“Because of my ego,” he said, “I was putting on a façade, trying to prove to others that I was still doing well, still able to expand my business.” In reality, all he had to hold on to was a fool’s hope that things would improve. But sales continued to dive, and he was in the red. He had not the wherewithal to pay his suppliers. “One of my suppliers said to me, ‘You know, Jimmy, us small-time suppliers, we’ve got mouths to feed. We need money to survive too.’” Wanting to do right by the supplier, Jimmy took a personal loan from a new partner and returned all unsold inventories. But bad news has wings and travels fast; the following day other suppliers started pounding on Jimmy’s door and demanded payments. Jimmy had rung up a staggering debt of over six hundred thousand dollars.

The noose around his neck was taut, but it was the same partner who threw him a lifebuoy who pulled it to suffocate him. The latter wanted to sue him, so that Jimmy could prove that he was indeed bankrupt, and was not hiding any reserves from him. Jimmy had no choice but to acquiesce. When he sat before the Official Assignee, he declared his net worth: His net worth was five cents shy of thirteen dollars.

The pressure of a failed business suffused his personal life, and by his own admission, Jimmy became a difficult man to live with, his temper tearing rifts in his once-blissful marriage. Eventually, Jimmy at the age of thirty-two and his first wife thought it best to get a divorce.

Read: Abused Because of Cerebral Palsy, but Still Wesley Wee Rises Above, Finding Happiness and Love in the Face of Adversity

Johnny, could you describe your younger self and your family background?

My dad used to own a furniture business, and my mom was a housewife. I was not exactly the most obedient son growing up, but I was not involved in any mischief.

How did you get involved with gang activity and drugs then?

When I was thirteen years old, on the first day of my secondary-school life, a group of seniors approached me and asked if I wanted to be a part of their gang. Being in a new environment as well as wanting to belong to a group and have a sense of identity, I said ‘yes’. It was then I started playing truant, smoking and glue-sniffing. I would steal things from the mall — it wasn’t that I couldn’t afford them; my family was rather well to do, but there was a high that I got from it. I also got tattoos on my back.

Every Friday night, we would gather and loiter around the void deck where we drank and smoked. On Saturdays, we would sell newspapers — since it was lottery night, many needed the newspapers to check the winning numbers. That was how we earned our money. Then, we would pool together our earnings, book a hotel room and get high.

What was it like to be high on drugs?

With marijuana, you are still aware of what is going on. There’s a type of marijuana that induces paranoia. For example, when I was high on it, I didn’t dare to cross the street, even though there were no incoming cars or any signs of danger. I was seventeen the first time I had heroin. I hated the experience. I kept vomiting and perspiring, and I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t get hooked though. But three weeks later, when I didn’t have access to marijuana, it became my go-to fix.

I was one of the first to consume ecstasy when it reached Singapore circa 1996. Back then, a pill cost a hundred and twenty-five dollars. Two of my friends and I checked into a hotel, and tried it along with marijuana. After consuming it, one of my friends kept blow-drying his hair, another kept jumping on the bed. I couldn’t stop biting my nails. A week later, while at the karaoke pub, a lady taught us the proper way to do it, which is to blast techno music and shake your head.

By 19, Jennifer Heng Already Had Two Abortions. This Is Her Story of Secret Shame, Self-forgiveness and Triumph.

I didn’t transform into a woman; I became aware that I was one.

At the age of fifteen, June began her hormone replacement therapy. It was around this time that she was drawn to Singapore’s red-light district, which she says was a safe space where transgender individuals congregated. “Thirty years ago, there were no apps such as Grindr, Tinder or places such as gay bars. The red-light district became a place where I could mingle with other people just like me, to be safe and part of a community, to get advice from my sisters, and feel loved. It was a place where I was seen as who I was on the inside.”

Gay men and women have the choice of keeping their sexual orientations a secret, coming out only when they feel safe to do so. Transgender people enjoy no such luxury: They wear their gender identities on their sleeves, literally. The appearance of a man in woman’s clothes or a woman with a buzz cut is incongruous with what society deems as acceptable. When transgender children or teenagers get chased out of their homes because of their overt behaviours, they have to turn to sex work, because they have no other qualifications or skills. The sex industry is the only one that does not discriminate their gender identities.

But then a vicious cycle begins. When a sex worker is arrested and incarcerated for soliciting, her possessions are thrown away. The first night she is out of jail, she needs sixty dollars to pay for rental and food. To get that money, she has to slip back into sex work — it is the only way she knows how.

Read: Abused Because of Cerebral Palsy, but Still Wesley Wee Rises Above, Finding Happiness and Love in the Face of Adversity

No one told the teenage Jennifer about the emotional heft that comes with having an abortion, let alone two. For years, she had to live with pangs of shame, guilt and paranoia. It was only by the mercy of God that Jennifer was able to turn her grief into strength. In 2014, she founded Dayspring New Life Centre where women and families with unsupported pregnancies can be empowered to make life-giving choices. After the centre wound up in 2016, and still driven by the same mission, Jennifer started Safe Place under Lakeside Family Services in February 2018, and is now the director of the programme. Jennifer speaks to nedla about her life journey.

In your book “Walking out of Secret Shame”, you wrote about your growing-up years which were fraught with tumult. Tell us about your transformative years.

My father ran a chain of shoe stores, and for a while we lived quite comfortably. When I was twelve, he attempted suicide. I remember being in the car with my mother and sister, and during the twenty-minute ride en route to the hospital no one spoke a single word. It was later that I learnt he had accumulated a huge financial debt, which was further exacerbated by his gambling addiction. And one day, just like that, he fled the country to escape his debts — I initially thought he had gone on another business trip. As my mother was the guarantor, the financial burden fell squarely on her shoulders. I remember reading one of the reminder letters, and it had a long string of numbers — at the time I didn’t even know if the debt ran up to a million, billion or trillion dollars! My mother had to declare bankruptcy, and we had to move out of our home.

As a young girl on the cusp of change, how did you cope as the world you knew crumbled?

It was the routine of everyday life. Even though everything was falling apart, I still had to attend school, do my homework and whatnot. My family never talked about it; we didn’t know how to discuss about our feelings and we tended to sweep things under the rug. We were barely scraping by — my mother had to work; till this day I still don’t know what jobs she took up to make ends meet. I didn’t ask her, because I was afraid of the difficult conversations. It couldn’t have been easy for her, and the last thing I wanted to do was to question her.

How would you describe your younger self?

I think I inherited my dad’s traits: I was strong-willed, smart and rather bossy. But I was also very sensitive. I could always tell when someone was upset, and I would want to render help.

I never knew how to react to authority. Whenever there was a dispute, I would become angry and start quarrelling. Or, I would launch a cold war and run away from the problem. There were days when I would sneak out of the house and not return home for a night. Eventually I became more daring, and one night became two. My mother, of course, was very angry and hurt; as a mother I know now that she was terrified for my safety. But the fifteen-year-old me did not see it that way. I deemed that I was mature enough to know what was best for me, and that I had been through so much more than my mother (in just fifteen years of living).

Read also: Dr Siew Tuck Wah on Breaking the Poverty Cycle, Saving Singapore’s Street Dogs and Finding Buddhism