I was born in the year of the rat.

Since this is the Year of the Rat in the lunar calendar, it has evoked memories of my younger days when I felt like a rat.

This stemmed from my relationship with my father, a China-born immigrant to Singapore.

I was the last biological son whom he and my mother must have decided to have following the sudden death of a sister. She would be one year older than me if she were alive today.

It was one thing to be the last to arrive in the Yeo family but another to be the smallest and somehow less prominent in presence except for my loud voice.

My father used to teasingly call me 'ngeow chu kia' (small rat/mouse in the Teochew dialect). I don't know why he picked the nickname.

Maybe it was because I was small in stature compared to my siblings.

I suppose most people have nicknames, often given by parents, siblings or friends.

In my case, this somewhat playful nickname became internalised to such an extent that I felt like a rat.

Generally rats are regarded as pests, unwelcome intruders into homes and the world at large, as well as being carriers of disease.

This perception of rats communicates the idea that they should be banished from the face of the earth. They do not have any entitlement to life.

Of course rats are also small in size and this makes it easy for them to hide and to avoid attention for fear of condemnation and extermination.

There was a time in my life when I felt like I was not welcome in this world, needing to hide from others and wishing that I could disappear.

Being a child with a loud voice did not help. An older relative decided I should not visit his home as he found my voice somewhat intolerable.

I fumbled through childhood due to poor performance in school, which was made worse by a stuttering, stammering manner of speech that sometimes made me sound like I had something in my mouth whenever I spoke.

I was ridiculed by a teacher in Primary 3 who insisted I was sucking sweets in class whenever I was asked to speak up.

It did not help matters when indelibly imprinted in my mind was the image of my father peering down at this little boy and shaking his head every now and then.

Maybe he meant the name-calling and body language as a joke.

Unfortunately, it was a bad joke as that reinforced all the negative feelings I had about myself, compounded in no small way by my poor academic performance.

All this came to a head when in my late teens, after performing miserably in my O-level examination (then known as the Senior School Certificate), I made a plan to end my life.

Thankfully the other characteristics of rats came to my rescue.

Rats are considered resilient, resourceful and resolute. To that extent, I became that way through the vicissitudes of life.

My struggle with poor self-esteem and insecurity strengthened my resilience and made me dig into my inner resources. It strengthened my resolve in coping with the problems of life.

The fact that I am who I am affirms my entitlement to life, fulfilment in life and hope for living.

It is fine to feel like a rat. The positive and negative features co-exist.

For me, what is more important is to embrace both and learn to live in harmony with myself.

This article was first published in The Sunday Times on Apr 5, 2008.