Little Thing 347: The Cost of Self-Regulation

I got back from a family trip.

Before the trip, I decided to be as flexible and positive as I could manage. I had one intention in mind: to see, firsthand, whether I could regulate my emotions through all the little frictions that inevitably come with travelling as a family. It was a four-day trip, and in my mind, those were four experimental days. And I did surprisingly well.

Interestingly, the real challenge came after the trip. One by one, small frustrations appeared before I had the chance to rest, process everything that had happened, or refill my now-empty cup. During those moments, I snapped at Sofi twice. I was exhausted, impatient, unable to deal with one more drama, and completely overwhelmed.

So yes, I did well during the trip, but I somewhat failed after it.

It made me wonder: Had I actually become better at regulating my emotions? Or did I only succeed because I knew I was running an experiment with a clear beginning and end? And when real life returned; all messy, unpredictable, with no finish line—did I simply fall apart?

Then I realized something.

Self-regulation isn't free. For four days, I consciously chose patience over instinct. I stayed self-aware. I chose the better version of myself, again and again. Every one of those moments required intention. Every one of them cost energy.

If someone runs a marathon and can't climb the stairs afterward, we don't conclude they were never fit. We conclude that the marathon cost them something. Mental effort works much the same way. It reminded me that recovery is part of self-regulation, not separate from it.

I still finished the run.

I just need to recover, and work on the next run. 

Little Thing 346: Thousand Little Deaths

Ada hari kita rasa macam tengah mati. Sakitnya dalam hati tu terasa macam ada tangan yang tengah menggenggam jantung kita kuat-kuat. Terlalu fizikal. Sampai kita susah nak percaya yang semua ni "cuma" perasaan, yang datang daripada subconscious kita.

Tapi itulah realitinya menjadi manusia.

I die a little every day, and somehow, I wake up again tomorrow for another chance at life.

Sampailah ajal benar-benar tiba, but in the meantime, you'll die thousand little deaths. 

And what remains is who you become.

*

Little Thing 344: Who Would I Tell?

I read a good book recently. It came to me by surprise, and I knew nothing about it going in. Some people have said it reminds them of Piranesi, but I disagree. It never made me feel as suffocated as Piranesi did. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman is a 1995 sci-fi dystopian novel:

It follows thirty-nine adult women and a young, unnamed narrator who have no memory of their past and are kept imprisoned in an underground cage by silent male guards. When the guards suddenly abandon them, the women escape into a desolate, lifeless world. From there, the novel shifts into an existential exploration of isolation, freedom, and what it means to be human, as the women—and eventually only the narrator—try to survive in this barren wasteland.

Not as sprawling or messy as Dostoevsky, this book gave me the same feeling as The Road by Cormac McCarthy or Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It quietly dismantles your assumptions and leaves you staring at the ceiling, wondering what remains when everything else has been stripped away.

It made me question my existence on a Saturday afternoon, which is perhaps the highest compliment I can give a book. I am still thinking about it days later. 

If I can no longer share anything with anyone, what is the point of my existence?

I have always taken pride in my ability to embrace solitude. Over time, I have accepted that my difficulty in connecting with others is simply part of how I am wired. But the book left me wondering: if there were no one to share my thoughts with, through conversation, writing, art, or any other medium, would those thoughts still matter?

Would a poem still be a poem if no one ever read it? Would a story still have meaning if it remained untold? Would love, grief, joy, or curiosity carry the same weight if they existed only within the boundaries of a single mind?

Part of me wants to believe that meaning can exist independently, that a life can be worthwhile simply because it is lived. Yet another part wonders whether meaning is something we create together, whether our thoughts become real only when they are witnessed, received, or echoed back by another person.

Perhaps that is what unsettled me most about this novel. It is not merely about isolation. It asks what remains of our humanity when there is no audience, no community, and no one left to remember us. And whether meaning is something we possess, or something we give to one another.

