I have a friend who is also mentally ill, saying that confession is easy to get hurt again. Although in the professional field, mental illness sounds as simple as "psychological cold", for a long time, our cultural concept has been secretive about people's psychological problems, which has led many people to talk about "spirit". A considerable number of people who have never been in contact with it can't even tell the difference between "neuropathy" and "psychosis", which are completely different from the context.
I am not a psychology major at all. I accidentally read some articles and became interested, so I left some thoughts in this regard. It's probably luck, and because of this, when I found some unusual signs in my psychology and physiology from one day, I naturally thought of psychological problems and accepted them more easily.
But even so, I made great determination and courage from doubt to consultation to really going to the hospital to take the initiative to receive treatment. Really, at first, even if you fully understood, you were scared. Moreover, due to the timely detection, my symptoms are still relatively mild in clinic, but even so, I feel great pain and pressure in the process. So I'm shocked, too. If it's moderate to severe symptoms, how painful it would be! Sometimes I feel very worried.
Although I haven't checked the relevant data in detail, many analyses have pointed out that the number of people suffering from mental illness, especially young people, is much more than we thought. Many painful and heavy consequences, such as suicide or even murder, also involve psychological barriers in essence.
So I just want to record and share some of my experiences and help more friends like me. Of course, because I am not professional, there may be some mistakes in many words. Very welcome, and I hope professionals can correct me.
I will look at this article from two angles. The first angle is purely about how to deal with the disease, how I found it, how to consult and judge myself, whether to go to the hospital or find a psychological counselor, etc., and provide a reference for everyone in the whole process of my personal action.
The second angle, which I think is very important, but we often ignore, is how to really analyze why we are like this from the source, and what causes our psychological problems to develop gradually and eventually turn into diseases. The advantage of doing this is to find your own point, overcome and correct it from the source, so as to completely cure yourself and re-recognize yourself in an all-round way. So, you don't have to worry about any psychological problems in the future. If you encounter relevant difficulties and have a deep understanding of yourself, it will be much easier to adjust and change.
In the process of narration from the first angle, I introduced a timeline. There are many causes and effects of diseases, and only after experiencing them can we realize the reasons. In order to restore the mental journey at that time as much as possible, I will jump in time in the narrative, but with the timeline, you can sort out the whole process of illness.
Before we begin, let me say that my illness at that time was bipolar disorder. The simple explanation is that depression and mania will alternate. What are the specific symptoms of depression and mania? Because this article is not a professional analysis of the illness, I won't go into details. Friends in need can refer to some more professional authoritative materials. I only write about myself here.
From the end of March to the beginning of April, 2065438+2006, I suddenly found that my mood became very low. At first, I often cried, crying every day and crying as soon as I woke up. I feel that my brain can't turn around when I think about everything, and I am particularly tired from morning till night. I lived in a dormitory and slept under the table. I feel so tired that I don't even have the strength to get up. I'm afraid to get out of bed, because I'm afraid I'll jump off the balcony, or I'm afraid I'll dig out a fruit knife and cut my vein. Afraid of the light, I always pull the bed curtain, so I don't turn on the light when there is no one in the dormitory. I'm afraid to go out and go to crowded places. I'm afraid of other people's eyes. I always feel that someone has been watching me. As long as you stand in the crowd for a little while, you will feel very dizzy.
There was a time when I was deeply impressed. At that time, I felt that I had to overcome it myself anyway. It happened that Sunday was the rehearsal day of the choir I joined. I had asked for leave before, so I forced myself to go that time. When I practice my voice, I stand in the middle of the first row When I was singing, I suddenly felt out of breath. I feel like I'm going to faint. I'm sweating all over and I want to scream. I wonder why I'm still singing and why it's not over yet. I can only try my best to restrain myself and try not to lose my legs until the end of practicing my voice. After I sat down, a junior asked me if I was okay, because she saw that my lips were scary white and my face was like a piece of paper.
