In the fast paced world, I believe every single one of us cannot escape the feeling of loneliness. If you have the ability to escape the awful feeling, good for you and please teach me how! Loneliness is an awful feeling. Sometimes I feel so like I am a bad person. I am companied by my wonderful husband but when the feeling strikes, I feel so awful. Do you know what I mean? It’s like you got somebody on your side and yet you still feel so lonely. It does not matter how much you want to get away from the feeling but the loneliness still haunts you.
I did share with my psychiatrist about this feeling. She did share some useful tips and tricks to distract myself from the feeling but somehow I lost to it. For me loneliness is like a strong magnetic field that keeps pulling me to dwell into it. When I feel so lonely, other thoughts come. It is so tiring and I wish I just could end my life so I don’t have to feel this feeling anymore. Other that that, this feeling makes me feel like I’m a selfish person. Somehow, I don’t know what to do. No matter what I do, the feeling just stay there and waiting to strike. It is just matter of time.
Honestly, I do not want to lose this battle. I still want to appreciate life and cherish people around me. I still want to continue to see myself grow old with my love one. I still look forward to see where will I be in the future. I still have the desire to not succumb into loneliness. I wish the process was easy but it does not. I just cannot stop it. There is sometime I do not feel the feeling. I have to keep myself busy so I don’t have to think and feel about it. That is why I turn to my work. At first, it was good until I felt so overwhelm with works and burnt out.
How do I cope with loneliness? Frankly speaking, I don’t know. If the feeling comes, I turn to my husband or I do something that makes me less lonely. Cleaning is my go-to way to cope with loneliness. My cats help too. Their presence make me happy and contented. I know it is hard but I need to push myself away because it does more harm than good. I hope that I can forever get rid of this feeling someday.
I hope that my readers out there who are struggling with loneliness. I want you to know that you are not alone. I acknowledge how hard it is fighting this feeling. I hope that we can find peace and solace as well as win this battle.
As clueless as the title above, I have no idea how to begin this entry. It’s been two years since my last post and it seems that I only write once for every two years. Jokes on me. Well let’s start with the most cliché opening which is how was the weather today? The weather today was quite hot and humid. I needed to take shower at least 4 times today because I cannot stand with the heat and currently I’m sitting in my living room with AC opened. I rarely open the AC this early. Usually I open it when I’m going to sleep. So that sums up the weather today. Second question, what have I been up to during two years of hiatus? Well, there were a lot of things happened. I don’t even know where to start. Probably, I can summarise all the events by year.
2021
On this year, I realised that I hated my job. My mental health was declining but I refused to get help as I was afraid I might lose my job. It was still in pandemic phase and looking for another job was not an option for me. Either I needed to excel with the job or be jobless. Basically, I was controlled by fear. I started to gain more weight and I basically letting myself go. I was in the state of where I could not reconnect with myself. I was not myself. My usual routine that kept me sane all those years was completely haywire. I failed to adjust myself with new phase of life. My anxiety worsen and only God knew how miserable I was. I was in agony. I was completely burnt out and my suicidal thoughts came back. In that year, all I wanted was killing myself.
I moved to other place as well. Previously, I just rented a small room at low cost flat. I decided to move to bigger, much private and better neighbourhood place. Thus, I rented a studio apartment at Ara Damansara and still renting until this day. The apartment is so nice. For some people, it is a very small apartment but for me it is just perfect. I also happened to adopt two new cats which are Milky and Baby. Milky is female domestic long hair cat. She was my sister’s cat initially. Baby is male American curl cat. I adopted him from my sister in law. At last, my eldest cat, Dolce has companions after six years being the only cat in my household.
Milky and Baby
After 3 years being apart, I finally went back to Sabah for meeting my girls. I took five days offs and flew to Kota Kinabalu. Only God knew how much I missed them and the city so much. In fact, I tried to request to transfer to Kota Kinabalu but my request was denied. I was quite disappointed but probably it was for the best I think. Five days was too short for me. I hope I can see them soon.
My 2021 was not the best but there was always tiny bits of things that made that year less painful and miserable.