-

As someone who has spent most of her life writing, I found myself carrying that question long after I finished the book. We often say that we write for ourselves, but do we really? If there is no reader, no witness, no possibility of being understood, does the act still hold the same meaning?

When I write, who am I writing to?

Tu lah, writers are funny in that sense, we call it solitude bagai, then spend hundreds of pages trying to reach someone. Kemooon sisterr. 

Little Thing 340: Access Tickets

I came out from my deep well and looked outside for a bit. An old friend reached out, and I responded.

I had erased her whole existence for the past few years while I was in crisis, and she told me I had done it before. Once when my parents were separating and getting divorced. Once when I fell in love with someone I shouldn’t have. And then again these past few years. The same pattern repeating itself whenever I am faced with something too big for me to handle.

I can see my own red flag in how I handle crisis. When life becomes too much, I cave inward. It is not new. I feel safer inside my own box, protecting my heart while I try to process whatever enormous thing is happening in my head. I think the people close to me know this by now. The solitary confinement I retreat into just to survive my own thoughts.

The things that happen in my brain when there is “too much” sound like noise. Sometimes fast, sometimes unbearably slow, but always loud in their own way. In Inside Out 2, there is a scene where Anxiety becomes overwhelmed and starts doing everything at once. The mind moves frantically, but right in the middle of all that chaos, it becomes stuck. Frozen. Overwhelmed by the sheer volume of things happening at once. I thought that was depicted beautifully.

When something like this happens, I usually turn everything else off and go into safe mode. I focus only on the things I can control. I stop making decisions. I find space to breathe and take things one step at a time. Usually, I shut everything else out because I need silence in order to listen. My brain can already be unbearably loud, so I do not let anyone else in.

I know it is not the best way to handle difficult phases in life, but it became my default survival method.

These days, though, I give smaller access tickets to my siblings so they can check in on me because I knowwwww they are concerned. (Okay, okay, fine.) I am also more aware of what is happening while it is happening, so sometimes I will say, “I’m overwhelmed, please give me space,” instead of disappearing completely. I try to ride the wave of emotion instead of avoiding it. Then I sit with it long enough until I can finally find a solution, or at least a decision.

-

Maybe this is not growth in the dramatic sense. Maybe it is just learning how to leave the door slightly open while I disappear for a while. Not everyone needs to enter. But at least now, someone knows where I went. 

Tiny improvement ✦

Go awayyyh

Note: I noticed that people that stay in my circle are orang2 degil in my life, because dorang tak bagi I chan lari jauh sorg2 🙄

Little Thing 336: Silent Notes from the First Quarter

Project Hail-Mary:

Booked Saturday morning for a date with Dr Grace and Rocky.

I had two lactase pills and ordered a hot mocha with fresh milk, the only option, and honestly, pure brain fuel. I didn’t finish the drink though, because halfway through the movie, I could already feel the familiar rumble in my stomach. The film moved at a slow pace, the kind that requires attention rather than demands it. It felt almost like speed-reading; quiet, focused, and intentional. There were no loud action scenes to pull you in, so you had to meet it halfway. I liked that.

Visually, it was beautiful and casting Ryan Gosling was a bonus. Because let’s be honest, who doesn’t like a nerd with that face, kan. Watching it alone turned out to be the right decision. I did ask around, but no one seemed to be in the mood for a slow, sci-fi, slightly nerdy kind of film. The book was there in my waiting list for awhile, but I decided to watch it first sebab even I have trouble with sci-fi. But this is special. The nerdy part wasn't that nerdy, it was manageable, I love the fact that they simplify it into normal-people language and you don't have to be astrophysicist to understand it. Like I said before, I'm good with concept, but not so good with the details. 

I had the whole row for myself, I sat right in the middle, in front of me, there was a man, taking his whole row and behind, there was another man, taking his whole row. So the three of us, each taking our own whole row right in the middle of the cinema. Like we owned the place. 