During that time, there was really a mentality of "being alive is boring". Every day is like living, and the thoughts in my head drift away if I'm not careful. I dare not look at sharp things, such as the pen tip, and I am always worried that I will plunge into my body if I can't control it.
If you use four words to describe that state, it is the real "life without love." Looking back now, I still feel terrible.
This state lasted about half a month, and there were times when I felt better, but it was short-lived. I suspected that I had depression at that time, but I couldn't find particularly accurate information on the Internet (unbelievable), so my method was to ask the relevant people around me first.
Psychological problems are relatively private and hard to see on the surface, but I happen to have a friend who has a very good relationship with ta. Ta is ill again. After I told him about my situation, ta asked me to see a doctor and prescribed some medicine. But to be honest, I still have some resistance to taking psychotropic drugs. My first thought is that the nervous system in the brain should be corrected with drugs. That feeling was terrible, so I didn't go at once.
Then I asked two other friends, who are very trustworthy people in Nice. By the way, you must find someone you trust, otherwise you won't be able to persuade yourself to listen to some advice. After all, it involves your mental health. The spiritual level itself is a bit mysterious, so trust is very important, especially in the later stage of choosing treatment.
My two friends, the first of whom is a psychology department, did not jump to conclusions after listening to my words, but sent me some courseware specifically for ta, including mood disorder, anxiety disorder and suicide. I looked at it in comparison, and it felt more like bipolar disorder, so I had a clearer understanding of my situation.
Another thing that warms me about this friend is that ta said, "I will always be with you". I think this should also be a simple psychological comfort in clinic, but it is really effective. At that time, I often felt that there was no place for me in this world, and I felt that I was redundant and troublesome to anyone, but the simple sentence of ta gave me a lot of comfort. So if you know that friends may have related problems, please be gentle and patient with them. As long as you let the other person feel some company, it will be really comforting.
Another friend is a social worker and has done many practical psychological groups by himself. Maybe there are too many people looking for ta. At first, ta thought I was joking. After I explained another sentence, ta asked me if there was any reason for this situation. After ta's reminder, I realized that it might be because of the contradiction with my parents.
This contradiction is actually a very small thing, that is, I didn't do well, and then my mother severely criticized me. This happened in the middle of March, 2065438+2006, when I became ill in late March. My mother said something at that time, probably, "How can you feel at ease like this? How can you believe that you can be responsible for yourself and make decisions?" .
At that time, I was going through a stage where I wanted graduate students to choose their favorite direction and refused to be arranged by my parents, so there was a stalemate in the early stage. Perhaps many people have experienced things that are different from their parents' opinions in the direction of life. In fact, for children, the most feared thing is that parents do not support and do not understand their choices. Although children have ideas and actions, at this time, they are still economically independent, their thoughts are not mature enough, and they need a lot of help from their parents.
So as soon as my mother said this, I felt that my future vision collapsed instantly. I really felt that the road ahead was gloomy and completely blind.
I didn't tell my parents the whole process of my illness. On the one hand, I'm afraid they are worried. On the other hand, I am very afraid that they still don't understand me because I have been hurt. So even though I felt very difficult and wanted to ask for help, I didn't dare to tell them in the end and turned to my friends.
When I confessed this to my mother recently, she said that she was angry and didn't realize it. A bad communication leads to such a result, inadvertently cutting off an important path for children to ask for help. Therefore, good communication between parents and children is really too important.
Go on, that friend understood after listening to it. Ta said that some things seem trivial to others, but for yourself, they may be the straw that crushed the camel, so only you can really understand how serious the situation is. Many psychological diseases break out because of a small point, maybe you broke up with your partner, or even someone accidentally poked you with a joke, which was small but fatal.
Then ta also said some of her own experiences and encouraged me to overcome them. It is very important that ta told me that it will definitely get better, no matter how bad the experience is and how difficult the process is, as long as I try to solve it, it will definitely get better. This also gives me more courage to face my own problems.
