After her daughter suffered from depression, her mother saved her from suicide with a word
When depression is rampant, sadness becomes the disease of the times. Those misunderstandings, discrimination, and avoidance about depression are all sharp knives inserted into depressed patients. How to fight depression is not only a problem for the patient's family, but also a problem for the whole society.
Author: Lizheng Mom, Blue Oak Column
Author. Senior Children's Emotional Intelligence Guidance Consultant of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of the People's Republic of China, and Promoter of Children's Reading of the Library Society of China
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A study published last summer by the American magazine Ecosphere showed that crayfish lurking in urban waterways "took drugs" and became bold, aggressive, and irritable.
The drug that caused them to "change their nature" was called citalopram, an antidepressant that is taken by 1 in 8 people in the United States.
It's just that no one thought that the reason why crayfish were forced to "take drugs" was innocent, just because the number of people taking this antidepressant was so large that just the drug pollution discharged into sewer overflows, septic tank leaks and wastewater treatment containing drugs in urban waterways was enough to pollute the crayfish's living waters.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 350 million people worldwide suffer from depression, and the WHO predicts that depression will become the number one disease in the global burden of disease by 2030.
According to the report on the development of China's national mental health, at least 95 million people in mainland China suffer from depression, of which 24.6% of adolescents are diagnosed with depression, one in five people.
When we all think that depression is far away from us, we don't know that it has long been lurking around our lives. Even, at any time, he may be eyeing you, me, him.
Depression: It's hard to talk about, but there's nowhere to escape
"I'm 14 years old. A green, muffled voice came from the other end of the phone.
"Listen to the voice, you are very sad right now. Pei Hong of the Guangzhou Psychological Assistance Hotline tried her best to use a gentle and pleasant voice to comfort the children on the other end of the phone.
As a clinically trained psychological counselor, Pei Hong can already keenly judge whether the other party is on the top of a high-rise building, on an overpass, ready to jump at any time, or in the bathroom or in a no-man's land, through the details of the voice on the phone: faint sobbing, rapid breathing, and unusual speech speed.
In recent years, the psychological assistance hotline has been particularly busy, and the number of consultation calls for teenagers has increased significantly. Due to the shortage of manpower, the 24-hour hotline has only a 10% connection rate, but it still pulls many teenagers who are on the verge of death.
"I had suicidal thoughts 100 times a day, but my parents never found out. "This is the confession of a depressed teenager.
According to the data of the "China Health and Family Planning Statistical Yearbook", suicide among adolescents aged 10-25 in mainland China can be ranked among the top three causes of death from non-disease causes. Almost one in seven adolescents has had suicidal thoughts.
When these living lives pass away, the vast majority suffer from depression.
"In the past two or three years, more and more children have come to the clinic for suicide, self-harm, and school weariness. Liang Yuezhu, from the Child Psychiatric Department of Beijing Anding Hospital, said, "Self-injury is a way for children to cope, some are to attract attention, and some children are extremely painful in their hearts, so they scratch their bodies and replace psychological pain with physical pain." They also tend to wear long sleeves in the summer and don't want to be seen with scars. ”
In the large-scale documentary "How We Fight Depression", Zi Ye, who had a positive encounter with depression, had self-harm and committed suicide.
She found that she couldn't control her emotions, and even as small as cutting jams, not being able to find a scissor sleeve could make her suddenly anxious and irritable. Self-harm became the only way for her to calm down, and only when she saw the blood gushing out could she calm down.
She also wants to save herself, and uses tantrums, throwing things, etc., in the hope of getting the attention of her parents. But countless requests for help were blocked by parents with "hypocrisy, doing, nothing to do".
When her parents finally relented and took her to the hospital and got the diagnosis of depression, Ziye was relieved: "Finally, there is something written in black and white, which can prove that I really need to rest..."
And Ziye's parents came back from the hospital, one acted as if the sky was about to fall, and the other pretended to be calm.
These two completely different reactions are actually distorted views of disease. The panic and shame of depression will make the child be coerced by the shame and shame of "I'm not good" and "my fault", and fall into the helplessness of fighting alone.
