Copyright channelnewsasia
ROCK BOTTOM AGAIN ... AND AGAIN ... AND AGAIN Born in Leeds, England, Ms Bailey said she had a normal British childhood as the eldest child of three. But as she entered her teen years, her parents' marriage began falling apart – a slow disintegration that began affecting her mental health. It culminated in what she called her first "rock-bottom" moment when she was in university. "My parents' divorce was extremely bitter. As the eldest daughter, I was listening to both, trying to make them feel better but just absorbing all that negative energy," she said. Feeling overwhelmed, she saw the university doctor who put her on medication. But being medicated didn't make her feel better, so she eventually weaned herself off it. During this time, Ms Bailey was working part-time at a golf course – which was also where she met her now-husband, Steve, now 45, who was then a professional golf coach. They were dating for about two months when he got a job offer in South Korea. They continued their courtship long-distance and in 2009, about a year and a half later, once she was done with her studies, she moved to join him in South Korea. They got married and began their new life, far from home. Then in 2013, another work move came for her husband – this time to Jakarta, Indonesia. Ms Bailey did not know it then, but this posting would be rock bottom number two for her. "In hindsight, I was doing everything wrong," she said candidly. "If you want to have a mental health issue, you do what I did. You don't go outside, you eat poorly, sleep really late, don't exercise." She spent her days working exclusively from home as a magazine editor but found it hard to carve out proper breaks from work. Even when she did eke out spare pockets of time, Jakarta's dense city structure and notorious traffic jams kept her confined indoors a great deal. Soon, she began to experience symptoms of extreme anxiety and stress. "My mind was consumed by fear and anxiety constantly ... I was waking in the night with the night terrors," she recalled. She also started having gut problems – pains, chronic indigestion and more. She made efforts to find out what was wrong, including seeing a roster of doctors and therapists. Despite this, things never seemed to get better. Looking back, she realises that what she was doing for her mental health is akin to what yo-yo dieting does for weight loss. "When I found myself at a really low point, I sought help and started to do the right things. And then as soon as I improved a little bit, I would just stop there," she said. "Inevitably, it would come back again." And then in 2018, her husband got another posting – this time to Singapore. Upon moving here, Ms Bailey managed to find a job as a marketing director for a boutique firm. But before long, things begin unravelling again. Soon, she found herself back in a familiar cycle: poor sleep, night terrors and gut problems began surfacing again. Rock bottom number three.