-

Eid:

My Eid this time was rather quick and short. I just celebrated with my family on the first day of Raya. Quite uneventful, like I prayed it would. Next year, I would book a ticket out, like I did last year. I should have used the national long holiday intentionally, rather than working right on the fourth day of Raya, kan. That was a bit depressing even for my standard. Taipei or Okinawa would be inviting; a walk in a dinosaur museum or checking out a huge modern library or visit amazing aquarium, or even a hike, a lot of tempting options for my soul. Wrong plan. 

Selamat Hari Raya, nerds. 

- 

Books, Movies and Games:

Did I mentioned about my latest books? I forgot. I finished:

• The Disappearing Act by Maria Stepanova
• Embracing Change by Jana Firestone
• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zavin
• Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li
• Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles: Nirai Kanan-hen by Clamp (Manga)
• The Tea Dragon Tapestry Book 1-3 by Katie O'Neill (Graphic Novel)
• Angelica and the Bear Prince by Trung Le Nguyen (Graphic Novel)

I try my best to avoid DNF-ing my books because I have such a ridiculous patience like a monk and I give chances to all my books for as long as I could. So, I have a bunch of books that I am still slowly churning (like reading 1 chapter on random):

• Here After by Amy Lin (70%)
• The Idiot by Elif Batuman (90%)
• The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami (70%)
• XXXHolic Omnibus (Book 3/7)
• The Great Mental Models (70%)
• Must I Go by Yiyun Li (70%)
• The New Life by Orhan Pamuk (60%)

I don't stream movies or series. PHM was the latest movie, that was an intentional activity slotted in my schedule so that I would have a life outside of my house. But I play lots of Roller Coaster Tychoon, almost on daily basis now. One challenge per day. 

I hardly have any social life, and I've been talking about improving this for 3 years now. But ew, socializing. 

-

Work:

Other than my project with U that has recently been launched during Ramadhan, I just locked myself for the next 3 months for a project with Au. So I have something keeping me busy and distracted for awhile. Sometimes I do feel uncomfortable with the fact that I feel at most fulfilled with having a list of works to do, but it keeps my engine running, and it works. I just want to do what I'm good at, and that's about it.

Not that ambitious, really. 

I just did a self-assessment thing, that was requested by my office. Honestly, at this pace that I'm making right now, everything I achieve in my personal life has been overwhelming and huge enough that I don't even have any space for a "self-growth" mentality in my career. 

Who do you see yourself in 5 years time? Can you lead and guide a group of team? It's been awhile since you take your yoga teaching course, what are your plans?

My focus is my life and my little kid's life, I don't have any brain space for anything, let's be real. Don't ask these huge future questions to a single mom, you have no idea where she's mentally at :F There's a reason why I take a senior role and not a leader role at my age. My focus is still being a present mom. I'm not saying that you can't do both. For me, this, is intentional. 

Little Thing 335: What Worked, What Stayed

 

I was talking to my sibling about change, about awareness, and about how hard it is to step out of the system we grew up in. As I get older, I’m starting to see that everyone is operating within some kind of system. Some work, some don’t. But regardless, we stay in them, we repeat them, we build our lives around them. The good thing is, I can see mine. The harder part is figuring out how to rewire something that is so deeply embedded in me. How do you upgrade a system that feels like your default setting? 

For example, I grew up in a family that values independence. We don’t ask for help, we don’t lean and we endure what we need to endure, alone. There’s almost a quiet pride in it, like surviving alone is something to be respected. My mom raised four of us, and when I look back, I don’t remember a larger support system around her, no visible village. She carried it mostly on her own and it worked. But because it worked, it became the model and now it lives in us.

So one of my default response whenever I have a situation is: “Let me figure this out. Alone.” The interesting thing is, I now have enough distance from myself to see this pattern as it’s happening. I can almost step outside of myself and observe it, like a third person. I analyze it. And what I’m starting to realize is this: Just because I can do things alone, doesn’t mean I should. I should be able to ask for support when I need it, kan.

But here’s where I get stuck. How do you rewire yourself to rely on something you don’t fully trust? How do you build a new system when your old one is the only thing that has ever proven reliable? I’ve read about neuroplasticity, about CBT. I do believe that humans can upgrade. Maybe not completely change, but upgrade.

