E169 Romina Mehrabi

Hello, my name is Aziz and I'm the son of a divorced mother. She is really my superhero. That's why it's important for me to support women to share their uniqueness, their personalities, perspectives and emotions about this world. In these difficult times in human history, we need to bring the people of the world together. And when we hear the voices of women, when we listen to real lives of women from other countries, we connect our cultures without differences or stereotypes and we get inspired by their stories to live a better life. That's what this podcast is all about. My guest today is Romina Mehrabi. Romina is from Tehran, Iran, and currently living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Romina is a bachelor's of computer science, second year student in UoPeople Nonprofit Online American University. Romina enjoys programming, creating and listening to music, video editing, playing basketball, playing piano and swimming. Romina ranked in various teenage competitions, including for playing piano and swimming. She struggled with mental health from the ages of 12 to 18, but finally overcame it, which she considers her proudest achievement. Romina, how are you today? I'm good. Thank you. How are you? I'm feeling grateful to be alive, happy and excited to be engaged in this adventure we call living and very curious about you Romina. So I'll begin with this nice first question. If your friends, the people who know you best could describe your personality, what would they say about you? Well, ever since I was a kid, I've always been a very emotional person. And I always loved honesty. So I also really cared about my friends' feelings and my relationships with people. So I always try to give my best, listen to them and help them whenever they need my help. So I think that my friends would describe me as honest and caring and emotional. Yeah, that's what I think they would describe me as. I love that. And I want to explore your emotional side. What does that mean? Some people might think and imagine you're like a soap opera character, full of drama, always looking for some conflict or some excitement. Other people will think, no, it's more about being in touch with your emotions, expressing them in things like piano, art, etc. And if you will think, well, it means you're a girl who gets bored easily. You need to be always doing something new. Sometimes if you're studying too hard, it's so boring that you want to try something crazy, etc. So tell me more. Okay. So by emotional, I mean, for some reason, everything ever since I was a kid always affects me more. Like, for example, here's how I could describe it. I always feel like I'm an emotional sponge, where whenever my friends are either sad or happy or excited, I immediately get their emotion. Even if I'm happy and they're sad, I immediately feel sad. And I forget the reason why I was happy. Or if they're happy, I immediately feel happy, even if I was sad. I guess I could describe myself as an emotional sponge, where whenever my friends are either happy or sad, I immediately feel the same way. Like, for example, if I'm sad about something and my friend is super happy, I feel happy about it. And I forget why I was sad and vice versa. If my friend is super sad, and I was happy, I immediately feel sad. And for some reason, ever since I was a kid, things affect me more. Like, there are some things that happen where I immediately feel super sad about it. And I feel super emotional where my other friends are like, Oh, that wasn't even that big of a deal. And which is why I care for people a lot. And I want to help them a lot, because I just feel like their emotions matter a lot, like what they're going through their experiences, and what they need help with matters a lot. And so because of that, I tend to help them and show my emotions. Basically that's the best I can explain it. Thank you. That's so interesting. And it makes me wonder, are you more of a highly empathic person, a high empath, which I am? It means when you walk around, you can even feel the emotions of the pets, the cats, the dogs, the babies, everybody around the whole environment, you just feel them deeply. And therefore, your evolution is to know and learn how to sometimes put a wall when there is anger and negativity coming your way because people are feeling it. And I remember when I was a kid, I used to think I'm making the people angry and I'm like wondering why, what's going on when I go next to someone who was angry, because I felt their emotion so strongly. Or are you more what some psychologists will call a highly sensitive person or HSP, which is someone who feels emotions much, much stronger than other people who is affected by even their own internal emotions to such a degree that often they can become shy or super introverted because emotions just fire up their nervous system to an uncomfortable degree? Which one is more a characteristic of who you are? So as crazy as it sounds, I think I'm actually both because I'm a very empathetic person. I feel the emotions very easily. Like if an animal is like hurt, I even feel it. I feel really, really sad and hurt by it. And also, I feel like I am sensitive to certain situations. Anything that happened, I immediately felt a lot of emotions from it that to the point that to the other people around me, it didn't seem like that much. So I think that I'm both now. It's been very challenging to go through that because I always felt different than the people around me, especially in terms of my emotions. And because of that, I've been going through this journey of taking care of my feelings and setting boundaries with my feelings. And also understanding my feelings better, because