, thank you all for watching this episode of Ask TSL
And thank you so much doctor for joining us on this episode.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
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Bye!