By Chiu Lau, Clinical Psychologist & Founder of Possibilities Psychological Services
I recently reconnected with a high school friend from temple, and it brought back a rush of bittersweet memories from my childhood.
When I finished high school, I immediately left my hometown for the big smoke of Kuala Lumpur to study, and soon after, I left Malaysia for Australia. The main reason for leaving the country was to pursue higher education in psychology, a field that was still in its infancy in Malaysia at the time.
But there was another reason.
I wanted to run away from my past. From the person I had come to see when I looked at myself through the lens of others. I wanted to start again somewhere that held no history of me, so I could finally learn what it felt like to simply be myself.
Growing up in a small town meant being part of a close-knit community. Growing up in a Peranakan family meant being part of an even closer-knit community. Everyone who was Baba or Nyonya seemed to know who my mother, grandparents and great-grandparents were. The downside of everyone knowing your family, especially when your family was well known in town, was the expectation that you would uphold the family image. Being seen as part of a certain family meant needing to be seen as a certain kind of person. And that can be restrictive and challenging for a child who struggles to be normal, correct and proper.
I remember returning home from temple as a young teenager, meeting Grandma at the front door and hearing her exclaim in dismay, “Why are you wearing torn jeans!? What will people think?”
The implication was that the townsfolk might think less of our respectable family because one of its members was dressed like riff-raff. That memory makes me smile. Other memories involving the pressure to be perceived correctly feel more bitter, less sweet.
I struggled to be a good Chinese girl. I couldn’t speak Mandarin or the dialects of my forefathers; Hokkien and Teochew.
I struggled to be a good Nyonya. I couldn’t handle my spice.
I struggled to be a good girl. I couldn’t be sweet enough, agreeable enough, quiet enough, soft-spoken enough. Gentle enough.
I struggled to be a normal person.
I asked too many questions that made people uncomfortable.
I said too many things that made people uncomfortable.
I made jokes that made people uncomfortable.
I did things that made people uncomfortable.
I had opinions that made people uncomfortable, and I held onto those opinions in ways that made people uncomfortable.
The message, delivered day after day, year after year, both explicitly and implicitly, was that I made people uncomfortable. In these conditions, any child would have learnt to be uncomfortable with themself. So, I ran away to Australia because I was ashamed of who I was in Malaysia.
And that shame followed me for the next 30 years.
It took time, maturity, therapy, an environment filled with people who shared more similarities with me than differences, and the opportunity to create a life and career around things that mattered to me before something began to shift.
I can now look at photographs of myself as a girl without feeling shame. Instead, I see a girl who was good. A girl who tried her best to do the right thing. A girl who was doing her best to make sense of a world with very particular ideas about who she was supposed to be. And perhaps, without knowing it, that environment provided some of the very foundations she would later need to flourish as an adult. Because as an adult, I find myself being paid to do many of the exact things that got me into trouble as a child.
As a clinical psychologist, I am valued because I see things differently. I solve problems differently. I ask questions that sometimes make people uncomfortable. I say things that sometimes make people uncomfortable. Not because I want to make people uncomfortable, but because sometimes discomfort is where meaningful therapeutic work begins.
Every day, I work with people who have felt dismissed, disregarded or misunderstood because they are different. People who have spent years feeling as though they are not enough. People who have learned to question themselves because the world kept telling them they were getting it wrong.
I am effective because I can relate. I am effective because I know what it feels like to be the right seed in the wrong soil. I know what it feels like to believe there is something fundamentally wrong with you simply because you don’t thrive in the environment you were planted in. And I understand how confronting growth can feel. I also know how worthwhile that discomfort can be.
After catching up with my high school friend yesterday, I found myself feeling nostalgic and pulled out a dusty old photo album. Then I came across this photograph.
It stopped me in my tracks.
This is me at five years old, before I had fully experienced a world with such definitive expectations about how a good girl should look, speak, behave and belong. Looking at her now, I realise something I couldn’t see then. She had been a good girl all along.
She didn’t need to become quieter.
Softer.
More agreeable.
More proper.
More normal.
She simply needed to find the soil in which she could grow. And perhaps that is what I want to tell her now:
Hold onto yourself, little one.
One day, you will discover that you were good enough all along.
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Chiu Lau (she/her) is a neurodivergent Clinical Psychologist living with an invisible disability. She is also the founder of Possibilities Psychological Services, an Australia-wide online therapy provider. Since 2003, Chiu has developed extensive experience in the assessment, diagnosis and management of mental health concerns, trauma, chronic health conditions, neurodivergence (including autism, ADHD, PDA, and learning and intellectual disabilities), and psychosocial stressors experienced by gender-diverse individuals. Recognising the challenges associated with navigating various intervention and mental health provider options, Chiu invites you to book a complimentary 20-minute discovery call to explore your options and possibilities here.