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

Chapter 17 Primary treatment of depression (6)
He was depressed because other colleagues had better relationships than he had with them, and thus concluded that he was an unloved wretch and a loser.Under this kind of self-evaluation, how can you make yourself have a good mood?How can I be confident in my relationships?

Negative Thoughts: I am an unloved wretch and a loser.Correction: Just because they have a better relationship doesn't mean I'm bad, after all everyone has their own type.Maybe we're not good friends, but that doesn't mean I'm a loser, or that I'm not cute.After all, celebrities are not liked by everyone, but this does not mean that celebrities are a failure.And I don't have to be liked by everyone to prove my worth.Only by giving up "greed" can I face the reality calmly. If I keep holding on to the concept of "let all people accept and like me", I will not be able to objectively evaluate myself and others.

Being criticized, things are not done well, and you see yourself as a loser who can't do anything well. This kind of thinking is too narrow and sloppy.It is precisely because of this hasty way of thinking that we cannot afford to fail.

Negative belief: I will accomplish nothing and am destined to be a complete failure.Correction: I was behaving badly, not satisfying others, and feeling bad about myself.But "feeling" does not represent reality. After all, other people's opinions cannot determine what kind of person I am.When I am hurt and denied by others, I cannot continue to "sprinkle salt" in my wounds.I am my friend, not my enemy, and there is no need to have trouble with myself.Accepting the fact that you can't do everything well, instead of demanding and demanding yourself with excessively high standards, is the first step in self-acceptance.

There are always people in this world who do better than us and perform well.If you think you are worthless just because others are better, can you feel worthwhile only by being "No. 1"?If you use this standard to measure, presumably only "No.1" is valuable in this world, and everyone else is worthless.

Negative beliefs: No one will like me, I am worthless compared to others.

Correction: There are people who do everything better than me and perform well, but that doesn't mean I have to be like them, or that I'm a failure.After all, "There are people beyond people, and there is a sky beyond the sky", if you always compare with successful and outstanding people, most people must be losers.I'm just an ordinary person, there are things I can do well, and there are things I'm not as good as others.This is normal, if everything is good and everything is excellent, then only a superman can do it.I don't need to force myself to be a superman, and I don't need to use superman's standards to measure myself and deny myself.Even if I don't do well in some things, even if some people are better than me in some ways, it doesn't mean that I am a worthless person.The value of a person does not come from doing everything well, but from working hard on what he can do well.

In a depressed state, although it is difficult for us to experience the feeling of happiness, this does not mean that others will always be happy.Life is like this, there is always a rising and falling curve, there is no need to fantasize about life too beautifully.

Correction: Depression is a psychological disorder, but it is not a terminal illness. As long as you work hard and find the crux of depression, you will always get out.Therefore, the important thing now is not to focus on whether depression can be cured, but to focus on what is important to you in life and where you can start working hard.Although other people are not depressed, they will always encounter various problems.Life is not always smooth sailing, there are always difficulties and obstacles, and depression is just one of the many difficulties we encounter.Take up the burden of solving the problem first, and then you can solve the problem, instead of defeating yourself before you start.Although I don't have the confidence to get better now, as long as I act, there will be strength.Step by step, you will always reach your goal.

practice test
It is better to verify with action and practice than to live in self-centered thinking blindly.To discover the truth instead of indulging in a world of self-fabrication and fantasy.When we have the courage to face the reality that scares us, we will find that the fear does not come from the outside world, it has always existed in our own hearts.When we are no longer trapped by fear and dare to pursue the life we ​​yearn for, we may find that everything is not as scary as we thought.You can never learn to swim without jumping into the water.Life is an adventure, and if you don't take any risks, life is doomed to be dull.