2022
The year of 2022 did not start well. On new year’s eve I had anxiety attack and panic attack combo. For 3 months I felt like I was in the slump. My job was dragging me to my rock bottom. I was near to lose my sanity. In this year, I built up my courage and sought for help. I went to see psychiatrist and I was diagnosed with burnt out, major depressive disorder and mild insomnia. I was on medication for awhile to fix my insomnia. Alhamdulillah now I’m off medication and I’m able to sleep. For MDD, I personally asked the doctor not to prescribe me medication and the doctor agreed. To treat MDD, I have to undergo psychotherapy once a month with my doctor. The progress is quite good. I’m now feeling better and able to control my mood. In other word, I’m in healing phase.
This year, I got married with my long time partner. We tied the knot on 26th March with small and intimate wedding ceremony. I think other than me going to see psychiatrist, changing my status was a big event in my life. Finally I have someone that I can talk to daily because living alone can be quite lonely. I feel eternally grateful that God sends me the most perfect person in my life.
Our wedding night
Enough of that, I also adopted another cat which is Kosmo. He is male domestic short hair cat. He is so lovely and cheeky. My husband and I cannot get enough of him.
Kosmo and I
Recently, my husband surprised me the best birthday gift so far. Fun fact, he is the best when it comes to this. I remember when we were first dating, he surprised me with one set of make up. That I was so into beauty and he encouraged me to practice and do well in make up. Gifting me the make up set was his gesture of love and support. This year, he surprised me with a brand new car! I was so shocked because I never expected to receive such a big gift from him. I don’t know what I do to deserve him.
To be continued…
Half of this year has gone and another half to go. So far, I’m quite contained with my life as to date. I’m not going to say that I’m the happiest person but it is better compared to previous years. I am grateful the support and love that receive from people around me. What I can say that this year is my healing year. I’m continuing to better myself and take a good care of my mind and my body. I hope that anyone who reads this entry pray for my health and rizq. As for now, I’m signing off and see you in the next entry.
It has been two weeks now since the Restricted Movement Order (RMO) started. Small businesses close and people start losing their source of income. For some people, RMO is a blessing in disguise. People who do not have time with their family before are able to make up the time they lost. However, for some people, RMO is a nightmare. Some people lose their jobs, small businesses close down and people are getting much more anxious than ever. We can see on news where some people are being fined by local authority because they disobeyed the RMO. People are complaining about that but do they really know what was the reason that they were oustide in the midst of the pandemic? Most of these people living in 600 square feet low cost flat. Cramped up with six other people and much worse, they are the only breadwinner in the household. Scarce of income because of being retrenched. They were out just to go fishing because there are five mouths to feed at home. Most people do not believe in disparity in social class. They do not believe that social struggle is real as they have been living in their own bubble for quite long of period of time and that makes them out of touch of reality.
For those who have no clue about social class struggle Let me explain a little bit about it. Social class is a category whereby a group of people being divided by their income and social status. This concept has been brought to the center of attention by German philosopher, Karl Marx. According Marx, society is divided by two set of classes which are Bourgeoisie and Proletariat. Bourgeoisie is basically is a group of people who have the mean of production in other words is capitalist. Whilst, Proletariat is a group of people that has no mean of production and in order to live, they need to give their labour power to survive. Basically proletariat is worker. According to Marx, the world will never know the true peace if class disparity keep continuing. If we think deeply, we can see that, the root problem that causing disharmony in Malaysia is not about racism. It is about classicism. If we dive into Dasar Ekonomi Baharu (DEB), the main mission of the policy is to narrow down the wealth gap between Bumiputera and Non-Bumiputera.
I always believe that main problem that we have is social struggle. We can see that there are tons of injustice happen before our eyes. How the riches are able to escape from prosecution. How our justice system favours the riches. World is never fair but we as human with sane mind and morale have the ability to make the world less unfair and cruel. I realise that RMO really reveals the true colours of some people. Mostly the true colours of the upper class. They never fail to prove Marx that he was right all along. We can see that how shameful some people can be. Shaming people who are less fortunate than them. Blaming the poor why they do not work hard to come out of poverty. These tone-deaf comments are a strong evidence that social struggle is exists and it is as harmful as COVID-19. It is a social pandemic that people tend to deny.
Nonetheless, I hope that the situation that we are in will disappear as soon as possible so that we can live like normal again. I know that RMO is a great way to flatten the pandemic curve and to break the chain. However, it is not a license to look down people who are less fortunate than you . There is nothing wrong to be rich, but be rich with brain and empathy.
