TW: This article contains mention of self-harm and suicide ideation.

I grew up in a family that was constantly fighting. Discipline, harsh criticism and bruises filled my childhood, leading me to have many insecurities and fears growing up. 

You are stupid. You are clumsy. You don’t know how to do anything. Such words were often hurled at me. They stayed with me and made me feel a lot of discouragement as a kid.

I often thought to myself: “If my family doesn’t even love me, then who else is going to love me?”

Feeling unwanted and unloved, all I thought about was that I just wanted to be freed from all of it. 

In school, I acted “normal”, but I felt a deep sense of loneliness and heaviness.

Back then, student welfare wasn’t as established as it is today, so I had no friends or teachers that I could confide in. I felt very lonely, having to deal with these thoughts all by myself. I was only in Primary 3 then. 

I would often hit my head on the wall, even in my classroom. I would hit my head against the wall really hard. After all, since I was told that I was very stupid – all the more I would hit my head against the wall, to really justify the things said about me.

There were also times where I wanted to jump off from the railing along the classroom corridors because I felt that life was meaningless. But I didn’t, because I was afraid of the outcome. 

During those years I would also be locked up in my room right after school, confined inside for hours all the way until dinner time. All I remember was that it was very suffocating. When I wanted to pee and poop, I couldn’t do so. Every day I felt like I was going crazy. 

False dawns 

But when I became a teenager, I felt that things in my life seemed to be improving.

Though the situation at home was somewhat the same, I felt happier in school. Because I was older, I had more freedom and didn’t need to return home straight after school anymore. I felt less suffocated.

In secondary school, I played basketball pretty well and I was in a concert band, which I enjoyed a lot. My studies were going well and I got into a relationship. All of this made me feel more confident, and, for the first time, I was quite happy and satisfied with my life.

But things changed just a year later. I broke up with my then-girlfriend, because she had cheated on me with one of my close guy friends.

The whole incident made me very angry. There were days I felt like throwing chairs and beating people up, days when I would cry and cry.

The worst years were still to come in polytechnic, where I was ostracised after a misunderstanding led to rumours being spread about me among the cohort.

I became isolated again. Things at home were still the same with the never-ending arguments, and so I realised that there was really no one in my life: my family was messed up, and I had no friends in school.

The ongoing ridicule from my classmates affected me to the point where I considered dropping out of school in Year 2.

My mind was flooded with depressive thoughts, and a day came where everything was so hazy to me and I felt so low that I desperately wanted to end my life. 

Death… or life?

I had a concrete plan, to go to one of the blocks at Sengkang to jump off. It was very clear to me — I knew exactly which block to go to. I was desperate to end things.

But as I was walking to the block, I also pleaded to God: “If You are real, I need You to tell me that You are real. Either You appear in front of me, or You send someone to tell me that You are real.” 

At that very moment, someone tapped me on the back. I had never seen this guy before and he asked me if I was a Christian. I hesitated and said that I wasn’t sure.

He went on to ask, “Where do you think you will go after you die?”

That was a difficult question. I was already on my way to my death, but in my heart, I didn’t even know where I would end up after I took my life.  

He sat down and shared the Gospel with me, and that was the very first time that I felt God’s presence. In that moment, I felt so free. That was also the first time that I truly accepted Jesus in my life. 

A time for change

After that day, everything felt so different because my perspective of life had completely changed. 

For the first time, I had joy and I looked forward to reading the Bible and understanding who this Jesus was. I found myself becoming more disciplined in the way I applied myself at school, because I wanted to live for God and give Him my best efforts. 

Eventually, I was able to make some friends in school! Even my loved ones slowly changed over the years, resulting in fewer quarrels. Our conversations and interactions also improved.

I don’t know what exactly happened — it wasn’t me that changed them. All I can say that it was by the grace of God that He transformed me and my family, bit by bit, day by day. 

For example, in BMT, when us guys received letters from our families, I was stunned that my parents actually wrote me a letter.

Part of that letter read: “Daddy and Mummy love you, but you may not know it. It’s hidden in our hearts. We can’t express ourselves well, and don’t know how to elaborate. Please forgive us.” 

I was overwhelmed when I first received this letter because those were words that I had never heard growing up. Words of love, words of reconciliation… words I never got to hear in all the years of my childhood.

Words that marked the start of a healing journey.

The God who saves families

Today, I am 34. Through it all, I have seen how God was working in my life and how He loves me.

He redeemed my whole family so that our home and conversations are more peaceful. We’re learning how to show and receive love in our relationships with one another. We’re praying together during difficult times — especially my mum, who often prays for us.

Because of the redeeming love of Christ, we can relate to one another with love, forgiveness and patience. Looking back, I know my parents did the best they could, with the little they had. They are not perfect people — and neither am I.

We are all sinners in need of God’s grace — and indeed, we have received grace upon grace, all to His glory.