the problem with being empathetic is that when I feel everyone's emotions, I sometimes tend to forget my own and I go through this state of overwhelm and confusion, which is why I want to keep taking care of my feelings first. That way I can also help my friends and my family better. So yeah, it's been a journey to understand my emotions better, understand people's emotions better and understand my situations, the situations I encounter better to be able to feel mentally and emotionally healthier and approach the situation better and also help my friends and families in whatever situation happens better. Thank you. That's so interesting. I agree with you 100% and at the same time, I'm curious about your motivation. What drives you to want to help people? Is it really because you actually adore and enjoy being a people pleaser in a way where when you feel the change in their emotions towards the happiness, joy, positivity, it gives you that same feeling because you're an empath or is it for hope that when someone, you help them out of a difficult situation, you think, wow, this is possible. It means when you are in a difficult situation too, you can think back on those examples and think either, okay, I deserve good karma here or they were helped. Maybe I will get also help and get out of it or is it simply just a component that is core to your personality or what motivates and drives that desire for helping others? So it's a lot of different things and some of the points are the same as the points you mentioned. I have been recently figuring out more and more that I do tend to please people a lot and it's been hard to say, even say no to people, which I am practicing on because it also helps my relationship better. It also makes me more honest with my feelings too. So ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to make sure that my parents are happy with me and whenever they asked me something to do or basically anything they asked me to do, I would like try to do my best at it. If they said I'm not doing something right and I should do it differently, I would do it because I wanted to make sure that my parents are happy and same with my friends. Whenever I was with my friends, I would try to do everything for them. Like I would even ask my mom, whenever I found a friend, I would ask my mom to get a gift for her just to, I guess this is also to my core because when I give something to someone, when I help someone, when I show affection, that makes my heart really, really happy as if I just made my day. So it's that mixed with pleasing people. That's pretty much how I can describe it. Thank you. And it seems to me that when you love people, whether platonically or romantically, you give your all, you open your heart very, very much, but you're also very sensitive, which means you can get hurt or heartbroken or vexed super easily. How do you balance both? Because probably you tended to love so fully that any small thing that won't bother other people would make you really feel disappointed and hurt. Do you protect yourself now and try not to open fully so that you don't feel that? Or was it part of your healing to find a reason and a way to understand that if you're vulnerable, then you can truly enjoy the happiness that is possible. And there is always a risk of being hurt, but it's worth it. Or how does it go? It's interesting because what you just explained is basically the story of my life until the age of, I think 14, I always made myself vulnerable. And I always told myself, you know what, it doesn't matter how I feel if my friend is happy, if my parents are happy. And by that time, my brother was around one or two. And so if my brother was happy, I didn't care. I just, it would be fine if I wasn't. And with that motto, I got hurt a lot because I would give my all to my friends especially. And then situations would happen that I didn't feel like if my act was appreciated or they knew how much I cared about it, I cared about them. And that would create some misunderstandings and that would make me feel super sad when it around the age of 16 through 20, I just felt like, okay, it's so hard for me to balance my friendships and relationships. I'm just a super sensitive person who wants to care for people so much. And it sometimes gets confusing and it doesn't work. So what's the solution here? Then I thought, okay, if I make myself less vulnerable, think about my actions and not just go with feelings and draw my boundaries, it would help me much better. So and then COVID was really hard for me too. This was also like this mindset that I was thinking of also happened during COVID. And at that point, none of my friends were in Malaysia. I was living with my parents and my brother and my fiance was at a time, my boyfriend, he was living in the US and so I was doing long distance with him, but that he was my only friend and it was a really, really tough time. I thought I didn't like my friends weren't close to me anymore and I wasn't close to them because of this whole like overly being sensitive about my emotions. And then after COVID, when I started reconnecting with some people I knew and I started finding new friends, I suddenly something in me changed. I was still the same Romina, I still do care about my friends a lot and I will do a lot of things to help them, but also I'll make sure that I'm okay in the process. And if something doesn't resonate with me, if something would hurt me or it goes against my values, then I just honestly say, no, that way I actually have a better relationship with my friends as well. And before I always thought, no, if I say no, they're going to think less of me. But now I realized how my friends are so accepting and they're