Somehow, I keep repeating the same patterns and the hardest part is, I’m aware of it. It would be easier if I were in denial. Easier if I didn’t see it, didn’t question it, didn’t try to shift it, but I do. And that awareness doesn’t automatically translate into change. It just means I can see myself looping, in real time.

-

This doesn’t just apply to me.

It can relate to anything you might be struggling with in your life, especially the patterns you find yourself repeating over time. It could show up in your behaviour, in how you respond to situations, or even in the way you choose your words. If you’re willing to pay attention, you can begin to examine your belief system more closely. You can start to see what sits underneath it, question whether it still serves you, and decide if it is something you want to upgrade.

I’m not just talking about hyper-independence. It could be something else entirely. It could be staying in a victim mentality, being stuck in a fixed mindset, or believing that your worth is tied to how much you make. The form may look different, but the underlying structure is often the same.

I wonder if you can see it too, the system you’ve been operating in.

Little Thing 331: Pottery Lesson

Last December, I took an unlimited pottery session.

One of the main lessons I learned was detachment. In pottery, you have to accept that you cannot fully control the outcome. Whether I throw once or fifty times, the piece can still fail. My skills can always improve. My expectations can still collapse.

Every stage of the process produces a different result. Imperfections can appear at any phase. I can spend hours shaping a piece, only for it to crack during firing in the kiln because I did not wedge it properly at the beginning. If I handle it too much, if it shifts off-center while throwing, if I add too much water or not enough, if I rush, or if I overwork the clay anything can go wrong. Everything matters.

Pottery teaches patience, repetition, and the humility to accept that you can create something and still walk away with nothing. In every session, I arrived, put music in my ears, wedged and threw, silently repeating the process. I walked home with cracked palms and an aching back, but it was therapeutic.

I did not want to bring anything home. I just wanted to enjoy the learning process, on repeat.

It had been a while since I allowed myself to be terrible at something. There were no stakes, no KPIs, no deliverables, no results, just a bad piece spinning on the wheel.

Note: So Azmi, this is to answer your question that weekend.

-

It is a little like parenting, kan.

You try to shape them according to your standards, but every phase can unfold in ways you cannot control. And just like pottery, you learn to loosen your grip on the outcome. Sometimes the most loving thing is knowing when to stop shaping. In the end, the child becomes who they are becoming. 

Your role is not to manufacture the final form, but to guide the process and then accept the outcome. 

Little Thing 330: The Right Mix

Kadang-kadang I’m not sure how to do this parenting thing. Growing up, I was in quite a stressful environment where I didn’t really get to express myself. Looking back, I realize I learned to make myself small and invisible, too scared to create friction or drama. I developed this toxic habit of hiding in my cave.

So every time Sofi tests a boundary or tries to express herself, I find myself questioning what the right approach is. Do I limit her expression and create firm rules, or do I let her test things and learn through consequences? She’s at the age of trying out what she sees around her, experimenting with autonomy, learning how to express herself. With limited vocabulary and emotional awareness, rebellion can easily become her language.

And I remember, when I was growing up, I didn’t get the chance to be seen at all.

I wonder what the right mix is in shaping her personality, because every small influence wires her brain, at least during these formative years. But maybe the real work is not about controlling the mix. Maybe it’s about teaching her how to regulate her emotions, to name what she feels, and guiding her to process them. Hopefully, she will slowly grow into the best version of her own self. Kan. That’s something I only learned in my 30s, and I wish I had learned it sooner.

I don't know. 

She’s still at that age where she says, “Thank you, Mami. I love it.” 

And that warms my heart everytime, because I still struggle to express something that simple.

Little Thing 329: I'm Breathing Now

Last week, a lot happened. For one, I was asked to join my first networking event, maybe because I had avoided most events since I started working full-time again. So no excuse.

