JUNE 2 — Working in news in Malaysia should be declared a mental health hazard, which it already was before our world turned into a real-life pandemic disaster movie.
I blame our politicians.
The only reason I have not keeled over dead from rage is because my blood pressure stays at a low constant — like Malaysian morale during Covid-19.
Perhaps I put off taking annual leave for too long as my brain refuses to fall asleep at normal hours.
Instead, I spend my nights muttering darkly into my pillow until exhaustion takes me somewhere around 6.45am.
That was also around the same time I realised I could have just taken a melatonin pill.
Questionable sleep habits aside, I am sure I am not the only one desperately trying to cling on to any vestige of sanity.
My advice: Don’t fight it. There is no use in trying to pretend anything makes sense anymore.
I am not advocating you streak across Parliament grounds buck naked (please think of the children) but what I am suggesting is that perhaps it is wise to just admit nothing is OK, and neither are you.
Decorum is overrated
Someone did a Twitter poll which asked if people wore deodorant while working from home.
Weirdly enough, most of the poll respondents voted in the affirmative.
Liars.
I am pretty sure that most people have gone from showering twice a day to only once and even forgoing a bath once in a while if they live alone.
My brother is not one of them — he showers even before walking to the nearby grocery store.
Now if he is only as fastidious in spraying the bathroom with the bleach spray, as I keep telling him to, as he was in personal hygiene.
Still I think for many of us, we still cling to old habits and not think about whether they fit the times.
It is an act of futility to try and live the same way we did before the pandemic happened. We need to accept that it is all in the past and things have been irretrievably changed.
We will never get back to the way things were and the sooner we can make peace with that, the sooner we can get back to our lives.
Dark thoughts are bad companions
The worst thing about lockdowns is that isolation; the feeling that we are alone when the reality is that so many of us are suffering as well.
A lot of us grieve for things we miss — hugs and coffee dates, travelling or just being able to leave the house without the fear we’d slip up somehow and end up being fined thousands of ringgit.
If the pandemic has made us aware of how fragile our physical health is, it also highlights just how important it is to look after our mental health.
‘I’m only telling you these things because I know you’ll get it,” a friend said to me as we talked about the darker things that have surfaced in our minds.
If you too are having similar thoughts, I hope you understand that your thoughts are not you.
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It is expected and normal to be troubled in these very troubling times. Your brain is overwhelmed, you are tired in body and spirit.
There is no easy fix to these present circumstances and no indication of when things will change.
I’m not going to lie to you and say it will be easy to find a reason to keep waking up in the morning.
Don’t feel burdened thinking you need to live for any one person or people — it can be as simple as looking forward to having a milkshake tomorrow or calling someone you miss.
In an unkind world, remember that you deserve some kindness too. May we all find some kindness and light in these dark times.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