so open-minded because when they understand my situation, they're also like, okay, sure, that doesn't matter. Which makes me think, oh, I was probably overthinking from the beginning anyway. So ever since I've done that, ever since I took care of my emotions as well as my friends and just been more careful with everything while also enjoying my relationships, I have been maintaining my friendships better and it's been better in my relationships with my fiance, my parents and my brother. Thank you. So interesting. And as someone who absolutely adores and enjoys helping people, you have a platform everyone does, which is like social media. Do you have plans to share some of your insights with people through social media? Do you feel social media can be used for good or there is such a dominance of those videos and photos of people living perfect lives, photoshopped, going from Ibiza to Maldives to Hollywood to Macau every week, nonstop, living the jet set life and therefore people who aren't doing that don't get much attention? Or what's your perspective on this? Do you want to share? And if so, how do you gain the confidence while other people think, oh, who am I to share anything? Social media has been always bittersweet to use. I always love the aspect of being able to connect with people, whether they're friends who are around the world or living in the same city as you or people you never knew existed and you can whether talk to them personally or see their stories. There has been a lot of times that stories of people inspired me or I was going through something and someone else was going through the same thing and I knew deep down that I wasn't alone. And it's also, it can be also educational. There's so many different like pages I followed that were really educational. And honestly, now I think more about it, it really shaped me as a who I am in good ways and in some ways that sometimes kind of feel weird about. So the good aspects of it are these, as I mentioned, but also the other things as you mentioned is that we tend to forget that it's all behind a screen anyway, that's the border. So you can represent yourself differently to people and you might not even mention what you're going through, your struggles or the problems. So maybe people outside think you have a perfect life or you think that people on the other side have a perfect life and that sometimes creates this confusion of like, oh, am I doing something wrong in my life? Am I the only one who is not doing good enough? That part gets a little scary, like comparisons between journeys of life and how you look like that itself is kind of dangerous. But how I still actually struggle with this whole social media thing, but I don't struggle with it as much as I did before when I was a teenager. When I was a teenager, I kept thinking like other people had a better life. They had perfect appearances, perfect situations, and it made me feel like, oh, am I doing something wrong? But how I dealt with it and what makes me actually be able to use social media is that I believe that everyone has their own journey. Everyone is basically looking towards one direction, their direction of life. And you don't really need to compare the other people's life with you. You have your own. You're going to do your own things, you're going to achieve the successes you want. And it's all about you. It doesn't really matter if someone's faster than you, their life story is different. Maybe it is more suitable for you to do this this certain way you want. And however you look like, whoever you are is perfect enough to describe you. And that's what matters. Whatever you look like, it matches who you are, what God wants you to be and represents you the best. So even if someone else is, you feel like even someone else, like for example, if I see someone prettier than me, I actually love it. I'm like, oh my gosh, this person is so pretty. And I'm pretty in my own way too, because it describes me and they're pretty because it describes them. But this not comparing thing has actually saved my mental health because it makes me be happy for people who are doing well in life. And I'm also happy that I have my own journey and I'm living my own life. And in terms of bringing value through social media, before I didn't really think social media will help much with that. But now I really think that it definitely does because it's the fastest way to connect with people, which is why I am working currently on my Instagram. This is the time that I took it most seriously. I'm creating a video series called Finding Myself in Two Careers, Computer Science and Music. And in this video series, I really want to share my experience with people in terms of doing what interests me in the two fields of computer science and music. And hopefully this will bring some value to the people as well, sharing my journey, talking about them, whether they're going through the same thing as me or they're interested to see what I'm doing, or maybe I learned something that someone else might not know and maybe I learned some things from them. So that's what I think, that's why I think social media can be a very powerful tool to connect with people, to bring value. And that's why I think it is worth it to go through the downside of social media in order to find the good and powerful side of it. Thank you so much, Romina, and you mentioned you spoke about God, you spoke about that each person is on their path, beautiful in their way. So can you share about your spiritual or metaphysical beliefs? Do you believe in destiny? Do you believe in karma? Do you believe that everything happens for a reason and that you are protected and no matter what, everything will turn out