Always sprinting forward without stopping, unable to stop, because as soon as I stopped, I felt panic...
Obviously good enough, but always feel that they are not good enough...
You can never trouble others, but you dare not refuse others' requests...
Even if you have worked very hard, but the sense of self-worth is still very low, when a person often emo, feel that living in a set, can not choose the life you like but still have to insist on pain, feel that life has no meaning...
If you have the above symptoms, then you are most likely a "overexerted" person.
"Overexertion" is actually a word that we rarely mention. We grew up in a culture that celebrates hard work and the pursuit of success. From childhood to adulthood, everyone asks us to work hard, to be self-motivated, to try not to trouble others, and to contribute more to the family and society.
Hard work is a very good quality. But a one-sided emphasis on effort can also lead to a bad outcome. That is, many of us only have the experience of always trying to reach the goal, but we have never cared about our own inner experience.
In recent years, with the continuous development of social economy and the elimination of material scarcity, we have begun to be more and more aware of the importance of inner problems.
In the book "Overexertion: Why Do You Always Feel Not Good Enough", Zhou Muzi, a well-known post-80s psychological counselor in Taiwan, cares for the reader's heart through the stories of 8 counselors.
Bipolar, addictive, panic, overeating, melancholy, cold violence, emotional loss of control... Although the 8 counselors in the book have different symptoms, they are all "children" who cannot get out of the hurt influence of their original families and parents and use "masochistic efforts" to gain recognition and value.
Through 4 interviews, Zhou Muzi helped them look inside, find reasons, epidetical understanding, practical actions, and finally reconcile with themselves, achieve inner self-consistency and peace, move towards true warmth, and open a new life.
It's almost the New Year, a busy year, about to return home, accept the "grade acceptance" of your parents and family members, you may be able to find some resonance and comfort in the story of the doctor who tore in the book in the "power" and self-choice of his parents, gradually unbalanced, angry, and emotionally out of control at work, and can also get healing and self-consistency from his and Zhou Muzi's conversations again and again, and ease the pain of the same brick mover, in order to survive, involuntarily.
01
"Every day is like drowning, because if it is not "useful", it is useless."
"If it's not 'useful' and you don't work hard, what do you have to do in this world?"
Yuren, a young and promising resident physician who is usually called Mr. Good, cannot control his emotions at work, frequently clashes with patients, colleagues, professors, and even has emotional breakdowns, and is suggested by friends to conduct psychological counseling.
In the first interview, Yuren said that the hospital where he was located was one of the best in the local area, the strong were like a forest, and the "law of the jungle" was followed here, and everyone rushed forward with all their might, thinking that only those who lost would leave.
The excellence of his companions, the life and death of the patient, overwhelmed Yuren. Here, even crying is causing trouble to others.
In the observational variety show "Heartwarming Offer 3 Medical Student Season", Liu Chang, a postdoctoral scholar at Zhejiang University, in her clinical internship, made her emotionally collapse and even began to doubt her own proud learning ability.
"Patients don't need useless doctors; and in this environment, they can only survive if they keep trying to be strong and great."
You have to be "useful", which is for the needs of others; you have to be "great", which is to find the value and place to survive in this environment. When the two are combined, they become overwhelming pressures and cause Yuren to be unable to escape from the predicament and suffering.
Born as human beings, we have an index of pain and stress that we can afford. Yuren is faced with the daily powerless life, old age, illness and death, causing him great trauma; when the environment can not give too much support, in the face of the needs of work, he must always be exposed to such trauma, no time, no way, to digest or face these post-traumatic emotions, these emotions will inevitably use some other way to make us notice, whether it is anger, anxiety, depression or sadness.
Although we can put a lot of things down for the time being, "turn off the emotions." However, if this ability is used for a long time, even because it is too convenient or helpless, it becomes the norm to adapt to life, so that you are in a state of emotional isolation at any time, it will make people farther and farther away from their feelings, and when they find that something is wrong, it is often very serious.
