Through the Days I Long to Go Home

“Can I keep doing this work?”

I have asked myself that question more times than I can count.

When I first entered journalism as a young person, I was full of energy, conviction, and dreams. I believed journalism was a way to uncover the truth and to make sure people’s voices were heard.

Four years later, I began to realize that somewhere along the way, I was slowly losing parts of myself.

When I was 19, I never imagined that the career I chose would become both my livelihood and one of the reasons the road home would feel so far away.

In the early days of the revolution, I took part in protests. As the security situation deteriorated, I had to leave home. Eventually, I found myself in Mae Sot, a small town along the Thai–Myanmar border. There, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to study journalism for free.

I had loved writing since I was young. I started with short news pieces, then moved on to feature stories and video reporting, and eventually became a news presenter. I was proud to call myself a journalist. I was so proud, in fact, that I never used a pen name. I reported under my real name.

One of the first lessons I learned in journalism was simple: don’t put your own emotions into the story. But over time, I learned something else. Journalists are human too.

When Other People’s Pain Becomes Part of You

Sometimes I would call a source for an interview and listen as they described what had happened to them. Their pain would stay with me.

My responsibility was to listen carefully and then find the words to make their experiences visible to others. But sometimes, carrying their stories felt like carrying the pain twice.

There were interviews after which I would put down my phone, open my laptop and simply stare at the screen. No words would come.

I remember once speaking with a source just before mealtime. My stomach told me I was hungry, but after hearing their story, there was a heaviness in my chest and I could not eat.

As these experiences accumulated, something began to change.

Eventually, I stopped crying.

I could finish an interview and immediately continue with the next task. But it wasn’t because the stories no longer affected me.

I had simply become numb.

And that numbness slowly changed me without my realizing it. I became tired more easily. I became irritable. I overthought things. My mood sank, and even my relationships with other people began to suffer.

Yet there was something strange about all of this.

On the days when I picked up my camera bag, carried my tripod and went out into the field, some of that exhaustion disappeared.

Walking along windy roads, meeting people and listening to their lives, I would suddenly remember:

I still love this work.

And that was why I could not quite let it go.

When Passion Is Not Enough

COVID-19 and Myanmar’s political upheaval interrupted my education. Journalism became my livelihood, and surviving from one day to the next left little space to think seriously about my own future.

Eventually, one question began following me almost every day, What will become of me?

I became afraid that nothing would.

At the same time, media organizations were losing funding. Programs were closing. Journalists were losing their jobs.

When one of the programs I worked for ended, I became unemployed for around seven months.

It was one of the hardest periods of my life.

I told myself that if I could not find another job in journalism within a little over a year, I would change careers completely.

Fortunately, I eventually found my way back, working again as both a reporter and news presenter.

I continue because I genuinely love this work.

But love alone does not make the realities of life in exile easier. The income is not always enough to build a stable life.

And perhaps the hardest part is this:

On the days when I desperately want to go home, I cannot.

Even if I cannot return myself, I wish I could bring my family to visit me. But financially, that is not always possible either.

I want to see the people I love. I want to eat my mother’s cooking. I miss the smell of home.

Most of all, I miss my mother.

She raised me by herself, and as she grows older, I want to be able to care for her in return. One of my deepest fears is that something will happen to her before I have the chance to see her again.

That distance makes an already exhausting life in exile even heavier.

When the Mind Begins to Affect the Body

At one point, I tried counselling.

But each session cost more than 800 baht. I could not afford to continue for the long term, so eventually I stopped.

Over time, the emotional pressure began affecting my physical health as well. I was hospitalized twice, both times in serious conditions.

Being hospitalized in another country is difficult enough, even when you can afford it. When money is already tight, the anxiety becomes even greater.

After those experiences, I stopped trying to transform my life all at once.

Instead, I started small.

I learned to be grateful that I was alive today.

If the weather was beautiful, I appreciated it.

If I finished one task, I allowed myself to feel proud of it.

I would be lying if I said I no longer worry about where I will be in five or ten years. I still do.

But I am trying to spend less time living inside an uncertain future and more time doing the best I can with the day in front of me.

I still sometimes struggle in crowded places. There are moments when breathing becomes difficult or my emotions change quickly.

And yet, strangely, when I am out reporting, I can become completely absorbed in the work and somehow manage.

The difference now is that I have learned to accept these parts of myself rather than constantly fight against them.

I have also learned something else:

We cannot carry everything alone.

Having someone who listens, someone who cares, someone who simply asks, “Are you okay?” can sometimes feel like medicine for the mind.

Still Here, Still Trying

When I first entered journalism, I was simply a young person who wanted to write the truth.

Four years later, after witnessing so many painful stories, I have learned that telling other people’s stories also requires learning how to care for myself.

I still do not know what my future will look like.

I do not know when the road will take me home.

But there is one thing I have come to believe:

"As long as we are still alive, there is still something we can try"

So I keep going with that belief.

I try to spend more time with the people who have cared for me and held me up when things became difficult. I try to appreciate them while they are still beside me.

And through all the days when I long to go home, I am still trying to survive in both of the identities I carry: as a journalist, and as a human being.