My Recovery Story

By Nur Afiqah Bte Mohd Azman

Hello everyone, I am so excited to have a date with all of you in my very own mental health series fortnightly. Give yourself a hug for taking a small step in taking control over your mental health. Before we start with our mental health series, I would like to first and foremost introduce myself as one of the writers for Club HEAL blog.

My name is Nur Afiqah Bte Mohd Azman. I graduated from Nanyang Technological University in 2016. I had depression throughout my university years since 2012, which was undiagnosed at that time.

It started due to the uneventful episodes that happened during polytechnic years, which I was feeling guilty about for a very long time. The feeling of guilt was with me throughout my university lives. The stress from academic years and the loneliness and the emptiness that I felt, worsened my depression as I felt that I had no friends. When in fact, I had a lot of good friends.

After I graduated, I was jobless for 6 months and I was always at home. I was disconnected from the outside world that I lost touch with my emotions added on with my uncontrolled sadness and despair.

Things worsened when I tried to adapt to the working world. My depression escalated to bipolar as I began to have my highs and my lows.

Coupled with my low self-esteem and low self-confidence, I couldn’t calm myself and anxiety became a natural friend to me. I thought people were talking bad about me and I always had negative thoughts in my head. I thought I was doing just fine but I knew deep down I wasn’t.

Things changed when I decided to accept the offer to join a mental rehabilitation centre, Club HEAL. I made an effort to get better and I knew deep down I will eventually recover. It is not smooth sailing but I tried my best.

As I am writing to you now, I feel so much better that I have shared my recovery journey and I will be writing more love letters on ways to overcome our mental illness. Have a good rest and hug yourself again for loving yourself today.

Ciao!