It has been a quite sometime since the last post. Almost two years to be precised. While I was gone, my life had been quite a roller coaster ride. Getting job, losing job, make friends, losing friends and so fourth. It could not be describe with words how bizarre my life has been since graduation. While I was gone, there were a lot actually happened that I had no chance to review or to give thoughts about it as I was pre-occupied with my mental health. Frankly speaking, as I am writing this post, I am still struggling to cast away the negative thoughts inside my head. They are too loud! However, I still can manage them. That is the most important thing. MANAGE.
While I was gone, I was making memories. I traveled, making new friends, and get into something I have no clue about. Basically, I was slowly moving out of my shell. It was a struggle and slow-paced but there was some progress and it is continuously moving towards something better. The reason why I was gone, to be honest, my laptop broke. It might sound so ridiculous to some people but for me, it was such a devastating moment for me. I basically cannot do anything without my laptop. All data I gathered, gone. All memories that I saved for the pass 4 years, completely became digital ashes. Side note, I love the laptop so much because I bought it with my hard own money. Things happened so it such a waste of time if I continued to grieve about it.
Now, I am back! I have so many things inside my head right now I cannot wait to share to everyone. 2020 is quite an interesting year. In the beginning of the year, we could see the clash between US and Iran on nuclear issue, COVID-19, Trump’s Peace Planning and so many others. I am excited yet terrified at the same time as I have to go back to square one in terms of my academic writing. Nonetheless, I am excited and looking forward towards it.
As I scrolled down the Twitter the other day, I stumbled upon a tweet that cause a debate among Twitter users which about liberalism and conservatism. That sparked my interest to read the whole conversation and thread about the issue. The issue was about child marriage. Early this month, Malaysia had been surprised by the case of 41 year old man from Kelantan marrying 11 year old girl from Southern Thailand. This issue was escalated when the man’s second wife uploaded a sarcastic facebook post by congratulating her husband’s new marriage. The post went viral and it caught millions of Malaysia’s netizens’ attentions.
The issue has mixed responses. Some of the netizens do not see anything wrong about it and some of them think the case is outrageous. The responses had caused the debate between liberalists and conservatives. The liberalists commented that child marriage and child grooming are the most disgusting things that should not be happening in this post-modern world. This is because children are not physically, mentally, and sexually ready to be in marriages. They are supposedly to carry out their life as normal children who get proper education, mutual respects, and must be protected from any harm. Child marriage is not an option for them and it never will be. Most of the comments from liberalist side are based on basic human rights law, logic, and common sense. However, some of the conservatives (mostly Muslim conservatives), cannot agree on this thing.
On the other hand, some Muslim conservatives (cannot say “all” because some of them do not agree on child marriage as well) debated this issue using Islam (especially Muhammad S.A.W case) stance. They argued that, whoever a child that has reached puberty (in this case, the girl’s puberty status is unknown) can get married as long as he/she gets the approval from the wali (guardian which means the fathers, brothers, or uncles from father’s side). They also used Muhammad S.A.W marrying Aishah R.A at the age of 9 as their point of argument. I, as reader of the debate felt sick and disgusting on this baseless comment and I did think that they made no sense. Using religion to enable disgusting act is outrageous. Some of them said that their grandmothers got married as young as 11 could survive the marriage as their point of argument which is another baseless argument. This is because women at that time was oppressed. They did not have the access to education and whatsoever. Only aristocratic women had the privilege to have access to education which it depended on the courtesy of the patriarchs. There was one tweet I thought was interesting which the twitter’s user tweeted that the hadith about Muhammad married Aishah at the age of 9 is a weak hadith because it was written by old hadith narrator which he forgot to add ‘ten’ to the age of Aishah which made Aishah’s age became 9 instead of 19. I don’t know whether it is true or not but it is something that needs to be pondered and needs to be discussed by Muslim scholars.
