There’s a phrase many of us grew up hearing whenever we expressed sadness, anxiety, or exhaustion that went beyond the physical: “Jangan lebih-lebih lah.” Don’t overdo it. Don’t be dramatic. Pull yourself together.
For working Malaysians in their 30s and 40s, this message was often delivered with love — by parents, grandparents, or teachers who genuinely believed that resilience meant silence. But decades later, that same silence is showing up in our offices, our group chats, and our bathroom breaks where we quietly fall apart before straightening our shirts and heading back to the meeting room.
Malaysia has a mental health problem. And the bigger problem is that we’re still not talking about it.
According to the National Health and Morbidity Survey, nearly half a million Malaysians suffer from depression, and that figure doesn’t account for the vast number of people who never seek diagnosis. Anxiety disorders are equally prevalent, yet the treatment gap — the difference between those who need help and those who actually receive it — remains enormous.
For working professionals, the pressures are layered. Long commutes, performative productivity culture, financial stress, and the ever-present fear of being seen as weak by colleagues or superiors create the perfect conditions for burnout to quietly take hold.
Culture Cuts Both Ways
Malaysia’s multicultural makeup is one of our greatest strengths — but when it comes to mental health, cultural expectations across Malay, Chinese, and Indian communities can sometimes work against us.
In many families, emotional struggles are framed as spiritual failings, a lack of gratitude, or worse — something to be ashamed of. Malu is a powerful social force. The idea that seeking therapy might somehow reflect badly on the family, or signal weakness to your colleagues, keeps countless people suffering in silence.
And then there’s the workplace itself. How many of us have laughed off our own stress with a “haih, Malaysian life lah” rather than admitting we’re not coping? Humour is a coping mechanism we’ve mastered — but it can also be a wall.
What’s Slowly Changing
The good news is that the conversation is shifting, especially among younger professionals. The pandemic cracked something open — when the whole country was collectively overwhelmed, pretending to be fine became harder to sustain. More Malaysians started using words like burnout, anxiety, and therapy without whispering them.
Companies, too, are beginning — slowly — to recognise that mental wellbeing isn’t a luxury benefit. It’s a business concern. Presenteeism, absenteeism, and high staff turnover are all downstream effects of a workforce that isn’t mentally well.
Starting With Yourself
If you’ve been feeling persistently exhausted, emotionally flat, or like you’re just going through the motions — that’s worth paying attention to. Not because something is wrong with you, but because you deserve the same care you’d give a friend who came to you with those same feelings.
You wouldn’t tell your best friend to “jangan lebih-lebih.” So maybe it’s time to stop saying it to yourself.
Mental health is more than just a buzzword, and here, it’s time we gave ourselves permission to say so, out loud.