Trigger warning: This post touches on grief, death, suicide, and PMDD. Please take care while reading, and step away if it feels too much.
Why I’m Writing This Now…
This week I submitted my final assignment for my End of Life Doula certification. It feels like a milestone I’ve been walking toward for a long time. Before I share where I am now, I want to trace how grief, PMDD, and decluttering became intertwined threads in my story.
Early Encounters With Grief
My first experience of loss came before birth: my grandfather passed away suddenly while my mother was pregnant with me. She was heartbroken, flying back and forth between Japan and Los Angeles to care for my grandmother until travel was no longer possible.
When I arrived in the world, I became my grandmother’s grief companion. We were exceptionally close. In many ways, we kept each other alive through those tender times.
I attended my first funeral at eight years old, when my best friend’s mother died by suicide. It was a Buddhist funeral, full of ritual and symbolism I didn’t yet understand. I didn’t have words for the grief, but I remember how play became our way of processing and I never forgot what it felt like for the ones left behind.
At home, death was never hidden. My parents, devout Christians, spoke openly and practically about it - from funeral photos to medical wishes. At the time, I thought this was normal for every family. They modelled what I now call legacy decluttering: my mother vowed never to leave us with the burden of sorting through a lifetime of belongings, as she had done for her own parents.
PMDD, Sensitivity, and Survival
At 11, everything shifted. Bullying and isolation triggered a spiral of self-loathing and I began to believe I was worthless. Phrases like “Life is not worth living” and “I don’t deserve to live” looped in my mind like a broken record. The pain was so intense that I started self-harming as a way to cope.
By 16, I attempted suicide for the first time. Waking up, I felt like I had failed even at that.
Looking back, I see a highly sensitive nervous system struggling in environments that felt unsafe, combined with undiagnosed PMDD. Each month, the intensity of symptoms amplified dark thoughts until they felt unbearable. I became skilled at masking - making sure no one felt uncomfortable, trying my best to fit in.
I rarely shared this publicly before - worried about making people uncomfortable, or about how algorithms treat words like suicide. But it’s an integral part of why I do this work today.
Learning to Live Well with Sensitivity
Over the years, therapy and healing practices helped me find healthier coping mechanisms. The thoughts still arrive with my monthly cycle, but I now meet them as thoughts rather than commands.
Becoming a mother added another layer. My therapist reminded me that postpartum chemistry could amplify existing depression and anxiety, and he was right. I didn’t yet have the language of being a Highly Sensitive Person. Broken sleep, hormones, and constant noise made life feel unbearable at times. There were moments I wanted to end it all.
But I remembered that funeral when I was eight. It recalibrated me. I knew too well the impact of suicide on those left behind, and that memory became my anchor.
Home as Regulation, Decluttering as Healing
KonMari became a profound tool in my healing. It taught me how to honour what sparks joy, let go of what doesn’t, and rewire my mind toward gratitude. My home is now more than shelter: it’s a nervous system regulator, a space to spiral back up during the wobbles.
This way of decluttering taught me what yes and no truly feel like, after years of dishonouring myself by chasing love in all the wrong places. It reframed my relationship with death, reminding me that legacy decluttering - of objects, and of old versions of self - can be a radical act of love, not only for yourself but for those who remain.
One of the reframes that keeps me steady is this: my struggles with death and dying are also invitations to explore what it means to die well. Watching my parents approach legacy decluttering with clarity has helped me rewire the muscle memory of harm into something gentler, guiding my mind and body back home to themselves.
Deepening the Work
For two years I sat on the idea of training as an End of Life Doula, knowing it could deepen the support I offer through legacy and grief decluttering. This year, I finally gave myself that gift for my birthday.
Early in the course, a dear friend passed away. It was painful to grieve while studying, but also illuminating. I’m deeply grateful to the LWDW team for holding space with such care.
And then came the signs: on the very last day of training, I received a message from the U3A group in Malaysia. A Joyful Legacy course we’d once postponed now had 17 participants signed up - starting the next week. Despite hesitation, I dove in.
Soon after, I was invited to guide and be part of a workshop on death at the University of Edinburgh’s Utopia Lab. I can’t help but feel these nudges are from the loved ones who’ve gone before, encouraging me to keep saying yes.
It feels as though my whole life has been training me to do this work. Grief companioning began before I could speak; now I have the language and tools to offer it to others. Each sign, each opportunity reminds me that death, dying and decluttering are not separate threads but part of the same fabric - teaching us how to live, how to let go, and how to love more deeply.
In many ways, this is what I hope to share through my writing: gentle reflections, practical tools, and spaces where sensitive people can feel less alone as we learn to walk more softly on the earth - with gratitude for the lives we’re given, and reverence for the ones who came before us.
With joy,
Rebecca
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Rebecca, as always you deliver poignant messages just when you need them. I want to be sure that I understand your definition of legacy decluttering from your other work.
What a journey that has led you to where you are now. But that journey has shaped you into the amazing, caring, empathetic person you are today, for which I, amongst so many others, are v grateful ❤️