Elissa - Part 1

The Team from Humans of Christchurch Ōtautahi

“I'm pretty sure I've got an ADHD brain.

I've had my first three assessments, because I want to learn more about myself.

My whole life I've kind of been a generalist. I'm interested in everything. And marketing, it's a generalist kind of discipline. I probably would have gone into something more artistic if I hadn't been steered towards things. My goal out of uni was always to find a company or organization whose values I aligned with and I was interested in. It's probably an ADHD thing, I struggle with work that I'm not invested in.

As a kid, I'd get told off for walking barefoot outside in the grass, because it was like, ‘oh, no, you're going to make the inside of the house dirty.’ I don't know if people who knew me when I was in school would actually recognize me now, because my interests are so different. As a kid, I did a lot of reading, drawing, did a lot of crafts, and had those things reinforced. ‘oh, Elissa doesn't like going outside, and she doesn't like sports’, that kind of thing. I think a lot of stuff has been masked or gone undetected because we were pushed as kids and given way more structure.

I've always lived in Christchurch, my parents are first gen immigrants from Malaysia, they moved here in 1988. I didn't really relate to people who were Chinese Malaysian, because they were growing up in a different culture to me. Going back to Malaysia as a kid for family things, we weren't really allowed out to explore by ourselves because we were told it wasn't safe.

I feel like I grew up in a very typical Asian household. You do good at school, you go to uni, you get a degree, get a good job, I was never given the space to be like, ‘What do I want to do?’

Aikido was the first thing that made me go, I actually enjoy movement. I was terrible at team sports. I started when I was 10 and I did Aikido for about 13 years. I was a third degree Black Belt and I was teaching some classes.

When I was like 21, 22 - It was a first relationship - I had a big breakup. I lost my sense of me, and maybe this is how I started to learn about myself more. I had to discover what I enjoyed doing, and had to think for myself again.

I did parkour for a bit. That didn't stick, I was pretty useless. I tried pole fitness. It was really fun, but too expensive. I started to discover that I like individual sports that you can do on your own and also with other people. That was when skating started to take over.”

- Elissa
Part 1 of 2