If you think that you will be rejected by others if you are not good at speaking, then you need to maintain your true colors and communicate with people, and use facts to prove everything-whether you are really rejected by others.When you can take this step bravely, you may find that being talkative is not the only important aspect of interpersonal success.When you are broken up or abandoned, you may doubt your own value, thinking that you are not good or cute, and you are treated like this by others.Despite such worries, we still need to face life bravely, and maybe one day you will find that you are not as bad as you thought.When you are worried that your mistakes or shortcomings will disappoint or alienate your friends, then we can also ask them face to face what they really think and feel, which may be far from what we think.

Because of lack of courage, we lose many opportunities and possibilities.But after all there is nothing worse than depression, so why not give it a go?It's better than living in a world of self-pity and self-closing.Many patients fail to get out of depression because they are already living in "compromise" and have become accustomed to a life of fantasy and escape.In fantasizing and escaping, he doesn't have to face the reality and the fear in his heart, and the price he pays for this is that he is willing to work with depression.So if you want to truly redeem yourself, you must first muster the courage to face life and the fear in your heart.Otherwise, everything is empty talk, and the whole person can only live in hopeless struggle.

Other ways to challenge negative thinking

information card technology

Information card technique: prepare some cards, write down the negative thoughts we often have on the cards, and write the challenges to this negative thinking.When we fall into some kind of negative thinking again, we can use the content on the card to help us get rid of the trouble of negative thinking.

Li Fang is a steady and quiet girl, but because her relatives preferred lively children when she was young, she felt left out.Since then she has envied those bright kids because they are more popular and valued.Later, when she grew up, although her friends liked her very much, she often felt inferior because of her stability and quietness, because she thought this character trait was a defect, and this character trait was not likable.She doesn't think about it when the relationship is harmonious, but when there is a problem in the relationship, such as when she has conflicts with a good friend, or is not taken seriously in a new group, she will start to blame herself and feel bad about herself. Satisfied, and even more think that they are worse than those cheerful girls.So she was pessimistic about the future and disappointed in herself.

She made the information card below for herself.

I am not lively and cheerful enough, so no one will like me. Challenge: Everything has two sides. Although a stable and quiet personality cannot be welcomed by everyone, and cannot attract the attention of others all at once in a new group, this kind of Personality will give people a sense of solidity and trustworthiness, so in this sense this is also an advantage.Of course there will be people who don't like my personality, but I don't have to please everyone and make everyone satisfied with me. I just need to satisfy the people I like and like me.And whether you can be welcomed by others and whether you can become friends with others cannot be judged only from the aspect of "whether you can speak".I need to slowly come to terms with my own inadequacies and not fantasize about being accepted by everyone, which only makes me hypersensitive to other people's judgments and makes me more nervous.

I am a loser, and I will never be able to successfully challenge: "I am a loser", this is an all-or-nothing thinking, maybe I have not achieved the success I expected in some things, but this does not mean Seeing that I am a loser.Even if I don't have any achievements now, I can't deny the value of my whole person because of this. "Never can make it" is an emotional reasoning, and while I feel that way now, the feeling doesn't represent reality.In fact, there are times when I do well, and I can't deny all my achievements and progress just because of my feelings.I am a person who is easy to criticize myself, but I have to slowly learn to discover my strengths and efforts.Overcoming depression requires encouragement, persistence, and time for yourself, rather than just trying to get on with yourself.

I am a person of no value Challenge: A person cannot simply be measured by being valuable or worthless.Although I am depressed now, although I can't see the hope of the future, although it seems that the people around me are better than me, these are not the evidence and reasons that I am worthless.Feeling that a person is worthless does not mean that the person is really worthless.Sometimes that lack of worth comes from having too high expectations of ourselves.In all fairness, I'm a worthwhile person, just not as high as I'd expect.I need to lower my demands on myself, instead of blindly measuring myself by what is valuable or not.

