"Gradually I began to have my own boundaries, and I would never allow anyone else to step in. I no longer rely on the positive evaluation and advice of others as before, and the repeated understanding and analysis of myself over the past year or so has made me extremely sure that the comments of others do not matter, and no one will know me better than me. ”
Here's our #Visitors Say # column. We invited some friends to tell their stories about ourselves and counseling, and the changes it has brought about. Believing in the sincere sharing and telling of others can give inspiration and strength to others who need help.
Today's article is from Ah Meow, who has struggled with bipolar disorder for more than a decade.
01
From the age of 12, fell into the abyss
"Your bipolar disorder is a hybrid type that fluctuates a lot in a day....."
Sitting in the best psychiatric department in the country, the answer that I guessed a few days ago was really clear and frightening. But when I got the diagnosis, I was not sad or surprised, I just felt relieved.
When I think of the summer when I was gradually not quite right, eleven years have passed.
Image source: Rabbit Violence
Hot afternoon, sweltering classroom. I curled up the classroom chair, my whole body tense, restlessly nibbling my fingers, barely opening my eyes that I could not open, enduring a bout of headaches, and patiently listening to the teacher's lectures.
At night, when faced with homework, I couldn't read a word, and I was constantly distracted, distracted, looking at other things, or chatting with classmates. Whenever I reacted, I blamed myself, but I couldn't control it. The torment of conscience was about to eat me up, and it was only very late that I reluctantly fell asleep in self-blame and uneasiness, and then began a new day full of fear and despair.
I will always make a lot of mistakes, I will continue to find out in front of parents and teachers where I am not good, where I am not good, and apologize madly: I blushed on stage today, I forgot to bring today's volume, history did two big problems wrong and did not get more than 90 points, sorry I did wrong next time I must do better........ After admitting my mistake, I can get the approval of the teacher or who, and I can get a short period of peace.
The day is a never-ending exam, and I am destined to repeat the failures again and again; the night is a hell of self-blame and self-abandonment, and night I am burned by the fire of anxiety and cannot sleep.
In the face of academic pressure, and my own worse and worse state, I am on the verge of collapse every day, but no matter how I tell my parents that I really can't support it, my parents only feel that my thinking is dark and strange, I can only cry silently in despair, I am like a person who has drowned, every day I feel that I am about to drown, but all I get when I call for help from my family is to ignore and hit.
And I also feel that if I can read more, if I can be self-disciplined, everything will be fine..... I'm so bad.
Sometimes I will be full of fantasies and feel that I have found a way to make myself look new, sometimes I am thrown back to reality and feel that I am doomed to achieve nothing in this life, more often I am anxious and restless, it is difficult to concentrate even for 1 minute, I feel that I am always in a depressed and depressed state, and I often resist the urge to scream and cry.
Such days, from junior high school to high school, from high school to college, from college to work, are repeated for 11 years.
Watching everyone face the challenge and move forward, I feel that I must be saddled with some kind of morally inferior sin that has allowed me to survive in this hellish cycle.
I don't understand why my life has been like a complete fall from the summer of 12 years old.
02
After the disillusionment of love, I saw myself who longed for recognition and feared abandonment
The start of the counseling journey is out of a relationship that is not in love. In a chance encounter, I met a boy who seemed to fit perfectly with the image I expected of myself— I had very little willpower, but he could not eat or drink for what he liked, and he was stoic. I had high expectations, but I couldn't put into action to achieve them, and he could strictly enforce his standards.
In fact, at the beginning, he had a variety of different behaviors from others, suggesting that this may not be a mutually beneficial and win-win relationship, and the other party may not be a person who can appreciate my strengths and cherish my efforts.
Image source: Blue of the Blue,White-Red Trilogy
But immersed in the beautiful imagination, I just gave in to myself in a vague way, telling myself to pay more for the people I liked. In the face of the other party's unreasonable depreciation, various controls and demands, I have also been admitting mistakes and reflecting. Faced with something that I knew I was right, I surrendered to Longing and painfully surrendered my sovereignty.
My dependence and unconditional forbearance gave him the opportunity to hurt me, and he did not hesitate to take a stab, and even later, I became my own perpetrator, constantly internalizing these negative evaluations and demands.
I feel that my state is getting worse and worse, crying every day alone from morning to night, and even I will secretly think that the people I like think I am so bad, and how hard I try is useless, don't live.
I was really shocked at the thought of this and thought that maybe something was really wrong. Even in the most painful days, I would think of my very cheerful self when I was eleven, and I would hold on to every second and fantasize about the passing of the night one day.
Out of my survival instinct, I contacted our local counselor and I thought I really needed help.
I didn't expect the counselor to tell me what surprised me even more, the boy was not for my own good at all, just out of his own selfish desires to control and hurt me, my problem was never that I did not do well, but that I was too harsh on myself, too anxious, what I just needed was to slow down.
