Through the platform, Ava was connected to Dawn Yap, a qualified counsellor from the Strengthening Families Programme@Family Service Centre (MWS FAM@FSC).
Via live chat, Ava poured her heart out to Dawn. “Ava was feeling sad and depressed. She had been crying the whole day and was feeling overwhelmed and stuck in distressing emotions and thoughts on what had gone wrong in her marriage,” recalled Dawn.
Ava remembers the relief she felt at having found someone to share her struggles with as she was not ready to tell her family and friends about her divorce at that stage. “I felt that I wasn’t alone, and someone was there to work through my emotions and feelings with me,” she said.
Over the course of the next 10 months, online chat counselling would set Ava on the path to rebuilding her life after divorce.
To help Ava manage her emotions and heal from the grief of her failed marriage, she was introduced to journalling.
“Journalling has been empirically shown to be good for our physical, mental and emotional health. It helps us to clarify our thinking and process our emotions, and to deal with stressful or traumatic events,” said Dawn.
In Ava’s case, she needed to give herself space to work through her emotions. “Journalling helped Ava to name and acknowledge her feelings, to better control them—it’s the ‘name it to tame it’ strategy. It also helped her to concretise the lessons she could learn from the divorce, and that gave her a clearer direction of how to move forward,” said Dawn.
Ava added that journalling laid to rest her regret and doubts over her decision to divorce.
“I journalled about how I felt in this marriage and contemplated where it would lead had I chosen to continue in it. I realised that I had given my ex-husband many chances, but we were no longer aligned in this marriage,” she said.
Today, Ava looks forward to new relationships, and is ready to support others who are experiencing emotional distress.