to be okay? Or do you believe that everything is in your hands and if you don't do it, well, there is no other option? Or tell me, how do you view and perceive life and reality? Actually that has been always very complicated for me because sometimes life does things where I'm like, okay, this does not make sense at all what's happening. And then later I figure out, oh, this is why. So it's been always complicated to see how life works, I guess this is the best way I can put it. But I actually do believe that everything happens for a reason. I strongly believe in this because I have experienced it so many different times in my life. I've seen the outcome and the most important thing is that I am perfectly happy with where I am today. I have my stressful days, I have days that I don't want to exist, but when I think about it generally, I love where I am today currently. And I know if something happened differently, even at the tiniest detail, I might have not been where I am today, which is why I think everything does happen for a reason. So I've been learning this a lot from my mom too, positive and negative energy towards things exist. If you think positively about something, even if you want a certain type of outcome, if you think positive that, oh, it'll work out, it'll work out, no matter what happens, it'll be fine, I'll be fine. Or I know this specific thing will happen, most likely you will have the outcome that works the best for you. And sometimes when you think super negatively, that will affect the outcome. So I do believe in positive energy and positive vibe. And whenever I help my friends or do something good in life, I don't usually think about how it's going to do good to me in the future, like karma, I never really focused on that. I just know that if I have positive energy in my life, if I think positively, the outcome will be positive regardless of whatever happens. And going back to saying everything happens for a reason, the story that could accurately represent this is when I came to Malaysia, I was, first of all, me and my family were actually planning to go to Canada because the rest of my family, half of my family actually lives in Canada. And we realized that our process of going to Canada is being delayed and my parents, since they wanted to go to Canada at the end, they made a decision to move to Malaysia so that I can be able to communicate with international people and an international environment from an early age. So I wouldn't have any problem with my English language and communicating with people. And actually Malaysia was my uncle's idea. So randomly my uncle said, go to Malaysia. And so we went, then I went to a school, which I was really happy at first, but then it didn't really, it wasn't really the best place for me. And then my MacBook got stolen and then I couldn't really find friends who had the same values as me. I felt really like, and I was that girl who always thought about studying and then the other kids thought I was weird. So I felt really like an outsider. And when all this happened, I went to a smaller school and then from that smaller school my dad and our family decided to help the person who had the smaller school turn the school into a bigger school. It's been a journey of four years that we have been helping each other to build a school from a small house to a big international school. And we've seen it grow in terms of students, families, and the space. And I love what we're doing. We are connecting with different families. We are taking care of kids at school and we have wonderful staff. And it's been great doing that with them. And so if I never, if I always felt like my life was perfect at my older school, I would never have the chance to do this with my parents. And the other thing is that I met my fiance through this school that we've been helping to grow. Like we've been managing. My fiance, Aiden, he came to teach when I was around like 18, 19. And that's where we, and he was 22, so we're four years apart. And that's when we started getting closer and we started having a serious relationship. And then we ended up getting engaged and moving in together. And I would never be able to have that if I didn't come to Malaysia and I didn't change my school and my parents didn't start a school. So all of them together made me be able to find my fiance, live with him and work on this amazing school with my parents. I'm currently doing digital marketing and I'm working with the, and I'm working in data management of the school, basically anything my parents need help with. So that's why I truly think everything happens for a reason. That's really a very inspirational story. I wish you success. I wish you more positive serendipity into your life. I wish you happiness with your fiance. And I'm curious if you could speak to yourself when you are 12 or 11 years old, when you are struggling with mental health, and maybe this would be useful to any girls who maybe feel low self-esteem or too sensitive or their emotions, they cannot handle them. They don't know what to do. What would be your advice or a lesson you learned or a message you can tell them so that they get faster into the healing and into a better place? What I can start with is, first of all, I think emotions are very important. And no matter how sensitive you are and how sensitive you might seem, your emotions matter. If something makes you sad, it does. I always disliked it when people said, oh, you shouldn't be sad about this. You're too sensitive or you should not be sad, like stop being sad. Emotions don't work that way. Emotions, we express ourselves through emotions and emotions happen in the moment. And a lot of times you can't even control it. If