The administration, (and opposition MPs also share the blame) could have easily sidestepped any issues with #UndiBanjir, if we had spent the last 2½ years pushing for inclusive governance, including future-proofing our democracy & public health.
Q: How bad is Malaysia's mental health crisis among kids and teens?
All evidence points to it being very bad. UNICEF issued a mental health alert in May 2021, suicide & self-harm is on the rise and we've just acknowledged this recently as well..
2/16
...with the revelation that "about 424,000 children in Malaysia have mental problems".
Tragically, we will probably never know exactly how bad it is, unless we become more proactive with data collection.
Nice to see the Opposition finally embrace the utility of submitting private member bills, even if not accepted.
It highlights the systemic barriers to actually participating in the democratic process, and illustrates the disconnect between what politicians say and what they do.
10 years ago, during an UndiMsia workshop in Melbourne.
Was it worth it?
I don't know man. The last 2-3 years have been shit for advocacy.
Found an old stash of photos in a long forgotten HDD.
I had long hair back then. And this was when I was still on SSRIs, and not mood stabilisers. A few weeks after this was taken, I had a hypomanic switch and was eventually reassessed for Bipolar Disorder, and not MDD.
I think a lot of those early workshops for UndiMsia were fueled by a prolonged hypomanic streak. No one noticed (or were trained to notice), and I just thought the antidepressants were doing their job.