Yuren is emotionally out of control, and that's one of the reasons.
02
"Dad is the king at home and no one can choose 'what they want'"
If it is so painful, why does Yuren have to be a doctor?
The second time they met, Yujin said it was his father's wish and that no one in his family could choose "what he wanted."
Yujin has a powerful father who requires his family to obey, and a mother who obeys his father unconditionally and commits suicide whenever he hears that he wants to be a doctor. They believe that being a doctor is very faceless, forcing Yuren to practice medicine, and even after Yuren was admitted to the medical department, he set up 10 tables of flowing water and feasted on his neighbors. Later, he also forced his brother to repeat the study to choose a major that they "recognized".
Because the sunk cost is too high, it has become a model of success in the eyes of others. After being admitted to the medical department, Yuren seems to have embarked on a road of no return. Once you leave this path, it means that you have failed, you will be nailed to the pillar of shame, and you will become a degenerate in his population.
Yujin felt tired and felt "why are you staying in this ghost place", but you can't leave it. He felt that there was no choice in life, but he could only take this road hard.
In the observational variety show "Heartwarming Offer 3 Medical Student Season", the topic of how hard doctors are, busy work, huge competitive pressure, and infallible high standards... Every medical student is in awe of the profession of doctor.
He also expressed the pain of being a doctor, but his father would only say that "those who can't do it are people who will never succeed and fail", "those who give up are too weak to resist pressure, so they ruin their lives"...
For the Yuren brothers, their father was very strong, and his emotions were like a ticking time bomb, often blowing up at him. When he "exploded", he would throw things around, yell, and throw Yujin against the wall, but his mother would only cry...
Zhou Muzi told Yuren that regarding his father's emotions, as long as he encounters unplanned or brothers who do not do what they ask, etc., or other uncontrollable things, he will use 'anger' to control the overall situation and control his family.
And when Yuren is familiar with this model, feels the same situation in his daily life, and then is anxious and afraid, he may also imitate his father's way of dealing with it - using "anger" to control, so that things can be returned to the track and become in line with their own wishes.
This is why Yuren loses his temper and gets angry with colleagues, patients, and professors.
03
"Why did I work so hard and still become like my dad?"
In the face of his mother's incompetence and father's tyranny, Yuren, who was once there, could only endure. He had made a wish that when he grew up, he would not become like his parents.
But now, Yuren found that from the mirror, the angry self was exactly like his father, "so terrible"...
Sometimes, we find that we have worked so hard, and some parts of our parents that we do not agree with are still entering our bones and blood and becoming part of the self, which is not a small blow.
For Yuren, the fear that he will have a bad temper or treat others violently like his father for a long time makes him work harder to be a good gentleman, try his best to control his temper, and strive to achieve the standards that his father wants, so that he can survive well under his father's hands; at the same time, he also reminds himself to work harder to improve his ability, hoping that one day he can get rid of his father's fear.
However, after working hard for a long time, some things were still in vain: so hard, but he was still the same as his father, unable to control his temper and hurt the important people around him. This creates a deep "feeling of powerlessness".
At the same time, the habit of using "oneself" to try to satisfy the yuren of others, and finding that it is impossible to complete and meet everyone's needs at work, will further exacerbate this disappointment and powerlessness.
These self-doubts, self-loathing, feeling useless and incompetent, will evoke a deeper sense of "shame", further making Yuren emotionally out of control and blaming others. But he also knew very well in his heart that this was caused by his "insufficient ability"...
04
"It turned out that I was angry with myself and found that I couldn't do it, which made me sad"
Zhou Muzi told Yuren that it was difficult for him to admit that he was "useless" and "not working".
Because "everything must be done and done well, it is useless if it is not done", "he must be useful" is his survival strategy since childhood. In the cruel environment of the hospital, which is full of strength, Yuren's sense of loss of control and disability will make him further anxious, self-loathing, inferior, and then angry.
