Out of Depression: A Depressed Patient's Successful Self-Help

Chapter 10 Depressed Life (5)
Although I took the first step, the sense of failure and incompetence still accompanied me, and I still felt inferior when I was with others.But no matter what, I finally started to get in touch with and get closer to others, and I am no longer so lonely and closed. Although I still behave a little cautious and unconfident in front of people, I am much stronger than myself who dared not get in touch with people in the past.Although I didn't suddenly become a different person, at least I learned to encourage myself because of my small progress, instead of blindly picking on my faults and shortcomings.Maybe falling into depression is because I am too picky and demeaning myself, and I can’t see my own efforts and progress. I always compare myself in reality with myself in imagination, and I don’t accept myself in reality, and I don’t find that. The imagined self does not actually exist, and blindly criticizes the real self with the ideal standard.Knowing this made me feel a lot easier.

Because I need to do "thought records" and "information cards" (a cognitive therapy treatment technique, mainly to change self-negative thinking), I often carry a red notebook with me, which records my daily emotional state. Things that fluctuate and affect my emotions and my thoughts at the time, and then evaluate the correctness of this idea, instead of denying myself completely.After that, I realized little by little that my self-denial was more of a tone: loser, incompetent, unlovable, unworthy of love, a worthless, useless person, etc.In the past, I have always accepted this kind of brain's evaluation of myself, but "Getting Out of Depression" told me that these are thoughts, which do not represent yourself, let alone you.One part of your brain tells you no, and advises you to give up. You have to convince another part of your brain that you can do things well bit by bit.Just like a person with an injured leg, if he can take a small step, it is a big progress. Don’t deny yourself because the progress is too small, and there is no need to evaluate yourself because of the momentary thoughts... In this way, at work, When interacting with friends, whenever self-deprecation and denial appear, I will remind myself: I am not as bad as I think; feeling that I am bad and a failure does not mean that I am really.Feelings can also make mistakes, don’t blindly believe in this sense of failure and incompetence, feelings need to be proved by facts, not blindly agreed.

With the encouragement of these therapeutic words, I started to do many things that I wanted to do but were afraid to do before.Of course, various irrational beliefs and self-deprecating thinking appeared in this process, but I no longer easily believed in self-denial and depreciation, and began to regard this self-denial and depreciation as a hypothesis, and tried to use facts as much as possible. to verify.Later, I found out that I was not a complete loser. Even though I was depressed, I did a lot of things. Although I did not do well in some things, the failure of a certain aspect does not mean the failure of the whole person.The same is true in comparison with others. Being inferior to others in one aspect or several aspects does not mean that I am really inferior to others. After all, I also have my advantages, such as honesty, hard work, sincerity, kindness... Even if there are people It's okay to be better than me in every aspect, after all, there are always people who are better than me, but that doesn't mean I'm a failure.

When I try to look at things and evaluate myself from another angle, I see a different "scenery".In the past, my mistake was that I expected too much to prove myself with "big success", but didn't know how to encourage and support myself in the little progress.When you don't achieve "big success", you think you have failed, and then you lose the courage and motivation to make further efforts, and you end up seeing yourself as a loser and a wretch.In fact, the crux of the problem is not that I am really incompetent, but that I have set too high demands on myself, just like when I just started learning to drive, I asked myself to be a skilled driver. I will compare myself with those better drivers, ignore my achievements and efforts, and make myself more depressed and exhausted.The more this is the case, the more I fall into a misunderstanding, the more I look forward to a miracle, the more unbearable the reality is.Later, I finally realized that as a person, you don't need to prove yourself with "big success". In many cases, what you need to do is to accept your imperfect self.Otherwise, success will be a difficult road for you because you beat yourself up before you even started.And as a person, you don't need to do everything well, and you don't need to be excellent in all aspects to accept yourself, because everyone has limitations and bad things, and this cannot be a reason to deny yourself.

