When I was younger, I thought mental health was simply the absence of mental illness. I assumed that if someone wasn't diagnosed with depression or anxiety, then they were mentally healthy, but I don't believe that anymore.

Mental health is also about how we respond to stress, whether we know how to regulate difficult emotions, whether we feel safe enough to ask for help, and whether our closest relationships become places of healing or places where old wounds quietly deepen.

I didn't learn that from a textbook; I learnt it through my marriage.

I met my former husband when I was seventeen, during our first year in polytechnic. We became good friends before we became a couple. He was quiet, thoughtful and gentle. I was more outspoken and expressive. Looking back, perhaps we complemented each other because each of us seemed to possess qualities the other lacked.

We married in early 2005, six months before our first child was born. It was a simple beginning. We registered our marriage quietly and celebrated with an intimate family dinner. There was no grand wedding, only two young people believing that love, commitment and perseverance would be enough. Neither of us realised then that love alone cannot heal wounds we do not yet understand.

Looking back now, I don't think either of us entered marriage without baggage: we both carried childhoods that had shaped us long before we met.

My former husband grew up in a home marked by instability, financial hardship and conflict. His father's own childhood had been one of abandonment, and the pain seemed to echo across generations. Home was rarely peaceful. Arguments were frequent, emotions were seldom expressed safely, and survival often mattered more than connection.

My own childhood was different, yet had many parallels to his. My father died when I was sixteen, and overnight I found myself helping to support my family while caring for a mother struggling with depression and later serious illness. I became the dependable one—the child who, although not ready, still coped, achieved and carried burdens quietly.

As children, we both learnt ways to survive, and, as adults, we unknowingly brought those survival strategies into our marriage. When life was calm, they worked well enough. When life became difficult, they began pulling us further apart.

The arrival of our first child was one of the happiest moments of my life, but it was also one of the hardest. Like many first-time mothers, I desperately wanted to do everything right. Breastfeeding mattered deeply to me. It wasn't simply a parenting choice; it was something shaped by my own life. My younger brother had been breastfed for years and eventually outgrew the asthma and eczema that had troubled him as a child. I had never been breastfed and continued struggling with both conditions well into adulthood. Through my own lived experience, I believed breastmilk was one of the greatest gifts I could give my baby.

Expressing milk wasn't easy for me: every bottle represented time, discomfort, interrupted sleep and determination. Not long after giving birth, I returned to work, and on some days my mother-in-law cared for my daughter. One afternoon, when I arrived to pick her up, I noticed a bottle of expressed breastmilk sitting nearby. My mother-in-law looked at it and began speaking in Hokkien, a language I barely understood. From her gestures and tone, I realised she thought the milk looked too diluted. Before I could respond, she walked to the sink and poured the entire bottle down the drain, and then prepared formula milk instead.

I stood there frozen. I wasn't simply watching milk disappear; I was watching hours of my effort disappear with it. Here I was recovering from childbirth, trying to establish breastfeeding, caring for a baby with jaundice, returning to work, and learning how to become a mother all at the same time. That bottle had cost me exhaustion, determination and hope. My husband later told me he would speak to her, but I never asked about what was said.

Looking back, I don't believe my mother-in-law intended to hurt me. She came from a generation that believed formula milk represented modern nutrition and prosperity. She acted according to what she believed was best, yet understanding that today doesn't erase how alone I felt then. It wasn't really about the milk: it was about feeling unseen.

Life became busier with each child. When our youngest was born, our older two were in Primary Two and Kindergarten Two. We had no domestic helper and no confinement nanny. Shortly after the birth, my husband travelled to the United States for work for three weeks. I later learnt that the trip could easily have been postponed. At the time, I didn't dwell on this. I was simply too busy: there were nappies to change, school runs to manage, meals to prepare, laundry waiting to be folded and a newborn waking throughout the night. I don't remember getting much sleep: I just remember surviving one day at a time. Back then, I thought resilience meant simply carrying on, although now I know that surviving and thriving are not the same thing.

Over the years, life brought me grief in waves. In 2009, I miscarried while supporting my mother through chemotherapy for leukaemia. In 2015, my sister-in-law died suddenly in a tragic bus accident, leaving behind her young son, and barely two months later, my mother passed away. Almost overnight, my world became filled with funerals, hospital visits, grieving children and responsibilities that seemed endless. My nephew stayed with us for periods of time while our family tried to adjust.