I asked two friends whether to go to a psychological counselor or directly to the hospital to prescribe medicine, and the answers were consistent, that is, the effect was similar. This answer surprised me a little, because I always thought that the psychological solution to psychological problems would be better, and drugs would have intuitive side effects anyway.
Generally speaking, many people prefer to seek psychological counselors, but in fact, according to the current situation in China, good professional psychological counselors are very difficult to find, and the so-called psychological counseling is actually very limited. I feel more inclined to know my sister. It is ok to solve minor problems, but the real mental illness is still difficult to cure. Moreover, psychotherapy is a long process, which requires close cooperation and mutual trust between patients and psychological counselors, and it is really difficult to do it at present. Another thing that has to be considered is that the cost of professional psychological counselors is very high.
In contrast, it is much simpler and more convenient to prescribe drugs directly by choosing a regular hospital specializing in psychotherapy. After listening to my friend, I finally decided to go to the hospital.
On April 20 16 15, I went to the school hospital for the first time, mainly to transfer to another hospital (if our school wants to go out to see a doctor for reimbursement, it must first open a referral form at the school hospital).
Insert a little thing first. When I registered, I said that I had failed the psychiatric department. The first time I said it, my voice was a little low, and the people inside didn't hear it clearly. Then I heard them say, "It's probably really abnormal. Look at the hanged psychiatric department. " Really, there is an impulse to throw knives in their faces. I guess this is the status quo of community hospitals on many university campuses. So, if you meet, don't take it too seriously. Although patient treatment is the ideal state of mental patients, the reality is that many disgusting things can only be overcome by themselves first. I hope the social situation will get better and better in the future.
Anyway, fortunately, the psychologist is an old lady, very serious and responsible, and asked me a lot of previous situations in detail. This clinic is the first time that I feel completely open to myself since I was ill for half a month. I told the doctor everything, including the conflict with my parents and some psychological pain. Finally, I began to cry desperately, which was particularly miserable. But after saying this once, it's really a lot easier.
I also told the doctor that I felt like bipolar disorder, and she gave me a special science lesson, saying that it was important for bipolar disorder to have manic manifestations, but my illness was more reflected in depression. She asked me where my manic behavior was. I couldn't say it at the time, and I was very confused. Later, the doctor transferred me to Beijing Anding Hospital.
2016 April 17 I went to Anding, and it was much smoother in a professional hospital. I did a lot of related psychological tests first, and the psychological tests showed no obvious problems. But the doctor said that the test results are for reference only. After listening to my brief introduction, he directly asked me if I felt very happy some time ago and my mental state was particularly good. She explained that hypomania is sometimes difficult to find, because most people show that this person is particularly energetic and everything feels smooth. Ordinary people can easily understand that they are in good shape, but they don't realize that they are manic.
I recall September 20 15 and June 20 10, and I felt very lively and had obvious confidence, which lasted for 2-3 months. Amazingly, she asked if she had a sudden perm or something. To tell you the truth, I did have a perm there and it fit me perfectly, so some details are still important.
Later, at the beginning of 20 15,1,12, I felt very tired and mentally ill because of many things. Around February 2006, I attended another training camp. I work hard with my brain and never have a good rest. Therefore, the timeline is coherent.
Finally, he was diagnosed as "depressive state, bipolar disorder" and "past history of hypomania" in Anding Hospital. The doctor prescribed medicine for me, and the doctor's advice was that I must keep taking it and don't stop taking it when I feel better.
I have taken the medicine for half a month, and there are no side effects such as vomiting and dizziness. I have to sleep 12 hours every day. The side effects of drugs vary from person to person, so you must listen to the doctor when you go to the hospital. During that time, I went to sleep at night 10 and woke up the next day 10. I sleep and eat. After about half a month, I obviously feel that my mental state has improved. This improvement time also varies from person to person, and it is still necessary to analyze the specific situation.