Go forward
Depression can be a reason for one to escape from reality - I'm depressed now, so don't try too hard, let's talk about it when I get better.Because of depression, I missed and gave up my studies, friendship, love, dreams... I can no longer escape, I can no longer fantasize, I can no longer continue to deceive myself with "when I get better, everything will be different", I must face it Real life, to pursue the life you want.

When I started self-healing, I didn't become confident and cheerful all of a sudden, but I had the courage and motivation to move forward, and I wouldn't knock myself down because things didn't go well or failed.At that time, I met a girl through a friend, and because we played together a few times, I had a crush on her.Now that I think about it, maybe it wasn't love, it was like a test, an attempt to prove my courage.Although I know that I am just an ordinary worker, I am not handsome, and my family background is even more ordinary, so the possibility of failure in pursuing her is very high, but in order to prove my bravery, to make up for past regrets, and to prove that I am not I am a coward like before, even if I fail, it shows that I have the courage to express my love to the girl I like.Under the support of this belief, I started this seemingly impossible task.

I was like a racing driver recovering from a serious illness, eager to get back to the track, the track, and my normal life. I began to pursue her with a bit of blind tenacity, even when she clearly showed her love for her. The same is true of my repulsion and disgust.My friend taught me some "tricks" for chasing girls, so I became more active in pursuing her, such as picking her up from get off work or treating her to dinner.She was working as a salesperson in a shopping mall at the time, and I would often go to the shopping mall to find her. Although sometimes she would deliberately avoid me, but a reckless player would not notice these details in the game.

Once, she invited me to her house for dinner.I don't know if it was out of friendship or out of sympathy for a fool. Anyway, I was very excited to be a guest at her home, but I failed because of lack of preparation.

At the time, I was in my early 20s, so I was dressed very casually — a crew-shaved head, a black T-shirt, and homemade beggar pants, looking like a punk.

I went to her house with her in this outfit, just as her parents were there.Her mother is a very generous woman. When she smoked, she asked me if I smoked, and I didn't know how to be reserved, so I took one casually, so that I didn't look like a "serious person".It was the first time to be a guest at her home, not to mention that she didn't bring a gift, and she had dinner with their family very "generously". Although she was a little nervous, she still pretended to be calm.After dinner, I left without knowing it, and chatted with her in her room for a while, and then I didn't know what to talk about, and she also showed sleepiness, so I knew it was time to leave.The way I dressed and behaved that day might make her regret bringing me home.

Maybe it was this failed visit that she later told me not to look for her again.Although this was a blow, it was also a relief, because at that time I couldn't understand the difference between love and liking, and I took this pursuit as a test of my courage. If she didn't reject me, I would I won't give up, I can allow myself to fail, but I don't allow myself to give up halfway, because cowardice and retreat have made me lose too much beauty, even failure is better than escape.My goal has been achieved, so I have a sense of relief after the game. Although the result is not satisfactory, I dare to return to the "runway" again. This is also a kind of success for me. You Sheng's feeling.

I have tried this kind of "blind pursuit" a few times later, but of course they all ended in failure, but in the end I finally overcame the fear of interacting with and being rejected by the opposite sex.Later, I was no longer so blind, because I knew that if I met someone I liked, I would have the courage to pursue it, instead of just running away like in the past.This kind of courage, this kind of self-confidence that is not afraid of failure, may be the biggest gain from the reckless pursuit of the opposite sex at that time.It was precisely because of the hard work and "reckless" courage at that time that I did not miss the person who was really like me again in my later life.

real life

Depression can make people escape from reality and live in their own fantasy.In the realm of fantasy, there is no pain, no despair, no failure, and every day is enjoyment, not suffering.In this world, we become who we want to be, and we live the life we ​​want to live.But the more I indulge in the fantasy world, the more I am far away from my real self and real life, and I will sink deeper into the vortex of depression.The degree of depression is directly proportional to the depth of fantasy. Only by realizing that one is only maintaining a non-existing "utopia" and walking out of the fantasy world can this endless inner struggle be stopped!
(End of this chapter)