Liang Hong
【Editor's Note】
Every year, 10 October, is World Mental Health Day. In recent years, due to the increasing prevalence of depression, it has become one of the most concerned mental illnesses on World Mental Health Day.
On the occasion of this year's World Mental Health Day, we invite writer, scholar, and Professor Liang Hong of the Faculty of Letters of Chinese Min University to talk about depression and introduce a book about depression, "The Devil at Noon: Depression is a Secret You and Me Share."
Special reminder is that in the background music of the video, there is a new song "Diving". This is a public welfare song about depression cooperated by NetEase Cloud Music and Ideal Country and singer Ma Wei, which will be officially launched at 00:00 on October 10.
Depression is just a normal disease, like a cold in the heart, not a flood beast. Let us face depression correctly and help those unfortunate patients to be "reborn" and get out of the haze.
06:31
Video loading...
Scholar Liang Hong on Depression (06:31)
Nowadays, there are more and more people who are depressed around the world, there are pure physiological, there is also a combination of physiology and psychology, I think it is indeed a problem that must be faced.
The story of a depressed patient in Liangzhuangli
I was writing "Ten Years of Liang Zhuang" and communicating with Liang An, and when he talked about his depression, (depression) was actually a relatively unfamiliar term. For the countryside, many times, we do not regard mental illness as a real disease, but feel like a flood beast, once we get it, we become a different kind.
I also heard a story told to me by my family the other day about a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old girl whose parents worked for a long time and lived with her grandmother. Maybe from the age of ten or so, she was a little depressed, at first she didn't speak, then she got up in the middle of the night to run around the village, she may also beat people or cry, self-harm, and (and then) she was sent to a mental hospital in our county. In fact, in the process of hearing this story, what weighed heavily to me was not only the girl's illness, but the attitude of her family towards her, feeling that once she got the disease, it would be incurable, and her family was almost in a state of abandonment for her. Because she was too young, she was not in her 20s like Liang An who was able to save herself. She lived in a mental hospital, and she herself wanted to go home, and her parents were still working outside the home, using the money from part-time work to pay for her hospitalization. At that time, I was asking if her mother or father could come back and take care of her, but no, I thought she was already sick, she was already like this. They still had to earn money to get her in the hospital. It was really sad to hear me at the time, and it could almost be said that if no one paid attention to her, if no one really gave her family or external assistance, maybe she would really be lost.
My friend committed suicide due to depression
My own friend, who also suffered from depression and then committed suicide, was a very famous translator who never told anyone. I don't know how much his mental stress, his self-isolation, will cause him to go to this extreme situation.
But on the other hand, our society has not yet been able to straighten up and say, "Oh I'm not mentally good, I need to take medicine." I feel like it's actually like a cold. First of all, we have to face ourselves, anyone has such a difficult moment, we have to seek professional help; in addition, psychologically, such as friends, parents, doctors, psychological teachers, are very good support, from another level can make our disease can be alleviated.
If we say that the public opinion environment of our whole society has become better, when we say that a certain person is sick and depressed, we do not treat each other differently, then this disease is nothing, it is a normal disease.
Stills from the movie "Husband With Depression"
What should young people do if they are depressed?
Especially young people, I think we may encounter many difficulties, difficulties, such as being denied by others, such as work is not smooth, such as love, emotional discomfort, it will lead to depression. We must always pay attention to our emotions, and once we feel that we have reached a certain tipping point, we must still be brave enough to seek help. At this time, there is only (relying on) oneself, and there is no other way. So you're not feeling well, you don't feel happy, you're feeling tired or whatever, you have to go to a doctor and find a friend. Depression, it is a very normal disease of human beings, and like any disease, the whole society, including ourselves, should face it with a very normal attitude, a normal concept, especially if you are in such a predicament, seek help, and then make yourself mentally strong.
Disenchanting depression
There is a recent book called "The Devil of Noon", which tells us through many cases about the social condition of depression, the psychological condition and the condition of the disease as a whole. It gives an example of a couple who are both seeing a doctor for depression, but neither of them tells the other because they feel ashamed. I think this is actually a particularly important inspiration, that is, as the closest couple, they are not able to be honest. Society as a whole sees illness as a shame, which may be a particularly thought-provoking fact. This book also uses many cases, a lot of practical explanations or interpretations, to let us know what depression is all about, and also let us disenchant it. Depression is a normal disease that has accompanied humans for a long time. I hope that if you have time to read this book and communicate with your friends, maybe you have a friend around you who is hiding your secrets, maybe you are hiding your secrets yourself. Nothing really.
【Further reading】
The Devil of Noon: Depression is a Secret You and I Share
Andrew Solomon/ Tu Bin, Zhang Zhe/Translation, Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore, Republic, October 2020 edition
This is an extremely personal book. Author Andrew Solomon has been a contributor to magazines such as The New Yorker, Time Magazine, and The New York Times, focusing on culture, psychology, and public rights. Writing this book has made him a "professional depressant", with 30 years of depression experience, he tells his own depression story in the book, and lets others tell their own stories, the experiences of these depressed patients, some are similar, some are different, and some are depressed in completely different contexts.
Editor-in-Charge: Gu Ming
Proofreader: Zhang Liangliang