Muay thai helps teen overcome loneliness and self-harm

SINGAPORE – Kelly (not her real name) was just nine when she first scratched her upper arm with a back scratcher she found at home.

The mildly uncomfortable sensation gave her relief.

“The physical pain takes away from the mental pain,” said the 16-year-old Institute of Technical Education (ITE) student.

Growing up, Kelly witnessed frequent and intense fights between her parents. She feared being abandoned by her mother, who would threaten to return to Thailand whenever she became sad.

By Primary 4, Kelly, an only child, was spending long hours alone at home after school while her mother worked as a waitress. When her parents were around, the fighting resumed. Though she longed for attention and conversation, she did not know who to turn to.

“I bottled everything up inside,” said Kelly, who does not have a good relationship with her father.

“It felt weird to go up to people and share that my parents were fighting. I didn’t want anyone to know this about me,” she added.

Quiet and withdrawn in school, she described herself as a wallflower when hanging out with friends.

“I’d listen to the conversations, but I don’t talk, just sit there with them and mind my own business,” she said.

She started engaging in self-harm in Primary 3 and this turned into a weekly habit in Primary 5, after she came across online posts about self-harm methods.

Once the marks on her upper arm grew too obvious to hide, she shifted her focus to her wrist.

“If my friends asked me about it, I would just tell them it was a scratch from a cat,” she said.

Eventually, Kelly realised she needed help.

She confided in a friend, who encouraged her to approach the school counsellor.

Her experience is not uncommon.

A 2025 study by the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) found that one in four young people in Singapore has reported engaging in self-harm at least once in their lives.

A total of 2,600 participants aged 15 to 35 were polled in the National Youth Mental Health Study.

The findings indicate that cutting is the most common method of self-injury. This is followed by severe scratching, punching themselves, and banging their heads against something.

Kelly worked up the courage to approach the school counsellor, hoping for a listening ear.

She did not expect that the counsellor would inform her form teacher and parents about her behaviour, leaving her feeling more distressed.

She said her teacher told her that such acts should not happen in a Christian girls’ school, but did not really try to understand what lay behind them.

Her mother confronted her, asking why she was burdening the family with such feedback from school.

Her teacher also asked Kelly’s friends what they thought about her self-harm and told her that some of them were frightened by her.

“I was just sad and confused. I didn’t want people to be afraid of me,” said Kelly.

Scarred by that incident, Kelly sought connection online.

She scoured platforms like Reddit and Twitter, and found a community of individuals who shared their struggles and self-harm tendencies. She began to experiment with new methods, and her cuts became more visible.

In February 2023, at the start of her Secondary 2 year, Kelly attempted suicide.

She was alone at home when she overdosed on medicine. When she woke up the next morning and told her teacher what happened, an ambulance was called and Kelly was taken to hospital. She was hospitalised for five days and placed on intravenous fluids.

She was referred to IMH for follow-up appointments, but she was not keen to talk to anyone and avoided the social worker assigned to her.

After she returned to school, Kelly became close to a classmate who was going through similar issues, including self-harming. They began spending time together after school.

Kelly admitted they were not a good influence on each other. They sought thrills through risky and illegal behaviour like sitting on high ledges, smoking and drinking.

At the start of Sec 3, her friend stopped attending school and blocked Kelly on social media and WhatsApp.

“I missed her and I found it harder to connect with other people because only ‘siao lang’ (colloquial term for crazy person) understands ‘siao lang’,” said Kelly.

The next year, Kelly made another attempt to take her own life, but one of her friends called the police in time.

She was referred to IMH again and was assigned another social worker. This time, she was introduced to Impart – a charity that works with young people facing adversities. 

It made all the difference.

In November 2025, Kelly met Impart counsellors, who encouraged her to join the organisation’s physical activities.

In February 2026, she took her first muay thai class and has not looked back since.

For three months, she travelled weekly from ITE College East in Simei, where she is pursuing a Higher Nitec in electronics engineering, to Chinatown and Clarke Quay for the one- to two-hour training sessions. On her other free weekdays, she took part in Impart programmes like callisthenics and running.

Having completed the first cycle of the sports programme in April, she is looking forward to the next intake, hoping to progress in muay thai and join her first professional fight in the future.

Apart from finding a sense of belonging through the Impart community, doing sports helped Kelly to cope with her feelings in non-harmful ways.

“It got me to try new things and get out of the boredom. Since I wasn’t at home, I didn’t have time to be sad,” said Kelly.

Allan Ng, who coaches Kelly in muay thai, said she has grown in confidence over the past few months, emerging from her reclusive shell to volunteer for demonstrations and speaking up during discussions without being prompted.

“There were multiple occasions where you can tell that she really didn’t want to be there, but she chose to do the difficult thing; to show up,” he said, adding that she also took training seriously.

Asked if she has harmed herself since, Kelly said she has been “clean for five months”.

On May 9, she was recognised as a top performer in Impart’s muay thai programme Fite at a ceremony held at community hall Glass Dome in Telok Ayer. The event celebrated more than 200 young people from Impart who showed resilience in overcoming adversities and systemic barriers.

Calvin Leong, 29, who oversees community building at Impart, said the organisation engages many youth like Kelly who struggle with self-harm.

Leong said Impart aims to provide a safe third space – apart from home and school or the workplace – that many of these youth may otherwise not have.

“Many youth are not open to services (counselling) because of stigma, family, financial challenges or past experiences,” he said, adding that sports programmes like muay thai are used as a way to build connection while weaving in aspects of future identity and a sense of belonging.

Ng said many reflective conversations that take place after training involve planning for the future and identifying traits needed to reach their goals, like discipline and perseverance.

“Because of the adversities many of them faced when they were young, they feel like they don’t have control over their lives… so we try to use the space to allow them to build autonomy and control over how they navigate things,” he said.

Kelly said she is a work in progress and resisting the urge to return to her old ways is something she will continue to work on.

After she graduates from ITE in 2028, Kelly hopes to get into a polytechnic, earn a degree from a university and have a stable job afterwards.

“It (self-harm) will always be at the back of your mind, but you find ways to cope and deal with it… It might seem like harsh motivation, but you need to shift from being a victim to a survivor,” said Kelly.