Disclaimer: In Real Life is a platform for everyday people to share their experiences and voices. All articles are personal stories and do not necessarily echo In Real Life’s sentiments.
Zhing Mong was studying LLB Law Hons in Southampton, UK. He had a mental breakdown in his first year of university, back in 2012, just a few months before his examinations in May.
He had been living alone in the students’ accommodation – everyone else went home for the Spring Holidays – and he would stay behind to study for his exams.
As the stress of the exams (mixed with past failed relationships) builds up and haunts him, Zhing Mong cracks and falls apart – forcing him to be admitted to a mental health institution.
This is his story!
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“I’m not very extroverted by nature, and I wasn’t uncomfortable doing things alone – in fact, being around too many people was stressful. So this seemed like the perfect opportunity to have some time to myself.”
The Fever
I fell ill with a fever the first night nobody was around.
Now, for some context, I don’t believe in the supernatural despite growing up a devout Christian. I had never experienced an encounter with God. Each time I felt something, I could explain it away with optical or auditory illusions, my brain playing tricks on me.
But that night, I started hallucinating. Shadows on the wall, voices calling me in the corridors late at night. I thought I saw the face of death in the window (I was living on the third floor, so there was no way someone could have passed by).
I had been lying in bed, sweating, thinking this was it; I was going to die.
Divine Intervention
There was nobody around, no one I could call for help. I prayed to God to take the fever away, and it disappeared when the clock struck 12.
When the fever broke, it was like a spell had been broken. I thought God had made me invincible. As far as I was aware, I’d received Divine Intervention – the kind the Church said would happen.
Later I would get an email from the university apologising for poor hygiene practices as there was an outbreak of Legionnaires disease. It turns out that one of its symptoms is a “spontaneous resolution”, which was what had happened to me. But I didn’t know that at the time.
I Was An Unstoppable Force
Feeling invincible, I stopped sleeping.
I decided to study nonstop till exam season came around. I was already delusional and seeing things, and I thought I didn’t need sleep. So I started pushing myself. I made the mental switch to purge all earthly attachments.
I was already having relationship problems, and this emotional desolation prompted me to do this.
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A Love Triangle
For more context, one week before this, I had two close friends, Alicia and Georgina.
Alicia was in love with me, but I was crushing on Georgina. A month ago, Georgina asked me out, and I said yes. We were supposed to meet up after exams. Alicia got jealous and broke off our friendship.
Georgina later got cold feet and broke off our “almost-relationship” because, as a Christian, she felt it wouldn’t have worked out (I was non-practising and expressed my doubts about organised religion to her).
Now to really understand why this is a bigger deal (to my internal state) than the usual “love triangle”, – I always felt isolated and different from others, so when I do find people who I consider my “tribe”, the loss is felt all the more keenly. I had lost not one but two people I cared about very much.
When you have low self-esteem, rejection isn’t just a negative experience, it’s debilitating, and you feel completely worthless. I had rejection-sensitive dysphoria, even if I didn’t have a name for it at the time.
The Result Of Not Sleeping
After 6 days of not sleeping, I lost track of where I was placing things.
I stopped remembering essential details, I stopped remembering to eat, and I stopped studying.
Looking back on the period when I returned to my apartment, I had to piece the clues together about what I’d done.
The room was trashed, there was mould in the cups, and all my notebooks were full of scribbles of symbols. I think I was trying to invent a new language. They aren’t particularly cool or mysterious, just very disjointed and random, like the writings of a madman on a toilet wall.
Luckily, there was no blood or sacrifice of small animals and shit (laughs). It was just chaos.
The Black Out
So the earliest I started being able to retrace my steps was about one week after I was admitted to the hospital. There was a two-week period when I completely blacked out and forgot what had happened. It felt like snippets of a dream. If you’ve seen Fight Club or Moon Knight – it was like having dissociative identity disorder. You’re viewing the actions of another person who’s taken over your body from an outsider’s POV.
How I remember it was that, in general, I’d gotten locked out of my apartment at 12am, tried to get on a train to Durham (where Georgina stayed) but missed it, wandered into the heart of town in a daze, tried to sleep under a bridge, eventually was picked up by the police because I was stripping to my undies in the street, and I found myself in the hospital.
The Schedule At The Hospital
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Pills
They would stand in front of me every few hours and watch me take a pill. They didn’t physically force me. But they wouldn’t leave until I did it. I wasn’t a violent patient, so I just did what I was told. The pills made me sleepy, so I slept a lot in the first few days.
I don’t remember much. Flashes of torchlights in the darkness. I was given a room with a bed and a wash basin.
I was told I had a fascination with water – I’d plug up the sink, fill it to the brim, and stick my head in. I flooded the room once and, another time, the toilet. I had to be moved to a different room because the first one was too wet to sleep in.
