TRIGGER WARNING: This story contains material about a suicide attempt. Reader discretion is advised.
Two years into her marriage, Aw Qi Qi’s past caught up with her.
She started getting flashbacks from the first nine years of her life. In her mind, she saw herself being caned while bathing, put in restraints in a dark place, being chased out of the house and being hit with a belt.
Qi Qi around the age of one. The photo is among several childhood images she received after tracking down a member of the first family she lived with. They are the only photos she has of her growing up years.
Each time a memory surfaced, it threw her into an emotional tailspin of depression, grief, shame and regret.
Qi Qi had told her husband about some of these traumatic events from her childhood during their dating days. But when these flashbacks came, she did not know how to tell him about them.
“I just asked [my husband] for space to deal with them each time they came,” Qi Qi, now 35 and a primary school tutor, told Stories of Hope.
She is married to Jeffrey Aw, now a pastor at Bethesda (Bedok-Tampines) Church.
“But it came to a point that I realised that it was affecting our marriage. As I did not want to talk about what was troubling me, we no longer communicated openly,” she said.
The suicidal thoughts that had plagued her during her teenage years also returned.
When she was nine years old, Qi Qi was given away by the people she thought were her biological parents.
Life did not become easier.
Her new foster parents “had their own hurts and did not deal with me in a positive manner”.
Qi Qi when she was about age four.
The effects of feeling abandoned and rejected by both sets of caregivers affected Qi Qi’s school life. (Read her back story here.)
It also spilled over into her dating life, when she started looking for love in the wrong places.
Yearning to be “loved and accepted”, Qi Qi put up with the pressure to date a boy from the gang.
The bullying that started in primary school got worse in secondary school when Qi Qi hung out with a girl who was “crude and used vulgarities”, and who belonged to a gang.
Yearning to be “loved and accepted”, Qi Qi put up with the pressure from this girl to date a boy from the gang.
“He was actually quite a nice guy. But I just didn’t have any feelings for him.
“I wanted to fit into the social circle so I agreed to date him but throughout, I felt that it was wrong.”
When Qi Qi did well enough to get into the top class, a Christian classmate opened her eyes to what was happening.
“He told me, ‘You are a nice girl. Why do you put yourself in such a situation? You need to draw the line and step away from it’.”
“In a sudden fit of bravery, I broke up with the boy from the gang.
“The gangster girl was furious and dragged me to the canal behind school. She slapped me and said nasty stuff like, ‘No one will love you if you don’t want him’.
“She also turned my classmates against me.”
“I need someone physical who can hold my hand … I want to fall in love, I want a relationship.”
Later, Qi Qi got into another relationship for two years.
“Then I found out he was cheating on me by texting another girl. He turned violent when I wanted to break up with him … and the police were involved.”
When she finally broke free, she cried, thinking: “Everything is over. I have no family, no boyfriend. God, I’m tired, I’ve already come so far, how long more?”
Then she heard a voice say: “You want a new life? Come back to church.”
She believes it was the voice of God.
Qi Qi then told God: “I know you are real, but I need someone physical who can hold my hand and journey with me. I want to fall in love, I want a relationship.
“If I go back to church, would you give me a good guy who cares for me and who believes in Jesus?”
On the very day that Qi Qi returned to church, she met an intriguing guy at a small group meeting. He was two years older than her.
It wasn’t love at first sight, claims Qi Qi, who was then 17.
“But every time he cracked a joke, I was the only girl laughing. The rest were immune to his jokes,” she said of Jeff, who is two years older than her.
Qi Qi when she was 17, and Jeff was 19.
Just as Qi Qi felt that Jeff was God’s answer to her prayer, the reverse was also true.
“I later found out that Jeff had asked God for a partner who lives near him (we lived a 10-minute walk apart) and would like him for who he is. And who would laugh at his jokes.”
Within a few weeks, he asked Qi Qi to be his girlfriend.
“I didn’t know whether to say ‘yes’,” Qi Qi admitted.
“But since I had made that agreement with God, I prayed, ‘If this is true, you wake me at 11.32pm’.”
She then went to sleep that evening without setting her alarm clock.
“Jeff was grounded, humorous and brought me a lot of happiness,” said Qi Qi.
She woke up at exactly 11.32pm – two minutes after Jeff ended his shift as a part-time fast-food deliveryman.
“I called him to say ‘yes’. He wasn’t expecting me to reply so quickly!” she said.
They started dating – so quickly that even their small group leaders at church were worried.
A year later, Jeff proposed to Qi Qi before he went to serve National Service (NS).
“It was very unromantic. We were driving in his dad’s car along Seletar. I was looking at the scenery when he said, ‘Would you marry me?’.
“I didn’t know he was proposing and said ‘Yes, of course!’ without even looking at him. Then I saw the ring, and I was shocked.”
Qi Qi also felt accepted and loved by Jeff’s parents.
Jeff and his family knew that she had a difficult childhood, but didn’t know the full extent and details of her pain.
“Jeff’s mum treated me like her own child.
“Every year, Jeff’s mum would cook eggs and noodles on my birthday,” said Qi Qi, pictured on her 18th birthday, with Jeff.
