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When ex-national athlete Eileen Chai left her sports career, she thought she would never find her footing again.
She was a sports prodigy: At seven, she became the youngest artistic gymnast who qualified for the 1985 SEA Games, and went on to compete in another four SEA Games in gymnastics, track-and-field and springboard diving, for a decade.
But the multiple emotional and physical setbacks made her put an end to competitive sports in 1995. She was 17 then. What she didn’t know was that she was suffering from social performance anxiety, a mental disorder.
Of her early life, Eileen, now a musician and music teacher, recalls: “My anxiety probably began when I was training gymnastics in China. The training was tough and I put a lot of pressure on myself.”
That anxiety followed her into adulthood. When she entered the National University of Singapore (NUS) and started playing the violin with the NUS Symphonic Orchestra, she was often on edge, worrying and overthinking.
Her bouts of anxiety became so overwhelming that she found it hard to leave home without bursting into tears, for no reason.
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