A very good morning to my honourable judges,

How are you feeling? How was your day today? Is there anything I can do to
help? Do these phrases sound familiar to you?

A very good morning to my honourable judges.I hope all of you are fine and
happy.
We have always expected these questions either from our friends, family
member or even teachers.
Hence, Have you ever felt like you are a burden to your friends? Or your
family? Have you ever thought that sometimes nobody actually sees you? That
maybe they don't care about you? And sometimes you don't understand
vourself? Are you wondering why am I asking this questions?
Yes, somehow these are the feelings of pretty much everyone has had at one
time or another.

Today i would like to talk about mental health ilness thats everyones facing rn.
Here I would like to explain more details and meaning about mental health.
Mental health refers to a person's psychological, emotional, and social well-
being; it influences what they feel and how they think, and behave. Examples
of mental illness includes Anxiety ,Depression, stress,panic disorder,bipolar
disorder, and other mood disorders. These are also some of the predominant
feelings that affect people who turn to self-harm and suicide.According to the
World Health Organization (WHO), more than 264 million people of all ages
suffer from depression ), one person dies of suicide every 40
seconds ..Particularly, Malaysia is one of three remaining ASEAN countries that
still criminalize suicide. A total of 1,081 suicide attempts in Malaysia were
recorded in 2020 alone. Nearly 500,000 Malaysians were already feeling
symptoms of depression before the pandemic started (according to the 2019
National Health and Morbidity Survey). This are clarming and we might want to
ponder for a moment.Worse still, the suicide victims are being blamed for
causing harm to themselves.

Let me share with you my story. Though it isn’t pretty Here is a short version of
my background so the rest of my speech makes a little more sense. As an
adolescent, I had difficulty with depression and anxiety. I had gone through
different periods of time when things were okay, not okay, and
devastating. When I was 10, I got bullied for being one of the excellent student
in class, my friends were jealous of me and they started to bully me by tearing
up and scribbling in my notebooks, throwing rubbish under my desk, and had
been looking down on me. I got so sad, depressed, and frustrated, but luckily
my parents stood up for me. I was a girl who never had real friends till I got
into high school, and I've always had this fear of socializing which made me
seldom interacting with people. Moreover, I’ve always been worrying about
my Academic validation till I had a burn-out from the pressure of stressing
myself too much. The Academic pressure came from my ambitious goal, my
family, society, and my teacher's expectations. After getting into high
school,  life started getting a little better, I got trust worthy friends,
understanding teachers, and less pressure. Till at one moment, I fell in love.
Yes, I would say it was the worst decision I've ever made. I was a person who
sought care, attention, and love at that moment, and after a few months,
things came crashing down like icebergs in my love life. Exactly, what ur
thinking is right! we broke up. Depression, a wave of sadness, mental
breakdown, eating disorder, stress, anxiety, and panic attacks came back. Do
you know what the worst part was? The covid-19 pandemic came hitting me
when I was at my worst mental breakdown. I couldn't focus and cope up with
my studies. I never wanted to get out of bed and attend pdpr classes most of
the time. I was sick a lot. It was hard to find the energy to make a change so I
could get better. . Lack of communication with my family, and friends and not
going out had made me overthink and be in depression for a few months.  I
thought everything was my fault and I was just defective and bad and that this
was what I deserved from life. I missed out on social life and extra-curricular
activities because I struggled with acute feelings of social anxiety, self-hatred,
and fear. I was sad, frustrated, indecisive, and overwhelmed. I lost every bit of
energy to carry on. I felt like I had no purpose to live anymore. I couldn’t keep
myself together. I struggled to get back up, or even have a simple conversation
with people around me. My mom was the person with whom I share all my
problems, she was there for me when I was at my worst, Dealing with
loneliness can be difficult. But there are things we can all do to cope with
loneliness and prevent some of the negative feelings and mental health
problems that can come with it. Here are some coping strategies that you
might find useful. My mom had taught me to watch inspirational stories,
speeches of inspiration and affirmation, meditation, to reprogramme and reset
my mind,. I started to write a journal, self-talk with myself, and write blogs. It
reduced my loneliness, and I started realizing more abt myself. Not only that,
but I also went through my social media, hence I got attached to books, I
started to buy and read books,  Reading to escape is the biggest reason I read.
To forget about reality. To visualize the descriptions in my head that it's almost
like a film within my own mind. I also started to write blogs, sharing my
feelings and letting people know that they're not alone. 

I'm proud of myself that I'm dealing with it — because I realized life is too
beautiful to be depressed, there's so much more to explore and live. I am
grateful and blessed with my beautiful family, friends, teachers, and my
surroundings, cuz i am not the only one going through this, many adolescents
especially my friends surrounding me are going through worse mental health
illnesses than i do. I feel sympathy for them, and I'm trying my best to make
them feel better in any way I could. I wanted to try one more time with the
very little energy I had. I didn’t want to give up on life or my dreams. I started
to believe that God gives the hardest battle to his strongest soldiers.

"I hope my words might help some of you to see that you really aren't the only
one. In my opinion, searching out for help in whatever small way you can
manage, really is the best thing."

"Mental health issues are nothing to be ashamed of and affect almost

everybody and it's about time everyone realised this and stopped skirting
round the subject and faced it head-on. "

"One thing I've found is that so many more people than you realise suffer from
mental illnesses. As I've talked to friends, more and more of them have been
telling me that they too suffer from the same things I do, or they have in the
past."

"No matter how bad it gets and how much you think there is no hope and let
your depression take over, you can always dig yourself out of that hole and
find a way to manage your depression and you are not alone."

"Get help, be heard, let yourself be supported. You're important." And one
night, I stopped being negative, and decided to give life another chance. Did
my depression go away that night? No, it didn’t — it was still there. But the
more positive I became, the more I started to believe in myself, and the more I
started to take baby steps towards my dreams, the further my depression
faded away.

Yes, a miracle happened — my life slowly changed. All the dark clouds went
away and the sun rose again. And that’s when I learned that depression will
always be part of your life, but the trick is to never stop believing in yourself.
When life punches you, you’ve got to stand up and show life that you’re strong
enough to face it and you punch it back twice as hard.
Its okay not to be okay.