I was nervous, the kind of nervous with butterflies constantly in my stomach. The kind that made me cycle 70 km in a week just to manage it. The kind that made it hard to eat proper meals for several days, which then led to headaches. How annoying it is to be fully aware of my nervous system reacting like this and still not be able to chill, kan.

But I survived the networking event, with sweaty armpits and many moments of pretending to be busy. I survived submitting 15 drafts in 2 days, and 12 completed FA in 3 days as well as the interview meetings in-between. I survived the confrontations that really needed to happen. And I got the results for my big applications. I can come out from my cave now. I have no idea how I'm still functioning.

Last week was a marathon for my brain. My ChatGPT said I shouldn’t go to the gym anymore because I was “overstimulated” and that's why I don't feel hunger. What I needed was grounding, not more movement. Hah.

What I learned from the networking event is that I really don’t want to do networking. I thought I needed to socialize more to make my “presence” seen and maybe get more projects or something. But naw, I don’t like it. I don’t like going to events and talking about myself to strangers. I just want to do the work, sans the socializing :F I told S that I’d rather be in front of my laptop doing my work. Maybe the socializing part is just not meant for me. 

But next week, we have another session. This time I don't have to talk about myself to strangers, I just need to help around. So, it is not that bad. I'm breathing now, I've been holding my breath for awhile.

 

I'm breathing.

Little Thing 324: Emotions Are Not Flaws

You know, I talk about pain a lot, kan? I'm not shy about being vulnerable because I've learned the importance of naming what I feel. Several years ago, when I wasn’t in the right space and spent more time in denial than awareness, I spiralled into anxiety and depression. It wasn’t sudden, it was a slow collapse from ignoring myself for too long. Over time, through learning about who I am, opening up, patching the holes, and trying to manage things on my own, I reached this point. And I know this for sure now: whenever I lie to myself for too long, I spiral. Whenever I deny what my heart is asking for, I spiral. If I ignore it, the anxiety symptoms come back, the ones I can recognise now, though I didn’t understand them back then.

So I don't lie anymore.

I’m much more open than I used to be. Other than the moments I retreat into my deep well, I’m vocal. It’s either the truth or complete silence. I don’t fabricate. I don’t sugarcoat. I don’t rewrite my own feelings just to keep the peace.

I learned to voice out my emotions in full sentences: “I’m anxious right now, and the reason is…”, “I’m stressed out, and these are the triggers…”, or “I don’t want this / I don’t like this because…”. Maybe it comes with age or experience, or maybe it’s simply because I’ve seen how lying about what I feel leads to more harm. And it’s not just emotional harm. Long-term emotional suppression and chronic stress really do shape the body, they influence the immune system, shift hormones, and make any underlying condition worse. The body absorbs everything we refuse to process.

So if you are not feeling good and you are not sure why. Listen. 

You’ll feel it physically: the withdrawal, the sudden weight changes, the loss of interest, the brain fog, the exhaustion that doesn’t go away, the indigestion, the random rashes, the jitters, the allergies, the anxiety spikes, the gastric episodes, the muscle tension, the vertigo, the headaches; all the small rebellions your body stages when your mind is carrying too much. A lot of these signals begin in the emotional landscape; they’re reminders that everything is connected. The body reflects what the psyche holds.

In the end, we don’t get to choose whether life gives us pain, but we do get to choose whether we meet it honestly. Awareness isn’t about fixing everything; it’s about refusing to negotiate with our own denial. It’s choosing to tell the truth because the body always knew it anyway. Maybe healing begins not with bravery, but with the simple decision not to lie to ourselves anymore. To name what hurts. To stay with the discomfort long enough for it to teach us something. 

And if someone tells you you’re “too emotional,” it’s fine. 

At least you’re not lying to yourself. At least you’re accepting that you’re human, and that feeling is not a flaw.

-

Note: It took me 35 years to learn this and I am still managing it. So kids, listen to your emotions and learn how to manage it, don't deny it.  

I can see my siblings struggling in denial lately, and so, I'm just putting this out in the ether.

