Dr Ashley Ng

Recently, I’ve been feeling very stressed and overwhelmed with the many things going on in my life. As work and uni start to take first priority, I’ve started to let other things slide; things that make me smile and laugh; things that make me sigh with relief. So you can imagine that the smiles and laughter have been somewhat diminished of late and going to sleep with a contented sigh and snuggle has been tough.

After having to say goodbye to my other half last night, I felt this sudden wave of exhaustion take over me and I felt almost defeated, knowing that I had to go home – back to assignments, work, and everything else. He saw the sadness and weariness on my face and after some chatting, I revealed that I was feeling really down because I haven’t been able to spend as much time as I would like with the people in my life who matter. And that I’m so tired of going back to the doctors; to get prescriptions and more blood tests; I’m so sick of injections and needles; I’m so sick of diabetes and my crappy gastrointestinal system; I’m so sick of being a medical mystery.

That’s a lot of things I’m really sick and tired of and I probably could think of a few more things to add in there.

The funny thing was, I never really realised what was bothering me until I mentioned one negative thing. Then the next thing came out. Oh and don’t forget this other bugger of a thing that annoys me too. And this…and that…

My boyfriend then reminded me that if we focussed on the negative things in life, it will be more prominent. They will be in our faces, because we keep thinking about them and that will be all we focus on. Have I got time to be feeling like I’ve been run over by a semi-trailer everyday? Most definitely not. I want to be productive and know that I’m working towards my goals everyday. I want to smile, laugh and be able to pat myself on my back and say ‘you did good today’, in poor grammar and be able to laugh at myself for being stupid, while praising myself for being professional when needed.

What are other things that make me happy? The people around me! Despite some of them living far away, I will make an effort to stay in touch. Even if it’s a simple ‘I’m sorry I haven’t kept in touch because I’ve been caught up in my life, but I want you to know that you’re still an important part of my life and I’m thinking of your everyday and your support helps to keep me going.’ (okay that wasn’t so simple…but you know what I mean) I don’t make excuses for people and I don’t expect people to make excuses for me for not keeping in touch.

I will keep writing my blog, because it makes me feel empowered. Writing and reflecting is a funny but great thing. The more I write and think about things, the stronger I feel inside, knowing that I can get through anything. For me, it’s the best method for me to get my thoughts and myself organised. And I like sharing that with people, because showing how I work through my struggles would hopefully be helpful to others out there who read this.

I will start writing out my to-do lists again and start crossing things out as I go through them. I know I haven’t got as much as I think I do on my plate (if that even remotely made sense to you…). And I won’t let myself be distracted by funny cat memes, captions and gifs or facebook or those awesome games on my ipad (which I swore I would only use it for work). They can be my ‘breaks’ and ‘rewards’ but I need to earn them. Discipline!

And I most certainly won’t be giving up boxing because I love it and it’s the best stress release ever, even though I’m sore for two days after!