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

Chapter 16 Primary treatment of depression (5)
The same is true for others. There is no absolute love and absolute trust in this world.Even if you have been deceived and hurt to a certain extent, when you label the other party, you must first ask yourself: Is it too early to draw this conclusion?Especially if you are in a depressed state. "Long distance knows horsepower, time sees people's hearts", don't label others with extreme evaluation too early because of a moment or an incident.

negative expectations about the future
Sometimes, we become our own "directors" unintentionally, and often get caught up in the "plots" we have written and directed.Just like Kazama in the episode "Crayon Shin-chan: Nutritional Lunch", when he spilled his nutritional lunch, he tried to pick up the spilled food on the ground, but he found it was futile to do so, and then in his brain The impact of this incident on his life emerged: Even if I went to elementary school, "When you go to kindergarten, you put nutritious lunch..." the classmate said.Even if I go to high school, "When you go to kindergarten, you put nutritious lunch..." the classmate said.Even if I grow up, "Kazama, when you go to kindergarten, you put nutritious lunch..." said the new wife.Even if I become a grandfather, "Grandpa, when you go to kindergarten, you put nutritious lunch..." the grandson said.Even if I die, "This person, when he was in kindergarten, he gave nutritious lunch..." the younger generation said. "My future is completely ruined." Kazama finally said in despair.

Although it seems that this is just a joke arranged in the plot, but this joke will actually be staged in real life.

A girl who is about to graduate from university, because the teacher said: "You are too introverted, not cheerful, and not easy to get close to." Since hearing this sentence, she often has scenes after work in her mind: if I work, no one likes me, I will be alone; if the unit travels together, no one likes to sit next to me; if I go to a hotel, no one likes to share a room with me; because no one likes to talk to me, I I can only bury my head and insist on finishing my daily work... But what kind of future and fun can there be in this way? My life is completely ruined. It seems that I can't adapt to such a world.

Because our thinking has the characteristics of "automaticity" (generated automatically, without conscious control) and "germinative" (connection from one point to one surface), so we will be affected by others' words, eyes, and subtle actions. An action or a small setback in life is associated with future failures and past unpleasant experiences.We zoom in from one point to the line of the whole life, as if the whole life is hopeless, everything is ruined.But is this really the case? The final ending of "Crayon Shinchan: Nutritious Lunch" is: an extra set of nutritious lunch was delivered that day, so the children all ate their lunch. While everyone was eating, Kazama ran in, took off his clothes, and said loudly: " It’s not good, the robbers snatched away the nutritious lunch, and even though I resisted desperately, my clothes were also taken away.” It was originally a lie woven to escape responsibility, but in the end it became a joke for Xiaoxin to laugh at him .So don't fall into this self-made trap, maybe it's not as bad as you think.

How to Find Negative Thoughts
use thought notebook

When we are troubled by negative emotions or experience some events that frustrate us, we can record the thoughts in our brain at that time at a convenient time.It is necessary to prepare a notebook dedicated to recording this kind of thinking, and insisting on recording is the first step in self-understanding, from which we can find out which thoughts we are bound by.

If emotions could speak what would it say to me

Sometimes mood swings seem to come out of nowhere and can be confusing.At this time, we can experience obvious mood changes, but we don't know what caused the mood swings.If so, we need to stop and ask ourselves: If emotions could speak, what would it say to me?
Of course, at first we don't have a good sense of what our emotions are telling us, but don't worry, as long as we are patient, we will understand our emotions better.Like everything else in life, we do better when we get good at it, so develop your savvy slowly.

A male patient suddenly fell into a mood of anger and depression, but he didn't know what triggered his mood swings because he had been having a good time with his friends.Then he tried to ask himself: If emotions could speak, what would it say to me?He finally realized what had happened before: When his friend was driving him out to play, a car blocked their way, and the friend yelled at that person to move the car away.Such a simple thing became the fuse of his mood swings.He finally realized that the depression came from thinking like this: I am not as good as my friend, he dared to speak loudly to others, if it was me, I would not dare, how incompetent and useless I am, I am a total failure.

Try to listen to your emotions instead of suppressing them blindly, and you may find that changes in your emotions are not accidental, always irrational, or incomprehensible.From this, we can discover our own "wounds" and find these "sore spots" before we can prepare for the next step of "healing".

Know Yourself Through "Problems"

Figuring out what's on your mind can be difficult, and in addition to the methods mentioned above, we can also find negative thoughts by asking ourselves questions.Suppose you tried hard to do something but didn't do it well, and you feel disappointed and depressed. At this time, you can ask yourself the following questions:
How do I see myself?
How will others see me?

How does this matter affect my future?

One patient often blamed himself for not meeting the needs of others, even if the person who asked him for help did not have a good relationship with him.When he explored the significance of this matter to him through the above three questions, he came up with the following answers:
How do I see myself?
I am a selfish person.

How will others see me?

Others will definitely not like me and think I'm bad.

How does this matter affect my future?

No one likes to be my friend, and I will be alone for the rest of my life.

It is precisely because of this negative expectation of himself, others, and the future that he takes a small matter so seriously and devalues ​​himself for not helping others.

learn to feel
In a depressed state, we tend to dwell on a feeling and rarely analyze it.It's as if my emotions are falling from the sky, and I can't find any reason.Whoever suffers or is sad will always know why he is suffering and why he is sad.If you ask a depressed person what is the cause of his sadness, what is suppressing him, he will answer: I don't know, I can't explain it.

