Stress can kill?

It is quite shocking really. We often hear of people complaining being ‘stressed out’. But the following narration and conversation extracted from “Doctors Extraordinaire”, between Dr. Wee Kim Wee (who later became President of Singapore) when he was a young journalist working in Ipoh before the war, and Dr. Khong Kam Tak (a direct descendant of Confucius) shows the severity of it:

The examination was quite thorough, ending with the doctor’s tiny hammer with which he hit my elbows, knees and ankles. He pondered for a few seconds as he laid the hammer on his desk before saying softly and deliberately, “Young man, I realise what this job means to you. A promotion, a good future and better salary perhaps. But, you need an immediate and complete rest, away from your place of work. Your condition is quite serious. You do not need medicine to treat you. You merely need good rest, relaxation and an immediate change of environment. You should leave Ipoh and go back to Singapore as soon as possible.”

“How soon?” I asked.

“Tonight, if possible.”

I was taken aback to say the least. I asked him, rather nonchalantly, “Am I that serious, doctor?”

Dr. Khong did not mince his words (thank God for that). He added, again softly but deliberately “Yes, you are. You are on the verge of a mental breakdown. If you do not leave your work here and return to Singapore, there are only two things that can happen.”
“What were the two options?” “You can go mad or die,” Dr. Khong added.

I was stunned, speechless for a while. But, I recovered to ask him, “How soon do you advise I should go home?”

“Today, if possible.” It was astounding, if not shocking. I did not for one moment realise that I was in that state – on the verge of a mental breakdown. When he handed me a medical certificate in a sealed envelope for my office, I thanked the fatherly-imaged doctor profusely. The MC said just that – I was on the verge of a mental breakdown.”

(What was the cause of it?)

Sometime in late October 1936, I was picked by my employer, Straits Times, to go to Ipoh along with another colleague, a Mr. John Duke, to reorganize and revamp a daily English-language newspaper, Times of Malaya.

I was to learn much later, while in Ipoh, that rumours in the grapevine had been circulating that we were there to throw out the old staff and hire new, younger and better-educted locals to replace the older employees. I had no inkling of that at all. If that was the strategy and directive it could have been given to Mr. John Duke. I was not privy to it.

We worked very hard and zealously immediately on arrival in Ipoh, but I found numerous big and small obstacles in the various administrative departments, outside the editorial section. I was not afraid of hard work and long hours, but being stifled and running into roadblocks all the time in the office took a gradual toll on my nerves, without my knowledge.

(Seems quite common problems faced by the average employee. Recently, I was told a niece who is a qualified CPA, trained in Arthur Andersen and later joined a public listed company left it because she was overworked, including having to do subordinates’ work and the last straw was no bonus. She was off work for 2-3 months before getting another job and the parents just got at her for having left a good job!

I always believe we should follow our own instinct and do what we can and not what others expect us to).