Feeling at home with ‘unrelatable people’: Why some youths become mental health volunteers

SINGAPORE — She remembers feeling “very scared” when she first stepped into the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) as a volunteer with Temasek Polytechnic’s (TP) community service club in 2019.

But that fear soon dissipated and Ms Nur Fiqriya Muhammad Esa began feeling “at home” with her surroundings.

This is because she herself has had her own mental health struggles, having grown up with anorexia, an eating disorder characterised by low weight, and high-functioning depression, a condition in which sufferers appear to still be able to function normally.

“I know it sounds terrible, but I felt at home in IMH, because I could relate to people being unrelatable,” Ms Nur Fiqriya told TODAY in an interview on Friday (Oct 7).

The 21-year-old Singapore Management University business undergraduate is now part of the publicity team in Youth Corps Singapore’s (YCS) Mental Health Cluster, where she promotes events and spreads awareness on mental health. She also gives free tuition to lower-income students.

YCS is the National Youth Council’s volunteering arm, and TODAY spoke to Ms Nur Fiqriya and Mr Cameron Tan Shi Ern, two volunteers who are active in the mental health space, ahead of World Mental Health Day on Oct 10.

For Ms Nur Fiqriya, it all started with her volunteering stint at IMH when she was 18, in her second year studying business (human resources and finance) at TP.

For eight months, she would spend two hours every Sunday at IMH, playing games with the patients, making arts and crafts with them, or just lending a listening ear.

“I had a very enriching experience, because a lot of my perceptions when I first volunteered were all corrected over time,” said Ms Nur Fiqriya.

“I was at first very scared to go into the ward. When you enter the vibes are very different from what you are used to.” 

Over time, it became less scary, with some patients even inspiring her.

Asked about a memorable experience, she said: “I had a patient who was younger than me; he had bipolar disorder. He would suddenly tell me: ‘Oh I don’t feel like talking anymore.’ 

“So, I would just sit there and accompany him in silence. And then suddenly he would talk and talk non-stop.

“But he inspired me because he was so determined to complete his artwork. By the end of the session, I can’t remember how many pieces he had drawn, but it was really impressive.”

‘I COULDN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY WERE SAYING’

For fellow YCS volunteer Mr Tan, his early experiences with mental health awareness, when he was in secondary school, had made him feel “inadequate”.

“I had a couple of friends who confided in me about certain stressors that they had,” he said. 

“At that point in time, I felt really inadequate because I couldn’t understand what they were saying.”

So, Mr Tan started to volunteer more to “get exposure”.

The 22-year-old student studying social work and psychology at the National University of Singapore is now a Community Peer Supporter in the YCS.

He attends volunteering sessions to help other youths and goes for training workshops to further his knowledge on peer support.

“You really hear about people from different places, where maybe peer support isn’t very well established,” Mr Tan said about the youths he encounters.

“Then you also have people who are more engaged, who have very diverse life experiences. How they channel these experiences to create empathy — those are things that I’ve always been inspired by.”

HOW PEOPLE CAN CONTRIBUTE TO THE MENTAL HEALTH SPACE

Mr Tan pointed out that there are several avenues now for people to get involved in the mental health space, such as the SG Mental Well-Being Network that was launched in July, and ground-up initiatives.

“There are a lot of organisations out there that provide mental health training and awareness talks. Being able to apply that (knowledge) — that’s something that I think will move the needle in Singapore’s mental health space,” he said.

Ms Nur Fiqriya believes that more can be done for mental health among older people in Singapore.

“If you are an adult, people expect you to handle yourself well,” she said.

“When you’re already independent, you have your own family, you have responsibilities, nobody is going to approach you and ask you: ‘How are you?’

“So we should, at an individual level, increase our knowledge and support our family.”