Been stressed out about this to the point I had to do extensive research before I meet this dude from my ethnic country

@rav3n @MJG017 @PengTing @Spirit_Healer

2 days ago I told my mum on the chat message to leave me alone and to stop try and make me be with a Cambodian partner and her response to that was "ok, no worries" and I really do hope that thats the case because sometimes her "ok" response is not guaranteed that she'll always accept or listen to what I tell her. I know this cause she's done it in other occasions - where she'll say 'ok' to something that I told her I dont want, but the next time, she does it again even if I've already told her not to.

But at least for now I can calm down and de-stress from this whole thing. I even told her after that that 'you do realise that its common for everyone these days to get a partner when they're in their 30s mostly' and that expecting someone to get a partner in their 20s is too early for that. she said "ok" to that in response. lmao.

as much as I've already tried in joining clubs and social groups already and in the past, nothing has worked for me lol.

anyway, I've just submitted an application for the bachelor of psychological sciences for the semester 2 intake so that's a good thing that I've had today.

@Blackcloud

Well done for standing up for what you wanted and being very firm in how you feel. Yes, mothers can just say what we want to hear but continue to do what they think is best. But you've shown a lot of strength to get this far so you may have to do it some more until your mum understands... if she doesn't already. Hopefully she does.

I didn't find my partner until i was in my early 40s, so it can happen later in life. Personally i would have liked it to happen earlier but i can't change that now. It's similar with finding friends and connection with other people. It took until early last year (53 at the time) for me to see myself as someone worth knowing and started to challenge all of those life long doubts and insecurities. I started to stand up for myself and what i would accept from other people as well as how much I would bend my own feelings just to please someone else. That really led quite quickly to me starting to see myself differently and allowed me to start to open up to people at the same time as seeking out people who I liked and who saw similar value in me. That allowed those connections i had never found be fore to start to develop naturally.

You're already taking those first steps I took last year, but soooo much younger than i ever had the courage and confidence to do. I think it's an amazing thing you're doing in sorting out your life, respecting yourself, and doing what you feel is best for you and not others. You should be really proud of yourself and take a lot of strength from it going forward. I'm sure it will start to lead to some very positive changes in your life, especially socially. Just keep trusting yourself and valuing yourself. And find people who do the same. They are out there, we just need to get ourselves in a place mentally where we know that and we wont accept anything less. Little changes will start to add up and happiness can soon follow.

Good luck with your bachelor. I'm sure you'll crush it! I think people really need to have dealt with some real difficulties in their lives to really be able to understand and help others. So like most of us here, you've been learning how to help and support people from the best teacher there is.

@MJG017 to be honest, this isn't actually the first time that I've ever had to tell her about it. I've had to tell her the same or similar thing over and over during other times in the past too - either whenever her and I get into the debate of me wanting to be single vs her wanting me to be with someone in my 20s (plus, why is getting married still such a big deal there??? like seriously), or when she introduces me to a guy that she would like me to consider to the point that i cant stop thinking about it and stressing over it for a long period. I just wish she fully listens and acknowledges that people can get into a relationship later than in their 20s instead of trying to get me to potentially be with these guys that she has told me about. Like just because a lot of women in cambodia are still getting married in their 20s doesn't mean she can apply the same thing onto me since I was born and raised here (Australia) and my views and values completely differ from the people that were born and raised over there.

I've managed to block my uncle on facebook just 2 days ago since him and my aunty are 'accomplices' to this situation - well, they did it only cause my mum told them that she wants me to be with somebody especially since she knows that shes never seen me hung out with anyone here

Thank you, I hope I can get an offer to be accepted into it for the upcoming July intake, and this will be my first ever bachelor degree that I'll be doing so I'm pretty excited for that! 🙂

Power to you, @Blackcloud !

I'm proud of you for taking this step in your agency.

Good luck with the uni, too.

@Blackcloud Good to hear you stood up for what you wanted. I can hear the uncertainty around if she will follow through with her ok, and that it has given you some relief. I agree that the notion of getting married in your early 20's has changed now, and its very much up to the individual to decide that, times are different now. I can somewhat relate to this, my mum would like nothing more than for me to marry and have kids. It can be difficult to navigate.

Congrats on submitting the application, studying psych can be an insightful and rewarding career path, I'm currently studying psychology right now, I'm sure you'll find something you enjoy during it.

@PengTing oooh what year are you currently at for your psych degree? and are you enjoying it so far? psychology has been something that i've been passionate about for a while now so the thought that i'm about to start doing it makes me look forward to doing it! i'm pretty sure you guys have to write lots of essays/reports in that degree too - right?

@Blackcloud I'm my 3rd and final year for the bachelors, I plan to do honours and pursue postgraduate after that. Very much enjoying it, it's the closest thing to a passion I have. I enjoy learning about the underlying mechanisms behind behaviours, factors that influences it, cause and effect relationships. I could keep going, so I'll keep it short lol. I'm excited for you, it's definitely something you find interesting if you were already interested in psych. And yes, sadly lots of scientific report writing, which I'm used to now, but my least favourite part. They ease you into it thou.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions about studying psych.

@PengTing even though I’m 23, at times I tend to think that I’m at the age where I should already be doing a bachelor degree just like how so many other people that I know of that are doing their bachelor degree straight after high school. I feel like I’ve been wasting these past few years studying two different Cert IV courses, both of them being of the fields (accounting and I.T) which I no longer have interest in.

The honours degree takes 1 year to complete after you complete bachelors right?

After honours, do we then go into masters or something ?

@Blackcloud Yeah, I can relate to that, feeling like you should be at a certain point in life. I was studying engineering until I was 22. Went into Psych, had to drop out, just worked for a couple years and started psych again at 24ish. By the time I finish honours I will be 28, and either heading into fulltime work or postgrad. It's tough trying to make peace with the fact so much time as passed and you wish you had done it differently.

Yeah honours is only 1 year. The pathway to become a psychologist is a 3 years bachelors degree, followed by an honours year. Then either a

-2 year master of clinical psych( supervised placements are embed in the course, don't need to source your own)

or

1 year of professional psych followed by doing supervised placements ( which in most cases you have to source yourself, there's a minimum number of hours required)

or

4 year PHD program ( supervised placements are embed in the course, don't need to source your own).

The below link shows this in a diagram
https://psychology.org.au/psychology/careers-and-studying-psychology/studying-psychology/study-pathways

I'm going to be honest, getting into postgrad is sadly highly competitive requiring pretty good grades + plus work/life experience. It can be pretty daunting, but achievable with the right mindset. I'm not even fully confident I can do it, I'm sure as hell going to try thou and you can reapply every year, so after honours you go get work experience and apply the following year and so on.

@PengTing thank you for the link ❤️ yeah I've read that getting into honours requires you to get really good grades from the bachelors degree which sucks but oh well, I guess thats life 😕

I'm not confident that I'll be able to get into postgrad after graduating from bachelors either because depending on how hard the tasks/assignments are and how well I'll be able to do them (or not), then obviously that'll affect the grades that I'll get.

Wait, so with honours you can apply it again the following year (if you didn't get into honours within this year ) for example? and then do it again and again every year until you can finally get into it? that's so annoying cause that'll mean it'll take us even longer to be able to get some work experience... and considering that we'd be in our late 20s/early 30s by the time we get into it (after numerous attempts on applying for honours and then finally got accepted into it), hence the masters degree afterwards.