My conclusion is, some of Muslim conservatives can be too much. They use the religion in order to enable something that is rejected universally for instance child marriage because it is clearly against the Convention of Right of the Children 1995 (which Malaysia ratified it but in Child Act 2001, there is no specific law on child marriage). In my opinion, the debate between liberalists and Muslim conservatives has opened my eyes (hopefully others’) to see that there are some people that too selfish and arrogant to acknowledge that the lack of Sharia laws in protecting some group of people’s rights. However, I do not say that Sharia laws are completely useless because law can be drafted to become better. I hope to see better and stricter law on this case so that our children’s rights will forever be protected
9 May 2018 has been the historical year for Malaysians because the paradigm shift of government in Malaysia. Malaysia has been ruled by Barisan Nasional for 61 years since the independence of Malaysia in 1957. Throughout the era of Barisan Nasional, Malaysia has been achieving so many things including being known as one of the Asian Tigers back in the 90s. However, the integrity and efficiency of this party declining every year. Barisan Nasional totally has lost the trust and mandate from the people to be the ruling party of Malaysia. This is because the recent scandals such as 1MDB scandal, MH370, and the murder case of Altantuya Sharibu that involves the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Datuk Sri Najib Tun Razak has been one of the reasons why Malaysians choose to change. This is including the rise of cost of living as well.
Pakatan Harapan won the general election with simple majority. The winning of this part is the evidence of the power of democracy in Malaysia. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has been elected to be seventh prime minister of Malaysia. However, the difference here is that he will drive Malaysia to becoming a better nation with new vision of Pakatan Harapan. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad also cannot run from his previous scandals when he was in the office. From Mamali tragedy to forex scandal and jailing his opponent, Datuk Sri Anwar Ibrahim. However, in my opinion, Tun has finally realised his wrongdoings and the consequences that he has to face when DS Najib Razak rose to power. However, with this new vision of Pakatan Harapan, I hope to see the changes in order to save Malaysia. This election also we can see the pattern has change in cabinet where Malaysia finally chooses to have a woman to be the Deputy Prime Minister which is Datuk Sri Wan Azizah. This is a very positive move from Pakatan Harapan because throughout 61 years, Barisan Nasional never included women to hold this kind of position. What I can say here that Malaysia has taken another progressive step to become more progressive country. The hope and expectation on Pakatan Harapan is insanely high. The people of Malaysia really hope that Pakatan Harapan can fix the damages that has been done by the previous ruling party. I hope to see better Malaysia really soon in terms of domestic and foreign policy, economy and etc. The most importantly, the welfare of rakyat being taken care well by new government.
However, a bad news for Sabah. People of Sabah chose to change. Like Peninsular, they chose the opposition to be the new ruling party of Sabah. However, the power-hunger men, Musa Aman and Jeffrey Kitingan got their way. Initially, Warisan won the election by having 29 seats in DUN. However, Parti Solidariti Tanah Airku (STAR) decided to make a coalition with Barisan Nasional Sabah that leads to the winning of Barisan Nasional in Sabah. His decision has shocked the people of Sabah because they really hope that the slogan of “Sabah Ubah” would become reality. However, Jeffrey Kitingan shattered people of Sabah’s dream by joining with Musa Aman. This unbelievable event has lead to the street protest in Kota Kinabalu and Tawau. People feel intensively betrayed by the result of the election in Sabah. We can see that Musa Aman is shamelessly struggling to maintain his position as the Chief Minister of Sabah. In my opinion, people of Sabah need to wake up and fight for this unjusticeness that they receive. Their voices are being shut down and Musa Aman does not respect the choice that Sabahans have made. This is a strong evidence that all Sabahans should struggle to liberate themselves from corrupted government.
In the nutshell, we have to liberate ourselves from corrupted government. We as people has the power to change our fate and the destiny of our beloved country. Keep on struggling to be a better nation and keep on being critical towards things that involve our future.
Polygamy. It is a simple word but it has an ability to divide people into different point of view. Before we discuss about it. What is polygamy anyway? According to Wikipedia, Polygamy (from Late Greek πολυγαμία, polygamía, “state of marriage to many spouses”) is the practice of marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at a time, sociologists call this polygyny. When a woman is married to more than one husband at a time, it is called polyandry. If a marriage includes multiple husbands and wives, it can be called a group marriage. Indeed, polygamy is some kind of common practice throughout centuries.
In Islam, polygamy is also a permitted practice. According to Al-Islam.org, Islam allows polygamy and permits men, under specific circumstances, to have at most four wives at any given time. Polygamy was customary before Islam and was not abrogated with the coming of Islam; instead, Islam has corrected and set various conditions for the practice. The principle was permitted, but polygamy was limited to four wives. In Islam, there are several terms and conditions that need to followed before committing into polygamy. The conditions have to take account are; possession of sufficient financial resources to provide all expenses of each family, physical prowess for completely satisfying the sexual desires of each wife, and observance of complete justice and equality among each family in every way without any favoritism.