Of course, I'm ashamed that I didn't follow the doctor's advice in the end. I took the medicine for a while after my return visit, and I stopped taking it when I felt better. This is still quite bad. At that time, I really panicked and worried about recurrence. Please don't learn from me.
Then it's made up for it. I made a lot of efforts in the construction of self-psychological recovery in the later period, so to some extent, I made up for the defect of not continuing drug treatment in the later period.
Next, let's talk about how I repaired myself psychologically.
I am a person who likes to grasp the essence of things. After encountering this situation, I feel that I must be responsible for myself and find out what is going on and why I got this disease. Because I am determined, I am not soft on myself when I analyze myself. The process may be a little bloody, but the effect is very obvious.
I happened to pay attention to a very awesome psychological WeChat official account called Knowyourself (stating that this is definitely not a soft advertisement). You can search for it yourself if you are interested. The article inside is rigorous in logic and powerful in content. At that time, my intuition was still useful, so I searched their historical news and summarized my reasons and problems one by one. From 2065438+September 2006 to 2065438+065438+1October, they set up a special course of online psychology (of course, it was charged), and I also gained a lot from the course.
First of all, I want to mention my family background. This concept has been paid more and more attention recently and is often mentioned. Everyone's behavior patterns and thinking patterns in adulthood are actually gradually formed in the process of growth under the profound influence of their own family environment and family members. I observed and compared myself, and found that my parents and I reacted exactly the same to some things.
To tell the truth, whenever I recall the past twenty years, I feel that my parents have done a very good job in family education, and my behavior and thinking mode have also continued their various advantages, such as being meticulous, earnest and careful. But of course, this is inevitable. As long as everyone has shortcomings, I am naturally influenced by their shortcomings in a subtle way.
For example, when I was young, I often felt that my father would be anxious because some small things were not done well or did not meet expectations. It's similar to one day when the computer program suddenly went wrong. He collapsed for a long time and began to lose his temper with himself. Or if something can't be found for a while, I start complaining and saying that I litter. When I was a child, I hated him very much, because every time he was in a mood at the beginning, the atmosphere at home was particularly tense.
However, after comparison, I found that when I grow up, I often get upset because of some trivial things, and my endurance is very low. I am perfectionist about everything and often blame myself. Slowly, it becomes a character defect, that is, it is easy to be anxious and self-critical, and it is difficult to tolerate some different personality habits of others.
In fact, a person's strengths and weaknesses are often complementary. People who are too serious are easy to be serious, and people who are too meticulous are easy to find fault. Some defects are difficult to find and correct in themselves, in fact, because it is difficult to really accept "I just have this problem." But if we can find a projection plane and its source, we can gradually forgive and accept our shortcomings. With this beginning, it will be much easier to find a balance in our personalities.
Some bad experiences in high school also laid the groundwork for my depression. Living in high school, still in the liberal arts class. At that time, my personality was very direct, I didn't know how to be flexible, and I couldn't be euphemistic. Probably this personality is very unpleasant. My high school situation is that I am squeezed out by both the dormitory and the class. I was depressed at that time, but I didn't realize how much problem it would cause. I'm just used to being alone and not touching people.
The direct impact of this incident on me later was that I began to subconsciously want to please others, fearing that I had done something that made others unhappy and disliked, so I became very wronged, afraid to make my own demands easily, afraid to accept others' help, and afraid to owe others' favor. In fact, this is a kind of "inferiority complex".
In addition, I also focused on the issue of "personality". The three categories of general personality are narcissistic personality, dependent personality and borderline personality. After comparing the standards, I found that I have obvious narcissistic personality tendency. To clarify, personality type tendency is different from personality disorder, the former is a manifestation of normal personality type, and the latter has certain pathological significance. Knowing one's personality type helps to adjust one's behavior, find out the shortcomings in one's daily life, and live a better life. However, if there is a serious personality disorder, it needs timely treatment.
