My childhood was littered all over with examples of me giving up - by S.Q.

Essay Title: The Two Sides of My Mirror: Giving Up & Pressing On

Consolation Prize – AA24

By S.Q., a ‘O’ level student-inmate from institution B5

I’m so tired of this life. I’m so tired of doing things that cannot see the light of day. I’m so tired of living in society’s shadow. I’m so tired of not having freedom. I’m so tired of being a slave to my emotions. I’m so tired of prison. I’m so tired that I can’t call my family anytime I wish. I’m so tired that I can’t be near the people I love. I’m so tired of the food. I’m so tired of sleeping on the floor. 

Sometimes I just want to give up and just all these things as part of my life. Maybe then I wouldn’t need to struggle so much. 

When I was much younger, I did not imagine that one day, I would be a frequent client of the Singapore Prison Service. Even though I was no stranger to prisons because I had always visited family members, it never occurred to me that one day I would be the one behind the glass. I did things in the spur of the moment. I did things that I knew was wrong. From Boys’ Home to RTC and beyond, I could not see that my life was spiralling into a vicious cycle, one that would be so difficult to escape. I was digging a deep, too deep hole, and by the time I started reflecting and regretting, the climb out was steep, too steep. 

To extricate myself from this web of unhealthy thinking, anti-social behaviour, unruly habits, and most consequently, illegal activities, that I ensnared myself in would prove to be the most challenging thing in my life. When you think about how I lived so far, it would be doubtful if I could be successful in ever getting out. My childhood was littered all over with examples of me giving up. The taekwondo green belt that never got changed into any higher colours. Giving up playing rugby because of a scrape to my knee. Not going for my ‘N’ levels because I ‘knew’ I couldn’t pass. Every time the going got tough, I tapped out. Giving up was easy because if I wasn’t emotionally inverted in the results, so what if it was horrible? I didn’t ‘care’! In this way, I became a defeatist, and now, I had more issues than sports and examinations. 

I was always closer to my father. During counselling sessions, being prodded to reflectly deeply, I wonder if it was the violence that taught me to stay close to dad, so I wouldn’t be the one to bear the brunt of his anger. I wonder if that was what taught little me to value his opinions over others even though he was the one that hurt me the most and influenced me in a negative manner. I turned out to be everything I hated about him. The anger. Violence. Addition. The capriciousness. To be fair to my dad, he was a person going through his own issues, and didn’t know better. He was only human and loved me in his own way. But the damage was done, and I turned out even more extreme, even worse. 

All these things form the very person I was. I did not think that I could be any different, and slowly, incarceration after incarceration, I was starting to get comfortable with this being the status quo. At some point, reoffending was becoming inevitable. It was just going to happen anyways no matter how I tried so why struggle? Wasn’t it better to just accept it because at least doing so set my heart at peace? Why fight against something I couldn’t win? It’s so difficult to change, to stay out of trouble. Maybe this was just the person I was meant to be. Many of my family members were in prison anyway. It became harder and harder to tell myself otherwise. 

And then two things happened recently. I came across this book because someone recommended it to me. It’s titled “The Alchemist” and I read something in it that shocked me out of my reverie. It said “The World’s Greatest Lie, is that at a certain point in our lives we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our live became controlled by fate”. In the few days I was still processing this message, opportunities opened for me to join the Peer Supporter Academy and to take academics study in prison. I jumped at the opportunity, even though I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t seen that message and read that book. Being gifted with a brand new perspective really changed how I view the world. 

Going for Peer Support Academy helped me learn to explore empathy and vulnerability. I learnt that being open and receptive and having supportive group members can really help us heal, knowing we are not alone. It’s amazing how a simple action, reaching out and participating in my own life, can bring so many benefits to me. I’ve met ISCOS Titans, learnt how to conduct proactive circles, seen success stories such as my CRS who was an ex-con who successfully became a prison counsellor. All it took was a shift in my ‘mindsight’. Even though the hole was steep, I could see all these people throwing ropes in, building ladders for people like me. I didn’t have to do this alone. I didn’t have to give up. 

The opportunity to study has instilled in me a feeling that once I set my heart on doing something, I can see the progress and improvement over time. That anything I put effort in will yield results over time and reveal time to me the lessons of hard work and patience. It is a good experience that shows me that I can improve myself and my skills if I just put in the work. It’s these little things that give us confidence and set the stage for accomplishing bigger things. Pressing on feels much better than giving up. 

With an attitude of pressing on, I’ve started seeing quotes everywhere. They seem to speak to me. Every Saint has a past and every sinner has a future. The past is unchangeable and the future is unknowable. We cannot go to the past and create a brand new start but we can start from now and create a brand new ending. 

My relationship with my mum has improved so much since I learnt about vulnerability, about forgiveness and second chances. Now I feel like I understand her more than I ever did in my life. Feeling close to her now I feel a world of missed opportunities in my younger days. But it’s not too late for me to make life more meaningful for mummy and I wish my newfound maturity and striving for wisdom. I am looking forward to living a brand new life with a new perspective. 

With a new perspective in life, with these opportunities, now I have the courage to WANT. I WANT to be sober. I WANT to be good. I WANT to live. I WANT to succeed. I WANT to press on. Never give up!