something makes you sad, it makes you sad. If something makes you confused, angry, happy, it does. And it is okay. Now I've learned that it's okay and it's making me feel healthier and better about myself. And my fiance has helped me a lot through this journey because before I met him, I felt like my emotions were too much and I should just lessen them. But he taught me that, and he's also a very emotional person like me, so he understands my emotions super well. And he helped me a lot by saying like, it's okay to feel your emotions and you'll be able to get through whatever you're, go through whatever you're going through. And also I had conversations with my parents, especially my mom, especially recently, she's been reminding me how strong I am and how I'm able to achieve anything because of what I've been through. And that has been honestly really, really amazing to hear that. And my fiance has been helping me a lot. And so bottom line, emotions are so important and it's okay to feel whatever you're feeling. My model, my personal model is that as long as you don't hurt anyone intentionally, you're allowed to do whatever you feel like doing, as long as you're not hurting anyone. You might have different perspectives than others, you might have too much emotions that are sometimes, I mean, you might have emotions that are too much for people. So it's all okay, it's who you are and you're not hurting anyone. So it's fine to be who you are. That's one thing. So about my mental health, I would like to give a brief background about it. So it's less confusing talking about it. I have not really talked about this much, especially in public. I've told my friends about it, told my family about it, but I never spoke out about it. And this is my first time doing it. About my mental health, when I was 12, I started realizing that sometimes with flashy lights, my mind would go into this state of disassociation, where I felt like I was away from the world around me, and that was always super confusing to me. But that would only last for like an hour or so, but I remember the first time was so confusing. I did not know how to describe it. I was fine while also I was not fine. And as I got older, when I turned 14, I moved to Malaysia. I felt the disassociation again, and I realized that it was much more extreme and it was permanent. And so ever since 12 until 18, I permanently had the disassociation feeling. And after a long time of being confused with what it was and where it came from and just what's happening, I found out that I was going through a mental illness called, I kind of don't like to call it mental illness. It's just a mental situation, I guess. It's called derealization, depersonalization. Depersonalization stands for the disassociating feeling where you don't really know who you are and your emotions detach from you. So it's hard for you to attach yourself to the emotions you were attached to. You might repeat a memory in your mind and don't feel anything about it because you are this detached from the person you were. And a derealization part stands for feeling away from the world around you, meaning you always feel like you're in a dream state. And basically whenever I fell asleep and I had a dream, my dream would feel more real than the reality, which was really confusing for me. And for a long time, I felt like I was away from the people around me. And like a bunch of people also judged me throughout this and it's okay because they did not know what I was going through. Like sometimes I'll be slow to respond or sometimes I would be in my head more. And it seemed weird to people at times, but I kept trying to keep it a secret until I actually healed from it. And so that lasted for a while. Sometimes I would feel better as if it was almost gone, but it was almost gone. And sometimes it would go back and hurt me a lot. I would feel super far away. And when I turned 18, I experienced one of the most life-changing areas of my life. Like it was one of the most life-changing things I experienced. It was, I guess I could call it life-changing thought. I thought to myself, okay, I have been going through this for six years. Yes, six years. It has been hurting me so much. I don't feel like I can get the full experience of my life. I don't feel like my life is real and my life is enjoyable. And I feel like I don't want to exist and I don't want to continue like this anymore. And I always had this one deep feeling of, I will reach whatever I want to reach in life. I will get to wherever I want to eventually. And that was the only feeling I knew ever since I was like three or four or five, I had dreams. I had goals. I had things that I wanted to do when I was in my thirties or forties, like in the future. I had so much hope for my dreams in every stage of my life, even the lowest parts, which was when I was 18. I had that one feeling like I need to reach my goals. I need to spend more time with my parents and I need to enjoy life more. And I need to get to know my fiance better and like enjoy life with him and all of that. And then I thought about it even more when I turned 18, it was actually on my 18th birthday that I felt this. And I told myself in one year time, I want to have this goal of recovering from this. I didn't know how, because I was not a therapist and it seemed like a prison for me because I did not feel like I would ever be able to get out from it. And there was this mean voice in my mind always making me feel bad about everything and making me feel like I was a loser, but there was also this good voice that kept telling me I can actually achieve what I want. So I told myself in one year time, I will make it. I don't have any other option. I want to live my life