In theory, there is no harm about polygamy. In fact, in Islam, it is something permissible to do. However in reality, polygamy is used as a tool of oppression by most men. We can see how polygamy has been manipulated by some sex-driven men. Most of them want to commit polygamy not because to empower women but they just want to fulfill their lust and absurd masculinity. There are many wives out there that being oppressed by their husbands financially and emotionally. In fact, they are being physically abused if the wives do not give the permission to the husbands to marry another women. Even though it is only a remote case, but it is still happening in our society. There is some reasons why I state that polygamy is a tool of oppression. Most of the men who want to commit polygamous marriage do not have stable income to contribute to the families. According to Sisters in Islam, there are 70% of men who are currently committing polygamy have RM 3000 and below in terms of income and because of that, they fail to give out full commitment in terms of nafkah to the wives. Most of the wives do not receive nafkah from the husbands after the husband committing polygamy. What I mean of nafkah is basic needs, wife’s sexual needs, and child support. There are some images from Sister in Islam that show that the husbands totally ignore the nafkah to family.
source: Sisters in Islam
source: Sisters in Islam
The husbands oppress the wives by not giving the nafkah in order to support their daily life especially when the wives are unemployed and their income is solely from the husband. The oppression also can be in a form of emotion. The husbands completely ignore the wives’ feeling when they utter the words of ‘marrying another women’. For me, marriage is a contract of trust, once you have somebody else outside the marriage, the contract becomes invalid. There are some cases that many women suffer depression after knowing their husbands get married without the wives’ knowledge. It is a sad thing to hear that to be honest. For me, husbands should be a mental supporter to the wives not a mental destroyer. The law for polygamy in Malaysia that is not properly regulated is the reason why the wives easily to be oppressed by the husbands. Only Wilayah Kuala Lumpur and Selangor require wife permission if the husband wish to get married again. In Kelantan, the law is so loose and that is why the statistic of polygamy in Kelantan is highest in Malaysia.
Many men use religion to justify their act. It is true that the Prophet of Muhammad (SAW) also practicing polygamy. However, his act was solely because of the order from God and to spread Islam. We have to remember that Muhammad never cheated on Siti Khadijah throughout their marriage. In fact, Muhammad also warned Saidina Ali not to cheat on Fatimah. This is because, he knew that even though Saidina Ali had lots of knowledge but Muhammad did not believe that he had the capability to have extra wives. According to Muhammad in his hadith which is; “If you see a woman, then she entices your heart, then come quickly to your wife. Indeed, your wife has everything as she has.”(Tirmidhi’s Hadith)
In my point of view, men who are using religion to justify their act of cheating is absolutely irresponsible and lack of empathy to the wives who are suffering because of their decisions. To wrap up all this thing, just because it is permissible in Islam, it does not mean it is a requirement for us to fulfill it. This can be applied to polygamy. To women out there, know your rights as a wife. Do not let irresponsible men manipulating you. To the husbands, put your wives’ situation in your shoes. I believe that even husbands do not want to share their wives with another men, so why do they think that the wives do not have that feeling? It is something that we should ponder together.
Hello everyone. Welcome to my page. My name is Leah. I am just an ordinary young lady that loves to give out my opinions on things. I would like to share with you why I start to make my own blog. It is because I currently have lots of free time. Other than that, I really want to polish up my writing skills. I receive encouragement from my lecturers, family, love one, and friend to start writing about my point of views.
Before that, let me make things clear. I am feminist so most of my points will be influenced by feminism thoughts. However, I am not going to use feminism solely in discussing some issues. It is because not all issues can be explained by feminism escpecially when it comes to international politics. My interests are international relations, world politics, global environmental politics, and human rights (especially women’s right).
My hope is that my writings can contribute to others and I hope that my writings can encourage more women to start to speak out their opinions. This is because, in academic world, it is pre-dominantly by male scholars. There are so little writings by women. I really hope there is some change in terms of that.
To wrap up this intro, I really want to thanks to all readers for stumbling upon this blog and I hope you enjoy while reading it.
Inside Mind of Mine 