The mood of that moment is not known how to describe, like a collapse of faith, and I feel that the whole world is not what I imagined.
I think love is a mirror, and after being completely disillusioned, I see a self who is deeply eager to be identified and afraid of being abandoned. Even if a relationship makes me very painful, I feel that it is all my own problem and I am reluctant to leave.
He had all kinds of things in the relationship that stung me, but I always told myself that I could tolerate it, and I had to give. I dare not express myself, and I will always follow the words of others. I thought that as long as I tried to give, I would be seen, but this trait made me the only giver in the relationship.
After thinking about it again, I decided to choose long-distance consulting. Asking others for unconditional acceptance is indeed difficult for strong people, but I can trust that professionally trained counselors can hold on to themselves.
Opening up to others can be a blow or an injury, but the counselor should be relatively safe. I haven't been able to get it in other relationships in the past, or I can ask for it from a counselor.
So, intuitively, I picked my own counselor and booked my first consultation.
03
The tense nerves gradually relaxed in the creeping vapor
Her eyes were particularly warm, she looked at me quietly when I said it, and the first consultation had forgotten what I said, but I remember her saying to me, all these years, these efforts you have made have not been easy, reading and thinking, these are great. I suddenly felt that I had walked alone for a long, long time, struggling to support, and finally arrived here.
When I first met the counselor, I felt like my life was a mess. Falling out of love often makes me switch between hysteria and repeated memories uncontrollably, and I feel like the world is falling apart, I really don't know what to move forward for, what to work for, often unmotivated, unable to get out of bed.
In the winter when the epidemic was raging, I was completely at home day and night, I didn't want to eat, I refused to sleep, I always played. Only games can make me stop thinking, I don't want anything now except this virtual world.
Image source: Ordinary People
These situations worried and frightened me, and I discussed them with my counselor, who told me that if the game makes you feel safe, you can hide in the middle. Now after falling out of love, the power castle in your heart has collapsed, and it is difficult to complete the work, and so on, the reaction is very, very normal.
Hearing these words, my heart was like taking a hot bath, and my tense nerves gradually relaxed in the creeping vapor. Before this, this state made me feel very remorseful, but with the permission of the counselor, I slowly became more accepting of my state.
We have established the goal of counseling, and now I have difficulty making choices, I don't know what I feel, and I hope that I can finally live independently and find the direction of my life.
At first I felt that my life was very difficult every day, from my father to my mother to other people, my family without exception felt that I was very bad, like a waste, and I was sad and desperate in the face of such denial. I knew I had walked a long, long way alone, but they were under the same roof and knew nothing about it.
My friends have also given me advice of one kind or another to change the status quo. Completing the work is very difficult for me, I have to endure masochism and intense pain to complete very simple things with several times less efficiency than others, I have no confidence in myself, no matter what I do, it is easy to fall into panic and self-blame, what to do need to ask others for advice repeatedly, only after others affirm I dare to act.
Image source: Juliet Tower
Faced with such a situation, my counselor sister would say to me, let's see if there is anything good in it?
I have a lot of curiosity about myself and a lot of discoveries about myself. I began to wonder why I fell in love with someone like this and refused to let go, how my family and past affected me, and what my true feelings were.
I put all this stuff into a consulting relationship to discuss. I cried many times and slowly accepted the fact that childhood is unchangeable, that parents cannot be changed, and that the attention that I did not receive from my upbringing will never come back.
And the counselor responded to my feelings very carefully, and I felt that even if I cried, I made trouble, and I kept breaking down, she treated me as a person worthy of respect and love.
She really, really respected me. And I also found that I was really trying very hard, I have been trying my best to find the cause of my pain, although it is troublesome, I have not chosen to wait in pain. I've been experimenting with various methods to dispel my demons.
I discussed many things with her, from how to reject others to what I really liked, and she was my partner on the road back to myself, the most reliable, and would never fight and control me.
04
I was like a plant that, when it was close to complete withering, pulled out new branches
I gradually began to understand that I was never as bad as I thought I was.
I began to develop the strength to refuse to agree with the demeaning of others, remembering that it was another time when my father demeaned me for no reason, and this time, I did not apologize or give in. And my grandmother told me again that my dad loved me and that I should bow my head and admit my mistake. "I will never bow my head!" I cried and yelled, "I can't bow my head for what I haven't done wrong, today I bow to my father, tomorrow I will bow to my boss who bullied me, and the day after tomorrow I will bow to the boy who hit me for no reason!" I will never bow my head! ”
I was crying, venting my grievances, yes, I was right. I've always felt bad about myself, but I now understand that what I'm wrong is not that I can't stand unreasonable overtime, and what I'm wrong is not that I can't make the people I like happy.