Contrary to the literal meaning, narcissism and inferiority in narcissistic personality are essentially two sides of the same body: they want to be the center of the crowd and have strong self-confidence, but at the same time they are very fragile, and they may feel depressed when they encounter a little thing; Inexplicably aggressive, belittling others; On the one hand, it despises interpersonal relationships, on the other hand, it is extremely eager to be recognized. A certain degree of slight narcissism is actually beneficial to people's self-expression and self-affirmation, but serious narcissism will affect and destroy interpersonal relationships and cause great pressure on themselves.
When I fully understand my personality tendency, many behavioral defects that were difficult to explain and shy before have scientific analysis basis, such as why I attach too much importance to other people's evaluation, why I sometimes want to belittle others when I hear praise, and so on. In the past, I only felt some shock and extreme self-loathing when I recalled these behaviors afterwards, but now I am more concerned about realizing the root of the problem from the perspective of cognition and then improving it. At the same time, through studying the course, I got more adjustment guidance with practical operation value.
Again, only with full self-understanding and self-acceptance can we really make adjustments and changes.
In the process of self-psychological construction, I also gradually cultivated the ability of self-regulation, self-learning and self-analysis. After all, the only person who really knows you is yourself. In the long process of growing up, what unpleasant childhood experiences have caused you psychological trauma, what words have brought you indelible influence, and what trivial details make up the whole part of your life ... These are all things that only you really know.
In the process of online classes, I have seen many people desperately brush questions for teachers, but most of them can be solved through digestion, understanding and self-analysis after class. Including some friends who usually have similar difficulties, everyone's first reaction is usually that they want to know their own problems, take the initiative to read a lot of information and listen to many other people's stories. However, not many people really go back to dig deep and analyze themselves according to the existing materials after casting their nets widely.
In fact, I personally think that even if all complex questions can be refined into an essentially unified answer standard, every detail is different for different people and different things, which needs to be grasped and grasped by the parties themselves. If you can't really form a set of your own methods, learn to analyze and solve problems by yourself, then no amount of advice from others is of no use.
Through all kinds of comparative analysis, I think the root of my mental illness lies in: firstly, excessive perfectionism and a certain degree of inferiority lead to excessive mental stress; In addition, the personality defects caused by narcissistic personality tendency also have a certain negative impact on my thinking and behavior and interpersonal communication.
Therefore, I worked very hard to adjust my cognitive style in my daily work and life. It is not easy to change cognitive habits. This requires constant self-reminding. It was difficult at first, and there was often frustration and obvious pain. But you must not give up. Just stick to it and you will get better slowly.
Conversation can greatly relieve stress, which is an important help I found when I reviewed my experience later.
I saw a more effective help measure in an article by KY, which is that patients can have a very close communication object, and this object needs to constantly receive information and listen, and communicate with patients more. Because the patient's own mood fluctuates greatly, at this time, the object needs to remain in a stable state, showing understanding, patience and understanding, so that the patient can rely on it.
In addition, I began to get in touch with fitness, and began to exercise from August 20 16. At the same time, adjust diet, go to bed early and get up early, and change bad living habits. Personally, cultivating a new interest is also a good way to adjust.
Drug withdrawal began at the end of May in 20 16, and conscious self-suggestion and adjustment began in June in 20 16. On September 20 16, psychological reconstruction and repair were gradually carried out, and psychological online courses were taken. From 2065438+2007, I feel that my state has obviously recovered and improved. Although I am occasionally affected by psychological defects, I can adjust quickly through conversation and analysis.
I am completely different from myself a year ago. I have become less anxious, have more control over my behavior, feel more practical and confident, and have more confidence in my future life after overcoming this difficulty. I started going to the gym in March this year. In the past two months, I have made little achievements and a great sense of accomplishment.
Now I am a energetic girl, trying to make every day happy and complete. I sincerely hope that friends who encounter the same difficulties can be like me.
Best wishes.