One night, after everyone had finally fallen asleep, the house became completely silent. My three children and my nephew were asleep in the bedrooms. It was around one or two in the morning, and I sat alone at the kitchen table. I wasn't sobbing anymore: tears simply rolled down my face while I stared into nothing. I was too exhausted to think, too overwhelmed to sleep, and too numb to even pray.

After a while, my husband walked into the kitchen. He glanced in my direction, and he walked past me without saying anything. There was no "Are you alright?"; no hand on my shoulder; no quiet moment beside me. He simply continued walking. For years, I replayed that night in my mind. Today, I understand it differently from my immediate reaction then. I don't think he was deliberately unkind: I think we had both become emotionally exhausted. When I experienced pain, I reached out for conversation and reassurance. When he experienced pain, he withdrew into silence. Neither response was necessarily wrong.

The tragedy was that we didn't know how to meet each other where we were. We were both hurting, but we just weren't hurting together anymore.

By 2016, the emotional distance between us had become impossible for me to ignore. I reached out to a family counsellor at Fei Yue because I no longer knew how to bridge the growing gap between us. After the counsellor contacted my husband, he came home visibly angry.

"Since you've told people I'm so bad," he said, raising his voice, "I'll show you what bad really is."

Those words stayed with me for a long time. Today, I hear them differently. I no longer hear only anger: I also hear hurt and defensiveness. This was the reaction of a man who felt criticised but did not know how to express that pain safely.

Our marriage continued to unravel, and eventually, we separated.

During the divorce proceedings, my emotional stability became part of the legal process. Late-night CCTV footage showing me sitting alone at the dining table crying was presented as evidence that I was emotionally unstable, and I agreed to undergo a psychological assessment.

I remember sitting quietly in the waiting room, wondering what the psychologist would discover. Part of me feared the assessment would confirm every accusation I had heard. Instead, after the assessment, the psychologist explained that I was functioning well despite carrying immense and prolonged stress. He described me as an involved and loving mother, and I remember crying with relief, not because all my problems had disappeared, but because someone had finally given words to what I had been living through. I wasn't failing: I was exhausted. There is a profound difference between mental illness and emotional exhaustion caused by carrying more than one person should carry alone. Making this distinction changed the way I understood myself.

Therapy opened a new chapter in my life. It taught me lessons I wish I had understood twenty years earlier. I learnt about emotional regulation and my own window of tolerance—the space where we are able to think clearly, stay present and respond rather than react.

I also learnt that self-care isn't selfish. For years I believed that looking after myself meant taking something away from the people I loved. Now I understand that caring for myself allows me to care for others more faithfully.

Perhaps the greatest lesson was learning the difference between influence and control. For much of my marriage, I believed that if I loved harder, sacrificed more, explained myself better or tried a little longer, I could eventually change another person's behaviour. Therapy gently taught me otherwise. I only have influence over my own choices, and I cannot control another person's responses, emotions or decisions. Accepting that truth didn't make me powerless; rather, it set me free.

Today, mental health means something very different to me. It means accepting difficult emotions rather than fearing them, and regulating instead of reacting. It means asking for help before reaching breaking point. And continuing to show up—with kindness, honesty and compassion—even when life remains difficult.

Most of all, mental health means recognising that healing isn't about never feeling overwhelmed again. It's about learning how to return to yourself with gentleness when you do.

Divorce closed one chapter, but therapy opened another. I no longer measure healing by whether the past stops hurting. I measure it by whether I respond differently today than I would have five years ago. Some days I still fall short, but now I recognise that healing isn't becoming someone new. It's learning, slowly, to become someone more honest—with myself and with the people I love. Through this perspective, I no longer see my marriage simply as a story of failure. I see it as the place where I first realised that love alone is not enough. Love needs emotional safety, humility, and two people willing to understand not only each other, but themselves.

Although my marriage ended, it also became the beginning of a different journey—one of self-awareness, compassion and healing.

That journey is still unfolding.

And for the first time in many years, I walk it with hope.

Elizabeth works in the social sector, where she supports education, outreach, and digital communications for a charitable foundation. She is passionate about creating safe spaces for healing and believes deeply in the power of storytelling and second chances. Outside of work, she enjoys photography, quiet nature walks, and meaningful conversations over coffee.

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