The task of psychotherapy is to open the door to feelings for patients.Richard O'Connor believes that patients themselves can do something about it.You can try to find the reason for feeling paralyzed by using an "emotional diary."The patient should record in this diary the events of the day: who did what?Under what circumstances did it happen?What thoughts, fantasies, and memories have I had this day?O'Connor admits that for people with depression, documenting these events can be difficult at first.But as long as they can keep at it, over time they may find a link between the event and depression.They will be able to learn to consciously feel the occurrence of events, and they will find that their depression does not suddenly "fall from the sky", but in many cases has its own reasons.

This is best done in writing.Psychotherapist O'Connor's advice: "It's best to keep your journal at the same time every day. Don't limit your thoughts and feelings, just write what comes to mind. Go through what you write every week and try to summarize your feeling patterns .”

Many people keep journals when they are young, and some can recall how much it meant to them every day.Journaling is a kind of self-talk, which can reduce stress and clarify many problems like talking with friends.

"Self-understanding" is mentioned in many places in this book, and some readers may be confused about "self-understanding".

Not very important.Just like many patients who come for treatment, they are more looking forward to "a method", this magical method can quickly help him get out of depression.However, if the so-called suggestions and methods are provided without "understanding", I believe it will not really help the patient, nor will the patient really come out of depression.Because "treatment" comes after "understanding".Only when we have "self-understanding", know what kind of person we are and why we fall into depression, can we get out of depression.

How to Challenge Negative Thoughts
Since emotions and thoughts are linked, changing our negative thoughts can improve our emotions.The above has talked about the characteristics of negative thinking and how to find it. This section will focus on explaining how to challenge negative thinking.

Rational thinking
Rational thinking has the characteristics of liking to test and verify, and unwilling to be influenced by emotions and draw conclusions hastily.Sometimes, our thinking is easily affected by emotions, but we don't know it, we are blindly indulging in it, taking imagination as reality and one-sided views as conclusions.So, we have to treat the "conclusion" as a hypothesis, no matter how real you feel that you are failed, incompetent, unlovable, and worthless, these are just hypotheses.We have to verify whether they are real and in line with objective reality, or because we focus too much on the negative aspects of ourselves and ignore the positive qualities.

When you deny yourself because of the disapproval of others, are you ignoring your own strengths?
When you feel worthless because of failure, have you forgotten your past successes?
When you feel inferior because of your own shortcomings, have you forgotten the fact that no one is perfect?
Feeling lost when you aren't loved or noticed by some, fantasizing about being popular with everyone?
When you become self-pitying because of setbacks, do you forget that life is a journey full of hardships?

It is not my responsibility to have conflicts with my colleagues. After all, it is a matter between two people, and there is no need for me to bear it alone.Even good and successful people have relationship problems, and it's not just me.Sometimes, even hard communication may not be able to resolve all conflicts, after all, the world itself is not so "harmonious".Just because I can't get along with someone doesn't mean I can't get along with other people, and there's no reason to doubt myself.Although I can't see the truth now because of emotional reasoning, I will try to listen to the voice of reason instead of blindly criticizing myself.

If someone finds out my low mood and starts to stay away from me and doesn't like me, I really have to wonder if he likes me as a person or my "emotions".If others leave me because of my "emotions", then such a friend is not what I really need.Everyone has bad moods, and I am the same. I am just an ordinary person, not a superman, so I don't need to force myself to be a "pistachio" who is happy all day long, and there is no need to get rid of it through happiness. please others.I want to figure out the reason for my bad mood, not deny myself because of it.

A failure does not mean the failure of my whole person. Successful people also fail, so why should I have trouble with myself?I didn't live up to my expectations on some things, but weren't my expectations too high?Of course some people do better than me and perform well, but it doesn't mean that I have to be like them. "The ruler is shorter and the inch is longer", I don't need to always compare my shortcomings with others.It's better to start from where you can work hard than to feel sorry for yourself all the time.How would I treat a friend if he failed?Is it to encourage him, or to say how bad and a failure he is?Why can't I treat myself like a friend?Why do I kick myself when I fall?Learning to encourage myself and still believe in myself when I fail and feel frustrated is a lesson I need to learn.I need to slowly learn to accept who I am, even when I fail.

Change with "heart"

Being attentive means cultivating love, compassion, patience and understanding for yourself.In addition to the method of changing yourself, what is more important is a kind of love and acceptance of yourself from the heart.It is necessary to turn "knowing" into a kind of "perception" that belongs to oneself, not just on the surface.Only this kind of deep-seated transformation can produce the effect of "qualitative change".When some patients use "methods" to change their negative thinking, they only stay at the level of the method, without turning the method into an inner perception, and the method without inner perception will become pale and powerless.

Self-criticism is like a tyrant who lacks love and compassion for himself.As a result, I see myself as the object of criticism instead of the person who needs love.Therefore, we must slowly cultivate compassion and love for ourselves, and treat ourselves like friends, instead of blindly condoning the harshness of the internal tyrant.For the treatment of depression, we not only need to change negative thinking, but also change our attitude towards ourselves.If we don't really love ourselves and see ourselves as our real friends, just engaging in "cold" thinking exercises won't work because we don't see ourselves as our allies.

Getting out of depression is also a process of learning how to get along with yourself and how to love yourself.When we fall down, we should support ourselves; when we see no hope, we should encourage ourselves; when we feel worthless, we should tell ourselves that we are not so bad; when the whole world abandons you, You have to be the one who still loves yourself in the end, give yourself time, let yourself try; give yourself courage, let yourself move forward...

(End of this chapter)