In China, more than 70 percent of people with depression are not treated in time. Afraid of being discriminated against, sympathetic, and treated differently, they pretended not to see, avoided the disease, and refused to ask for help, and the condition became more and more serious.
Japanese drama "My Husband Has Depression": "There are too many prejudices and misunderstandings about depression, and I am afraid that no one will understand it, and I don't want to be sympathized with inexplicably."
"At such a young age, where did depression come from?"
Before Su Lin was diagnosed with major depression, her mother behaved like most parents, and she would only blame her son for how he became like this - "lazy and inactive, unwilling to go out, sleeping all day, so old, so ignorant?"
Dr. Liang Yuezhu, who faces countless patients with depression every day, said——
"Parents can't see the pain in their children's hearts, they often say to their children, you don't have to worry about eating and drinking now, you are much better than when I was a child, what is there to be uncomfortable, or this is not a big deal. A few words can leave the child speechless. By the time parents finally realize their children's problems and hope that their children will open their hearts and talk to themselves, the doors of their children's hearts have long been closed. ”
A mother once brought a girl to her for a consultation, because the Chinese teacher found that the 9-year-old child had written shocking words on the test paper, all of which were: want to die, commit suicide, jump off a building, jump into the sea, kill, die......
"This kid must have some extreme ideas, otherwise he wouldn't have written such an answer. And her depression has been there for some time, but her parents have not noticed it. ”
Parents are not anxious about how to treat their children's diseases, but hope that the doctor can prescribe medicine, so that the children can finish eating and not delay school.
Not believing, unwilling to face, and desperate to solve the problem are common manifestations of depression faced by the vast majority of parents. And the child who was already standing on the edge of the cliff could not find a hand that could hold him, and in the end he easily fell into the abyss in despair.
By the time parents realize the seriousness of the problem, it will be too late.
Zhong Hua, who is in high school, is lucky compared to most patients.
When she nervously confided in her parents, saying that she had a tendency to be depressed.
was not shocked and surprised, did not cry and grabbed the ground, did not resist acceptance, and did not feel that her daughter was hypocritical, the mother opened her arms and responded to her for the first time - "Then let's take a leave of absence from school and recuperate for a while!"
Afterwards, Zhong Hua commented on that moment: "This sentence saved my life." ”
Because at that time, if her parents had ignored her pleas for help, as other parents did, she might have completely collapsed: "I should have jumped out of the window." ”
Although their hearts are actually shattered, and they don't know anything about depression, they are stable at the most critical time because of their deep love and trust for their daughter.
It was precisely because they sensed their daughter's signal for help in time and responded with love that they caught the girl who was falling into the abyss and let her find hope for life again.
However, how many depressed teenagers have the courage to speak out and get the response they want?
How can good people be depressed?
"Good people, why are you suddenly depressed?" This is the sigh and emotion of many people around them after they are diagnosed.
But the cause of depression is never "overthinking", and this puzzle is sometimes not understood by the patients themselves. The last sentence of Leslie Cheung's suicide note to the world was: "I haven't done anything bad in my life, why is this."
"Depression is like a black dog, bite me at every opportunity", as powerful as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, led LinkedIn through the most difficult period of World War II, but he could not defeat the opponent of depression in his life.
Depression has never been synonymous with being weak.
Among the famous big people, there are many people who suffer from depression. Goethe, Schumann, Hugo, Erf, Martin Luther, Tolstoy, and Hemingway, as the representative of the "tough guy", when faced with the overwhelming attack of melancholy, they, like everyone else, will fall into the dark valley and survive.
"Don't say to people with depression: don't think too much. Yan Chaogan of the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences reminded in particular.
Because, depression is first and foremost a disease of the brain. There are many people who will say to people with depression, you don't think like this, you just think too much, you just do too much, and you are so uncomfortable and want to commit suicide now. In fact, the depressed patient's brain has already undergone some changes, and these thoughts are beyond his control, so we should care more about the depressed patient.