"Anger" is a powerful, even can "control the whole scene" of the emotion, so it is often used to help cover up those difficult to face the complex emotions, if you can use "anger" to blame things on the environment or others, for some people, it is a useful "defense". Because that allows us not to deal with it, to face our own shame, and to turn to blaming others and demanding others.
This way you will feel better.
However, even if he throws out his sense of incompetence so that he can blame others, Yujin is still disgusted with such a self, because he has been deeply hurt by his father's anger, and he cannot forgive himself for doing things similar to hurting others.
As a result, Yuren oscillates between "blaming himself" and "blaming others." No matter which side it is, he doesn't feel that he is good, and he can't accept such a self.
In fact, yuren's most dissatisfied person is himself. He hated himself for not being strong enough, not useful enough, not strong enough to resist his parents' orders. What he wants to escape from is not only the hospital environment, but also the environment that is not good enough, not perfect enough, not enough to make everyone happy and satisfied.
………
After understanding this, Yuren cried for a long time in front of Zhou Muzi.
05
Acknowledging one's choice is not only acknowledging responsibility, but also acknowledging one's own strength
In the last interview, Yuren said that he had recently been much more relaxed, would no longer lose his temper like before, and would take a more positive and serious look at the profession and job.
Because in self-review, he found that although he hated his father's tyranny, he could not choose the career and life he wanted, which led to the fact that he now seemed to be drowning every day and had to grit his teeth to do it, but in the whole process, he was not completely without choice.
Today's result is that he is actually weighing the pros and cons, thinking that being a "decent" doctor can make himself a better life, and he has the ability to get rid of his father's control.
When Yuren realized that this was his survival strategy, he completely reconciled with himself.
At the same time, in the face of the busy and high pressure of the hospital, in the face of the expectations of his parents and others, he also accepted.
Acknowledging your own choices is not only about taking responsibility for yourself, but also about acknowledging your own strength— believing in your ability to make choices.
However, sometimes because it is too bitter, it is very difficult to admit that it is your own choice. Especially when the people around you are very strict with themselves, and in order to adapt to life, they internalize other people's standards as self-criticism requirements.
Courage is often exhausted under these criticisms.
When we are willing to understand: our choices, just to survive, to adapt, they are not good or bad; when we can give ourselves a little empathy, a little tenderness, some space, can take good care of the self, so that the self can stretch -
The ego will slowly grow strength to face the world; it will also have the courage and flexibility to make other choices in its life.
As a result, we will no longer only strive to achieve the "correct answer" of other people's standards, but will be able to slowly establish our own standards and find the answers to our own lives.
Nowadays, young workers are set in front of the "company" and computers by 996, OKR, DingTalk, etc., and have become a set of people.
When I left the campus, I wanted to make some achievements and live a beautiful vision of a life of satisfaction, pleasure and happiness, which had turned into unfinished rent, eternal bottom savings, and the survival pressure of wanting to resign naked but afraid of unemployment...
When we begin to complain that we are forced by life and reality, unable to make the choices we want, can only painfully adhere to the status quo, and begin to be depressed, unbalanced, and lose our temper...
You can recall Yuren's story, Zhou Muzi's dialogue with him, and ask yourself: Is this the situation completely powerless?
Perhaps, you will have new answers and courage to produce.
At the same time, we should also remind everyone that the stories and related books above are only the sharing of other people's experiences and play a reference role. If you really perceive that you are mentally or psychologically abnormal, please be sure to seek professional help in time.
Finally, I hope that in 2022, we can all be a self-concerned and self-consistent person.
Author: Zhou Muzi, psychological counselor, founder of Xinxi Psychological Counseling Institute. The above content is compiled from "Excessive Effort: You Always Feel Bad Enough" (by Zhou Muzi, published by CITIC Publishing Group in January 2022), the copyright belongs to the book and the author, and the reprint has been authorized.