Little Stories 322: Chicken Pop

2 weeks after Sofi caught scarlet fever, she was sick again, now with chicken pox, or how Sofi calls it 'chicken pop'. Another week at home, quarantining. She was feverish for the first four days, with itchy, blistery spots all over her body, painful ulcers in her mouth, and nonstop burps (I guess her digestion’s a mess). I told her she had to go through this one way or another.

I set up my laptop in the living room, told my team about the situation and how it might affect my focus, then just rode the wave as best and as flexibly as I could. When things pile up like this, I can’t really aim for balance. So I go into what I call priority triage. I pick what matters most and let the rest fall where it may.

It’s not quite fight-or-flight. It’s more like serious mental compartmentalization, like packing each chaos into its own box so I can breathe. I cancelled meetings, pushed calls, worked at odd hours whenever I could focus. I got help from Af when he could, cycled when I had the time, and completely bowed out of the family social planning. I let go of what I needed to let go of.

And yeah, I’m probably stressed out. My period’s a week late. That tracks.

But here’s the thing: I think I’m getting better at managing things alone. I can sense when I’m about to spiral, and I know what to do. I recognize when I’m overwhelmed, and I know what helps. Crises have become strange little practice runs, latih tubi for the mind and heart. Like running a marathon. My life has always felt like a marathon, tak pernahnya nak santai.

I have a list now, because not only do I have mommy brain, where I forget the hundred little things on my mental checklist, I’m also trying my best to stay on top of work. So a physical list helps. Using my calendar app and the Teams calendar helps. Knowing what’s next, when to push things to “next time,” when to say no, and when to drop things entirely, all of that helps.

Sometimes I cry at night, then I let go, and I fall asleep. That sigh, you know, that heavy sigh telling yourself you did well that day and it is still ok. I still want to play the next day, and I'm not done yet. 

 

Maybe this is just how it is; parenting, working, surviving, repeating. I’ll just keep triaging and cycling through it. At least Sofi calls it “chicken pop.” Somehow that makes it all sound lighter than it feels. She said, "I missed my skin, mami. Do you miss my skin too?". 

Note: I wrote this on day 5, halfway through, I hope things will get brighter on today onwards. 

Little Thing 315: Metanoia

A year ago, my marriage ended.

Since then, I’ve been living the single motherhood life. In the span of twenty months, I’ve metaphorically died a few times, stumbled through anxiety, fallen into depression, gotten sick, lost my best friend, and been slapped around by uncertainties. At this point, I’m as bitter as I can be but also strangely content. I don’t have the same wild energy I carried in my teens. Honestly, I don’t even know how I managed all this. But I did. And I’m quietly impressed with myself.

In the middle of all that heartbreak, I’ve learned something unexpected: I’m falling in love with myself. I’ve accepted singlehood, and the fact that I’m fully responsible for my own life. It feels liberating not to report to anyone, not to beg for validation, not to justify every choice. I’m at the stage of womanhood where my insecurities don’t run the show anymore. That, I think, is its own kind of freedom.

Every time people ask about my “husband,” I awkwardly have to say I’m single now and give a quick summary of our separation - not ideal way of sharing the news. My brother keeps telling me I shouldn’t treat this like a secret. And I don’t. It’s not a secret. It’s just not something I feel the need to headline on social media. 

Still, it’s an important phase in my life, and my blog is a testament to that. So here it is, a year later. A lot of things remain tangled with this new reality, so being transparent here just feels easier. My Patreon community knew earlier this year, and I can count on one hand the people I’ve told directly (when asked). Beyond that, maybe some gossip “atas angin,” as usual. Even most of my extended family doesn’t know yet. Tapi, it is not a secret lah, it is a fact, I'm not ashamed of it.

Even then, I couldn’t help but arch a brow when I saw “Cik Azah Azreen” on a wedding invitation. A quiet acknowledgment of my changed status, thoughtful, but it stirred mixed feelings nonetheless.

So here it is, laid bare. 

A part of my life I’m no longer afraid to put into words.