Depression is not a simple emotional problem, the cause of depression innate factors play a role, genetic or developmental variations may lead to some people are "prone to depression". There are also inducing factors of the acquired environment, as well as psychosocial factors, physiological factors, major life events, and so on. Not only does this life-torn illness not have a clear appearance, but it is also difficult to find a clear cause.
No one deliberately makes themselves unhappy. Everyone who suffers from depression is a random bite of an apple from God.
We can't empathize, but at least we can not force our so-called positive energy into them. Because, these templates of comforting words are not a soothing blow to them who have lost their ability to be happy, but a more uncomfortable whip. The frustration of "I know everything, but I just can't do it" will crush them even more.
At this time, what they need is not the phrase "you have to be positive and optimistic", but a soft reassuring "no matter what happens, I will be with you".
No denial, no evasion, no accusation, understanding and support are the best medicine.
Acknowledging imperfection is the greatest confidence to resist depression
In "How We Fight Depression", the girl Xiaoping recalled that on the day she was diagnosed with depression, she was greatly relieved, because it meant that she was just sick - "I can still be saved." ”
Helplessness, apprehension, fear, and loneliness are the feelings that many children feel when facing an unknown disease.
Adolescence is a period of high incidence of depression, which is also closely related to the physical development and physical and mental stress of adolescents at this stage.
Unlike an adult's mature brain, it can express itself with words and actions when feeling down. At this stage, children's brains are still not fully developed, and when they are in an emotional storm and are hit by various negative emotions, they cannot find a suitable way to express, how to confide, how to release and manage. So you can only express yourself with actions - depressed, don't speak, don't study, don't go to school, or are anxious, and you can explode at one point, and you are as irritable as thunder.
The seemingly unreasonable rebellion, back-talking, laziness, frequent distraction, and academic regression are actually shrouded in inner sadness and hopelessness, so that they can only find another channel to release.
The children of this generation seem to be materially abundant and have a worry-free life, but the challenges and pressures they face are far more complex than in the past: academic indulgence, cruel competition, endless involution, excessive attention from parents, and lack of self-exploration......
A depressed kid in high school described his life like this-
Since childhood, every day after getting up in the parents' "hurry, hurry" urging to start anxious day, breakfast is a food that can be quickly solved on the road, after arriving at school, you have to start reading and studying in the morning, until the dead of night, there is no time to breathe. Day by day, year by year, like Sisyphus of ancient Greek mythology, pushing a boulder up the mountain, the cycle repeats, endless, making people despair.
When life is like an alarm clock for a long time, just move forward, but only go around in circles in the loop, and can't find meaning. Constant tension, a low level of loss of control, unbearable stress, lack of a buffer zone of negative emotions, the child will get tired, collapsed, sick.
"There is a lot of social pressure, and it is passed down layer by layer, and the weakest link is these children. In order to win at the starting line, very young children have to be involved in the track and under a lot of pressure. If you put too much pressure on your child at the beginning, it will crush your child. ”
Although the causes of depression are very complex, it is undeniable that excessive involution and over-stressful academic competition are the accelerants that ignite the bomb.
When children live in the blueprint planned by their parents since childhood, from primary school to university, they all live a cookie-cutter life of "reading with their heads up and brushing their heads down to brush the questions", grinding away the edges and corners, losing themselves, and finally living as puppets with empty hearts, the changes may become the straw that crushes them. This is also an important reason why the incidence of adolescent depression has increased year by year in recent years.
Zhong Hua's father once said a sentence in the film, which can be regarded as a reminder to parents all over the world - "Do you want your child to succeed or make your child happy?"
Happiness is diminishing, and unhappiness at the age of 10 cannot be made up for at the age of 20. ”
"I'm not flawless. ”
This is the first lesson that every patient trying to get rid of depression will learn from the mouth of a doctor.
This sentence also applies to parents, admitting that there is no perfect child, let alone a perfect life, only love has the power to help children in this changing world, to help children move forward fearlessly.
Fearless of wind and waves, you can ride the wind and waves.
PS: CCTV's documentary "How We Fight Depression" launched in 2021 allows us to see the courage and persistence of this group in the fight against depression, and the powerful power of love, wisdom and willpower. If you are interested in knowing, you can send "Depression" on the homepage to view.