Throughout this time, I had no idea why I was doing this. I think it felt comforting to me. Like being in the womb? Like being washed by your mother as a toddler?
I remember the distinct feeling of feeling like I was 6 again. Like the memories of my adult life were locked away in a cupboard or a picture book about someone else’s life. Later, the doctors told my mother, “He’s regressed to a childlike state.” I think that’s a good descriptor of it. When life gets too much for you, your brain’s self-defence mechanism is to retreat to a time when it was the happiest.
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Meals
There were mealtimes which I looked forward to very much. I never missed a meal.
You’d line up, and they’d give you some mashed stuff, cafeteria style. No bones or anything sharp. No metal utensils. Spoons made of soft plastic like in kids’ toys, no forks. All mashed stuff, potatoes, oats, cereal, peas, etc.
It was so comforting. Felt like kindergarten again.
After each meal, the smokers would go outside for a puff. I went out with them once, and the outside felt grim like there were high metal fences, similar to how prisons seem in the movies. But the inside of the facility was like a hospital/kindergarten. All white, laminated, and very professional, but with splashes of bright pastel colours.
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Entertainment
There was an art room, and they did art therapy every few days. There was a TV room where they played old movies. That room had the feeling of liminal space like you could feel people expire and move on from life in the couches.
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Therapy Sessions
Each week you’d see a psychiatrist who tells you how well you’re doing on their medication. I didn’t experience any poor treatment. I think I fell back into a comfortable routine – in preschool, I was one of the best-behaved children, and I loved the praise I got from my teachers. I got a gold star once.
I think I started to relive those experiences because they were my safe space. And it just so happened that listening to the psychiatrist and the nurses helped me rather than hindered me.
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Fighting In The Hospital
But it wasn’t all sunshine and roses. I got into a fight with another patient who I thought had said something racist to one of the other patients whom I was friends with. They separated us, giving each of us a stern talk. Then, we were forced to shake hands (like how teachers would make little kids on the playground make-up).
Being there felt like a timeout. It was honestly the best thing I needed because the natural world and real responsibilities can come to a head. If you don’t feel like you have a safe place to run to and do not care about any of it, you’ll keep all of it inside until it explodes in a way you can’t understand.
My First (Non-Consensual) Sexual Experience
I also was pulled into a toilet by a female patient, and she forced herself on me, so that was a weird first sexual experience. I wasn’t physically hurt, just bewildered and left with a feeling of “is that it?”
Growing up Christian, I had all these notions about sex; I even carried around an abstinence card. After having my virginity taken so casually and at such a weird time in my life, I had to question everything I thought I valued in life.
I had to let go of all my anxieties about sex and the Church and whether I was living as an excellent Christian son. I still feel like if I had a choice, I would have kept my virginity for someone I was deeply in love with and who felt the same about me. But whatever, you know?
A Scared Little Boy In A Man’s Body
I was there for three weeks. My mother visited, and I was deemed well enough to accompany her to the activity room on the other side of the hospital complex in the third week. It was so nice to spend time with her. Felt like I was back in school again.
I did feel guilty about making her come all the way here just to see me, taking her out of her routine and stuff. I felt like a kid at the time, like I was supposed to be this independent adult, you know? Looking back, I really still was a scared little boy pretending to be a man at 21.
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Life after that was full of ups and downs. I resumed my studies but switched to Biochemistry from Law. I wanted to understand how my brain chemistry worked. I learned about GABA-agonists, serotonin inhibitors, and other stuff.
I was put on Olanzapine and had to see a therapist weekly, and if I missed an appointment, they would come to my door to find out if I’d gone off the deep end again. Luckily I never missed an appointment, and I took my meds for 3 years until they were satisfied I wouldn’t relapse again.
How Do I Go About My Life Without Relapses?
I stay away from religious experiences and anything that involves delusional thinking.
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At that time, I had no idea that my emotions were being repressed, causing my normally rational thought process to get warped. When I’m feeling particularly stressed, I do something fun, even if it doesn’t make sense, even if it’s unproductive, or even if others think it’s a waste of time or money.
And I also stop obsessing over the goal or the outcome.
I used to get really in my head about the outcome of something. I have a perfectionist streak, and I internalise failure very strongly. Being rejected by both Alicia and Georgina, and with the mounting pressure of needing to do well in exams, I thought I could repress the feelings of sadness and focus on my studies.
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But the truth is, I was dealt a deep emotional blow, and you don’t just shrug that off and carry on like it’s nothing.
I should have realised that this would take many, many years of self-reflection to understand how to move past a breakup.
Instead, I thought I could be a hero, stiff upper lip and all that, but to be completely honest, I was pretty weak.
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