No one really cares about me, and friends are untrustworthy challenges: Maybe others don't care about me as much as I think, but it doesn't mean that friends don't care about me at all.Either my friends care about me, or my friends don't care about me. This is an all-or-nothing thinking. In reality, many things are not so absolute.Even the people we hate are not bad at all.Likewise, even the people we like aren't all right.Maybe there is something about us that others don't like, and of course there are some things that other people do that don't satisfy us.But judging whether others really care about us and are trustworthy, we can't make such extreme judgments just from a momentary emotion or something, but from a long-term perspective.If in the long run it turns out that other people really don't care about me at all and can't be trusted, then I can slowly lower my expectations of others.But remember: don't place too high demands on others, after all, no one is perfect.

Adventurous
Get up from where you fell, and start working where you can.Accept the challenge, give yourself the opportunity to try, to face the unknown.

Li Meng is a girl who dropped out of high school. Although it has been a long time since this failure, she still has no confidence in herself.She is very afraid of making mistakes at work. She thinks that making mistakes means that she has poor ability and slow response, so she becomes cautious at work.When she finds that she is not doing well and her performance is not good enough, she worries that people around her will look down on her and her boss will fire her.In order to avoid this from happening, she will fire the boss before the boss fires her.Although this will make her lose her job, it will make her feel safe-this result is much better than being fired and leaving in despair under the eyes of others.So "six months" has become her work nightmare-from leaving school to now, she has not had a job for more than six months.

After treatment, she chose to take a risk.She no longer gives up easily at work. No matter how much she worries about being fired or being discovered by others for her poor performance, she must speak with facts and wait for the boss to fire her first, instead of quitting early as in the past .

After hard work, she finally persisted in a job for more than a year. Although she did not get rid of depression, she finally regained her confidence in work.

Of course, every challenge comes with risks, so prepare for the worst.Don't blame yourself because things don't go well, don't force yourself to succeed, and don't use failure as a basis for denying yourself.After all, daring to try is already a kind of success and a kind of progress.Many times we are overwhelmed by fear, because of fear we miss a lot of things that we could have worked hard and pursued, and because of missing and giving up, we are more disappointed in ourselves and more depressed.Therefore, when we can face the worst results, dare to face failure and dissatisfaction, and no longer regard success as the only acceptable result, we will be more free and confident.

Positive self-suggestion

Sometimes using autosuggestion to fight against negative thinking can also achieve unexpected results.When we are depressed, we are often "poisoned" too deeply, and can only listen to the voice of self-denial, which is more in line with our "taste", while the opposite voice will be selectively ignored by us.Even when someone says to us, "You're fine, you're great!" we take it as a compliment or a hypocritical polite remark, rather than thinking that we really are.Therefore, when we feel unconfident about ourselves and hopeless about the future, we can try to say some positive and encouraging words to ourselves, keeping them as short, practical and easy to remember as possible.

I can overcome all difficulties!
I can get things done bit by bit!
People should live for the present, not be depressed for tomorrow!
I am honest, kind, sincere and hardworking, so I am a good person, although not perfect!

Sometimes the key to success is that we don't give up despite the dire prospects!
The best way to get love is to live a good life alone!
Dare to take risks, if you can't take any risks, you will lose friendship, love, career, dreams and other things that make life colorful!

Only by taking up the burden of solving the problem can the problem be solved!
Only by overcoming inertia, the problems of life will be easily solved!

If I can get through yesterday, I can get through today, there is no need to think about what will happen tomorrow!

Never give up; never, never give up; never, never, never give up!
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step; a nine-story platform begins with soil!
I'm fine, normal, everything is fine!

…When my brain told me no and advised me to give up, I also doubted these encouraging words countless times, and sometimes felt that the above words were a kind of self-deception.But then I realized: Since there are different angles of seeing things, why can't I appreciate myself from the most beautiful angle?A thing will always have success and failure before there is no result, why can't I give myself courage?Why don't you help yourself, instead of dismantling your own platform?When I made progress bit by bit, when I saw hope in my progress, and when I gained strength from hope, I no longer doubted the above words, but these words became my "motto" when I faced difficulties.

(End of this chapter)