“She gave me an allowance when I went for exchange programmes, and paid for my medical bills when I was sick.
“I wanted to be part of his family. Not just Jeff as a person, but the entire package.”
“Jeff’s family helped me to know what family really is,” said Qi Qi, who was 22 when they tied the knot in 2010.
Qi Qi was overwhelmed by God’s provision. “I saw them as a gift from God. It was like He restored to me the family I didn’t have.
“I told God, ‘Wow God, you provided me with a guy, and a family.”
Two years into their marriage, Qi Qi began having flashbacks from her childhood.
“Each time one memory was unlocked, I would be in pain for a long time.
“Just when I thought I was better, another memory would surface. It would take months to process.
“Each time one memory from my childhood was unlocked, I would be in pain for a long time.”
This ongoing cycle would last for 10 years.
One Sunday morning, Qi Qi felt that she had exceeded her pain threshold “and could not bear it any longer”.
“Jeff was away at a work-related retreat, and I decided that I would go to church, say my goodbyes and then jump to my death.”
But to her surprise, people at church she hadn’t spoken much to hugged her and asked her how she was, even though they weren’t aware of what she had been struggling with.
“God loves you a lot,” said one person.
“Hope you are good, see you next week,” said another.
To her surprise, people at church she hadn’t spoken much to hugged her and asked her how she was.
Said Qi Qi.”I remember thinking that there wasn’t going to be a ‘next week’.”
During the church service that day, Qi Qi broke down and cried out to God.
“I told God: I know you love me. You sent people to tell me You love me. But there must be a way out.”
After the service, she felt a small voice inside her telling her to go to the front of the church to ask for prayer.
She obeyed.
The prayer seemed to help. She gave up her plans to kill herself that day.
Qi Qi, Jeff and their elder daughter.
However, she would struggle even after their children were born.
Over the years, Qi Qi realised she couldn’t keep “sweeping everything under carpet”, and told God: “God, you must do something for my marriage.”
After praying, she felt God prompting her to plan a holiday with her husband.
As she did, things started falling into place.
Out of the blue, her mother-in-law also called to offer to take care of the children if she and Jeff wanted to travel.
The Aws with their three daughters.
Furthermore, Jeff readily agreed to go, even though he didn’t enjoy travelling.
She saw it as a confirmation that she had heard God correctly.
“Even before the plane took off, we sat down at the airport and had a heart to heart talk for the first time.
“Jeff urged me to open up to him, especially when I felt myself slipping into depression. He promised to support me through it,” she recalled.
Shortly after, they went for couple counselling.
“It helped improve our communication. We also started to pray together regularly for each other and for our marriage.”
Qi Qi also sought help from her pastors and mentors at church when the anxiety attacks and suicidal thoughts.
They prayed for her and they taught her to invite Jesus into each painful memory from her childhood.
The episodes that used to take her months to recover from are now be gone in a day.
“I felt Jesus climb into the pit of darkness and despair to be with me.
“I felt His love and companionship, which brought light into every dark situation.
“My feelings of loneliness and pain began to leave me.”
She also learnt to spot the signs that she was spiralling into depression, and to call out Jesus’s name each time it happened.
“My feelings of loneliness and pain began to leave me.”
“I tell God, ‘I surrender to you. I know I am a child of God, I know I am loved, I am favoured by You’,” she said.
The episodes that used to take her months to recover from are now gone in a day.
Jeff is also able to support her through the flashbacks and talk her out of moments of depression.
Each time the flashbacks happened, Qi Qi found that she needed to forgive the people who had inflicted pain on her.
“As much as I asked God for healing, I also had to ask Him to help me forgive those who had hurt me.
“It was an ongoing process that helped to free me from pain and fear, and to have closure,” she said.
“Perhaps I will just hug my original family if they want to find me.”
Earlier in 2024, Qi Qi felt she had healed sufficiently to share her story.
Today, she is able to say: “If my original family wants to find me and acknowledge me as their own, I’d really welcome that.
“I’d want to know how they are doing, and if they are healthy, and if they are happy.
“I don’t know what I will say to them. But perhaps I will just hug them.
“I forgave them a long time ago.”
Qi Qi used to ask herself and God: “How can all the pain and hurt I’ve been through amount to any good?”
Qi Qi, Jeff and their daughters, who are now 4, 8 and 11.
Looking back, she realises that the darkness she has been through has helped her to be “more sensitive to the emotional hurts and needs of a child”. It enables her to have meaningful conversations with her own children, the students whom God has put into her life, and young people she meets at church.
More than once, she’s been able to discern that a student has been struggling with suicidal thoughts.
“Together with Jeff, we were able to speak with their parents to help them,” she said.
“They are a gift from God,” says Qi Qi of Jeff’s family.
Qi Qi also realised: “If I had not gone through those darkest days, I would never know who God is; I would never be able to understand what it means to be saved.
“I will use my story of how God saved me from the pit of hell, death and darkness to tell others about Him.”
READ ABOUT HOW QI QI OVERCAME HER PAINFUL CHILDHOOD HERE:
Unloved, bullied and given away, Qi Qi asked: “Would I have someone I can call Father?”
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