to the fullest and I deserve it. So I started looking through articles. I started watching videos. First I started, when first I started understanding what I'm going through. So I searched my symptoms. Then I saw some like articles on Quora and they were really, really good. They saved my life. That's why I'm saying it's so important to share your story online because the stories I read on Quora, like thank you to those people. They saved me, saved me from my mental illness. And they were, they said, if you're going through, I've been like, one of them was, I've been going through derealization, depersonalization for five years. And if I could get out of it, you can too, here's what you should do. It was more about trying to get out of your mind, pick a hobby, do more physical activities, feel more attached to your surroundings rather than your mind. And there I did it. I tried to do more physical activities. I tried to tell myself that as long as I feel present, I'm okay. I'm safe in my own body. And so I kept doing it. And for three months, because my birthday was in August, so two, three months after was October, and I felt some changes, but not really. And I had my worst days and my best days, but then I also read an article that said, it's okay to have that. Just keep going. And so I kept motivating myself. I kept pushing myself. It was like the hardest thing I've ever experienced or one of the hardest things. And towards December, last year, actually, not last year, December, it's yeah, it's like I think four years ago, me and my fiance got closer together and we started our relationship. And I told him for the first time ever that I'm going through this and he supported me through it. And I don't know. I think that's what I needed. That was that one last push for me. Like unbelievably, after two weeks of us being in a relationship, us hanging out and us talking together about what we're going through, I felt like me again. I felt my emotions again. I looked into my memories and I felt like I was attached to them. And I had the same emotions I had before my depression. And my surroundings felt more real to me. It did not feel like a blurry dream anymore. It felt real. It felt pretty. My life just felt much prettier afterwards. I just got to feel like, oh my gosh, this is what I have not been feeling about the life around me. I realized how much I love my parents. I started restoring my attachment to them and the people around us and that fog kind of left my brain. And so slowly I started to feel it become less and less and less to the point I actually broke down because I couldn't believe that I actually was able to overcome it even though it looked completely impossible. And yeah, I recovered December four years ago actually. And it's still crazy to think about it. I had a couple of episodes of derealization, not depersonalization, but derealization. But I always knew that it was okay. It was temporary and I already got over it and it's fine. And after a couple of hours I would feel normal. So I overcame that even though to this day I still do struggle with some leftover symptoms of my depression. But what I've been learning more and more, especially now, is that I feel more powerful than my depression. Me on the outside is more powerful than me on my mind. And that's why if I have a thought, if it's an intrusive thought, if it's kind of something that's hurting me, as long as I know I'm strong and I can overcome it, I'm stronger than my mental illness, even if it's a little bit now. And immediately I feel more powerful and I just feel like I have it under control. I feel better. And yeah, so bottom line, the hope and the motivation to have a better life, to achieve what I want to achieve. And because I was an emotional person, the fact that I couldn't feel things as much as I wanted anymore was the worst thing for me because I sometimes felt like I could not feel any emotions. And that was horrible as a person who was always emotional, always cared about people. That was the worst thing for me ever. So now I feel even more emotional than before, which is overwhelming, but it's worth it. I love that. I just love being present, love feeling more normal, love spending time with my friends and family. I'm just really more thankful. And again, this brings me back to everything happens for a reason. It was such a hard moment. I don't wish this on anyone at all. Like I just hope no one goes through this because it was so bad. But I know that it happened for a reason because now I have an interesting story for my lifetime. I always look back and I'm like, wow, I overcame that. It showed me how powerful that I could actually be. And also it made me realize how life is so beautiful and we should appreciate everything we have because I experienced the whole feeling of being away from my life and wanting to be more attached to it. Whereas now when I have it, when I see the beauty, when I feel great, I'm like, oh, I need to not take it for granted and actually appreciate it, which is why I think I'm happy to be where I am now and everything that happened so far happens for a reason. I'm so proud of you, Romina, of your progress. And thank you for sharing your story and your struggle. It truly does inspire because human beings and the human brain feels alone and isolated when there is a problem or a mental issue. And when you share that you have been there, that you have progressed and seen results, it really motivates any other person to not give up and to keep going forward. Thank you for your voice, your experiences. Thank you for participating. It was my privilege and my honor to have you here. I was so glad to be a part of it. Thank you. I'll see you in the next one.