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5. Why is it important for us to be having this discussion?

(This is the fifth out of a series of seven posts that I wrote for the Faculty of Engineering’s Women in Engineering [WEN] association, for Mental Health Awareness Week, 2017)

Many people have the idea that mental illnesses are shameful to have. They associate these illnesses with failure in life and as a personal weakness. All these negative connotations that society puts onto mental illnesses are so unhealthy, but they are not the truth. People who do suffer mental illnesses are then subsequently put into a more isolated world and feel more alone than ever – but is this the way it should be?

As people ignore the importance of mental health, place a stigma onto the topic and therefore lack empathy in this crucial aspect of humans, it leads us to not realise the extent of these effects on an individual who may be suffering. Multiply this by so many of us who struggle, and you will only maybe then realise how serious the problem is.

But mental health should not be treated as a faraway concept; to be segregated and neglected from society. It is actually a significant part of everyone’s lives, as it defines our emotional, psychological and social well-being.

But too many of us believe that depression and anxiety are the individual’s choice.

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Day 19, 20, 21 & 22 of #Seoul : Day 19 was spent bedridden, ‘mysteriously’ unwell from the night I got back from Jeju. This day and Day 20 were two extremely difficult days for me mentally and psychologically, because of a series of another big health-related battle between my whole extended family against me, singly. Again, I will not delve into it here but it was a challenge to another level.

Because I was sick, I couldn’t even go out to meet up with my best friend @ndrewwang who was currently in Seoul with his university house mates while touring Asia. Being stuck in that home with the negative energy surrounding me, I felt extremely suffocated and I had to escape. From then, I spent the next three days with Andrew and his friends.

It was indescribable in words, moving from the suffocating environment to the arms of someone who’s embrace and friendship I dearly missed for a whole year. And it was a miracle for us to discover that we would be in the same country, so this opportunity was an incredibly meaningful reunion for me.

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4. Where do (should) I go to seek help?

(This is the fourth out of a series of seven posts that I wrote for the Faculty of Engineering’s Women in Engineering [WEN] association, for Mental Health Awareness Week, 2017)

I’m going to change this question to “Where should YOU go to seek help?”.

People with depression tend to withdraw ourselves from people around us, partially because we feel like no one will understand anyway, or we don’t want to be a burden to our friends/family by reaching out and talking to them. It is also because our motivations to socialise heavily decrease, so we end up hiding in our shell and avoid going out and interacting with people.

This is ironic, because we need good levels of serotonin in our body to maintain our happiness level, sadness level, anxiety level, and so much more. And one of the ways this is done is to create and maintain “meaningful connections” with people around us who matter.

But what these people; WE, have to realise, is that if we continue to pull ourselves away from people and continue to shut ourselves off from reaching out for help, we are just isolating ourselves more. We dig ourselves deeper and deeper into our ’dark tunnel’, taking ourselves further away from being able to catch even a glimpse of the bright light of hope at the end.

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3. When did it start?

(This is the third out of a series of seven posts that I wrote for the Faculty of Engineering’s Women in Engineering [WEN] association, for Mental Health Awareness Week, 2017)

I only took action to seek the university counsellor one week before university started this year in March, after I was encouraged by an engineering staff member. He said that he was glad to hear that I was taking actions to look after myself physically, but he was also concerned for my mental health, hence suggesting that I seek someone to address this as well. I thought it would be worth trying it out, because I thought that it wouldn’t hurt to have a session with a counsellor, and treat it like a casual conversation about myself. Thankfully, with uni not having started yet, there was an available slot for me 10 minutes after I walked in, and so I secured this appointment and had a one hour session with a really lovely counsellor.

Before I delve into talking about how this session went, I would like to point out that this one hour was a crucially key turning point in my life. I managed to learn so much within this hour, and uncovered so many more things about myself.

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2. What am I experiencing?

(This is the second out of a series of seven posts that I wrote for the Faculty of Engineering’s Women in Engineering [WEN] association, for Mental Health Awareness Week, 2017)

In my second year of engineering, I was unfortunate enough to develop a form of chronic pain syndrome. Chronic pain is described as any pain that lasts for more than three months, as it persists for a period that is considered longer than the normal healing time. It differs to acute pain (like a cut healing, or a bruise healing) because the cause and effect of the chronic pain is a blur within your nervous system, therefore making it difficult to pinpoint the causes and also the treatment of the pains.

This chronic pain really took over my life to the point where I became incredibly restricted in terms of what I could do each day, due to the pains overtaking my ability to function normally. No matter what I do, how I move, how much I DON’T move; the pains would come onto me. It changed every day too – sometimes I felt excruciating pain in my hips, lower back, or mid back, while sometimes it stretched to my shoulders and neck along with extreme migraines. It would often be a combination of these too, preventing me from standing or sitting up for even 10 minutes at a time. They unfortunately did not subside either if I sat down or even if I lay down and rested. I couldn’t sit up long enough to ride even the one-hour bus ride into uni, hence I couldn’t go to lectures, I couldn’t sit up and study, I couldn’t sleep because of the pains, I couldn’t enjoy my previously-thriving social life, I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t stand; I essentially could not do much without feeling some sort of those pains. Normal pain killers wouldn’t help because they only target pain at where you feel it, but my type of pain was different to this. And on the scale of 1 to 10 when my pain was at least a 9 every day, there was nothing that I could do to subside the pain.

This may all sound like I’m complaining, but this is just purely me explaining to you what my story is. This is all a crucial part of what I am experiencing at THIS point in time.

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1. Who am I? (Name, degree, interests, hobbies, dreams/aspirations)

Name: Naa-Eun Kim

Degree: Civil Engineering

Interests: Sustainability, project management, connecting people together

Hobbies: Socialising with friends, travelling, photography, playing music, reading, writing, and nail art

Dreams/Aspirations: As an engineer I want to use my skills and knowledge to help people and society to a large scale. Engineers are incredibly influential decision-makers in society, and therefore it is crucial that we make the more positive and beneficial decisions when finding solutions to projects. And as resources are becoming more scarce we must aim for efficient allocation of resources to achieve our goals now, while we maintain values in the long term for our future generations. Therefore, I aspire to be an active influencer of sustainability to engineering practices and society, to shape our world to be a better place to live in.

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“Inspiriteur”

[ɪnˈspɪrɪtəː]

Noun | in·spi·ri·teur

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“One who takes opportunities and risks to embark on a journey to inspire and inspirit.”

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I have been wanting to start this for almost half a year now, but being one who is useless at beginning things, it is only now I am launching this project for myself, and for you all.

When I wrote my post in March on my thoughts on the suicide rates in New Zealand, some of my dear friends encouraged me to start a blog. At the time I thought this was nonsensical- I never ever thought there would come a day when I’d start a blog, let along ENJOY writing. All throughout my life I’ve always been lacking in skills and confidence in writing, therefore even the thought of starting a blog didn’t cross my mind at all.

That is, until an incredibly thoughtful software engineering friend of mine approached me after reading the post and OFFERED to help me run a blog. I cannot thank him enough for suggesting this idea. I’m all about using my skills and knowledge to help anyone I can, and so to have this friend of mine approach me and offer to help me with his own skills is something I cannot thank him enough for.

But about this blog: there are various reasons why I wanted to start this.

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