Nicole Seah's online post creates stir

Opposition politician Nicole Seah has had a lousy year.

And she has opened up about it on Facebook.

Miss Seah's post about how she ended up in a "meltdown" is creating a stir online. She lists all that went wrong: bad political moves, relationship problems, being stalked, career issues, her grandmother getting cancer, and she herself coming down with dengue.

To begin with, she was doing quite well at work, the former executive, 27, says in the very personal post, titled Ground Zero. She has worked for advertising and marketing or public relations firms since 2009.

But politics took over after she contested the Marine Parade GRC for the National Solidarity Party in the 2011 General Election, and she began looking at things on the basis of whether they would help to get her elected in 2016.

She felt that "when you start thinking about your life in five year blocks, you start to get equally myopic about the way you do things".

She was exhausted with the house visits and walkabouts. She felt she was reading off a script when she met residents, and helpless when she met a needy person.

Then it got worse.

She wrote she was "naive" and "arm-twisted into making some bad decisions", mentioning the Presidential Election as one of them. She did not elaborate, but said this was a "terrible, irreversible mistake".

She campaigned for Mr Tan Jee Say, one of the four candidates in that election.

She felt like a fraud when she was invited to speak at conferences. "I do have an opinion on some things, but I'm not an expert on everything or anything as of yet," she wrote.

She got "played out" dating two or three men.

She also claims to have faced rape threats and death threats. Then, the day she found out her grandmother had been diagnosed with third-stage stomach cancer, she snapped.

She went on medical leave and did not return to work. Her troubles kept piling up. She got dengue fever. Then she was fired from her next job. This was followed by another spell of ill health.

Reactions were almost all positive.

One commended her "brutal honesty and willingness to share" her weaknesses and strengths.

Miss Seah did not respond to TNP's queries by press time.

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