I was wrong to believe what these people who didn't know me at all were to say about me, and I was wrong to let them belittle and abuse. In the future, I will grow claws and sharp teeth, and I will fiercely defend my dignity and feelings, and I cannot retreat a step from what belongs to me. Yes, I will not back down.
For the first time in 22 years of my life, I was angry like this. All along, I have never had a temper, I am so serious about being considerate of others, I am always afraid of others being sad, but I don't care about my own feelings.
But this kind of power situation is not the majority, in 2020 for a whole year, I sometimes have the strength, I feel that I can do anything. But by the next week, or just one day later, I could become suspicious and autistic, so weak that I couldn't get out of bed.
The high mood made me excited, and made me feel as if the haze I had been in was about to dissipate, but every time the mood came, I still felt desperate and powerless. My whole figure was on a roller coaster, swinging uncontrollably, not knowing when the tide would rise or when it would set.
Although the situation is high and low, I tell myself to stabilize my mind, be aware in the middle, and then record and discuss the feedback with the counselor or other reliable person. Awareness is the beginning of change, and for more than a year, awareness is something I've been doing.
I began to ignore my feelings instead, but to see them as the best signal: what made me uncomfortable, what made me wronged, what made me happy, what made me smile. Awareness is the first step, and then I'll document the discomfort and go talk to the counselor, and gradually I'll find a lot of things that make me uncomfortable, and I actually have other options.
When I am aware of something, when I have strength, I pluck up the courage to do a lot of actions. Choose to make yourself comfortable, refuse to make yourself uncomfortable, and be brave enough to express your feelings. Sometimes I can do it, sometimes I need to think for a long time to understand where I'm uncomfortable, and then rehearse many times to say how I feel or reject others.
I realized that I had been disconnected from my body all along, and in the past days, I didn't know how I would be cold, how I would hurt, and I would often force myself to be uncomfortable, scold myself, and demean myself.
I can't remember how many nights I spent, how much awareness I sorted out, how much I made comparisons, and then plucked up the courage to express more. I have done a lot of comfort for myself when I am in pain and uneasiness, and of course there are really many people who help me.
It is a very slow, quantitative change to qualitative change process. I was like a plant, and when it was close to complete withering, it began to pull out new branches, put them to death and come back to life.
Gradually, my parents and family began to respect me, gradually I began to express my feelings (although it was really difficult, now sometimes I can't say it on the spot, it has to brew for a long time), and gradually I began to have my own boundaries, and I would never allow others to step in. I no longer rely on the positive evaluation and advice of others as before, and the repeated understanding and analysis of myself over the past year or so has made me extremely sure that the comments of others do not matter, and no one will know me better than me.
05
Give yourself a chance to live again
The second turning point in the qualitative change was in the drug, at the end of November last year, the cold winter coupled with other triggers, the inability to concentrate and emotional ups and downs, these situations began to come back to me, and I found that counseling seemed to have no way to alleviate it very effectively.
Even I developed symptoms of severe depression for a week, I began to be uncontrollably surrounded by negative thoughts, all the while drilling the horns, I felt that everything had lost its color and taste, I had no way to generate any interest in what I had originally found interesting, and I began to sleeplessly night after night, struggling alone in the boundless darkness.
That day I sat on the bus, watching the light and shadow of the street lamp passing through the carriage, but I had only one image in my mind: I used a knife to frantically cut my wrist with blood. I watched the thought silently and thought to myself, old friend is back.
After realizing that I was getting wrong again, I cried loudly, how could such a long period of consultation and effort be useless? I felt like a chicken, And when God was happy, he caught me out and slipped out, and when he saw the sun, he grabbed me back and told me not to want to escape.
That day I mentioned my situation, my sister who was more familiar with me heard it but paid attention to it, she repeatedly warned me that I must go to the doctor, at first I was a little resistant, but some friends around me went to the psychiatric department and achieved better results. I've always been interested in trying ways to make myself better, so I went into psychiatry.
And this time, there is finally an answer, it turned out to be bipolar. It's just that my bipolar species is special. Anxiety is bipolar, and a series of strange things suddenly have answers.
It turned out that I was sick; it turned out that I was just sick.
After the interventional drug treatment, the calming stabilizer allowed me to sleep for more than ten hours a day, and in the first few days I often couldn't understand what others were saying, and I was always sleepy in a daze. The biggest feeling is that the whole person is very wooden and does not respond to anything. I was always overly agitated, always fell into a variety of emotions, and felt calmer than ever.
Image source: August Virgin
And the diagnosis of bipolarity also allowed me to get the support of my family, which I did not expect in the past. I've always wanted to move out, but I haven't been able to make up my mind, I don't seem to believe that I can live by myself, I always feel particularly troublesome, I can't. But this time I did not hesitate any longer, I wanted to change the environment, I said to go and go, it turned out, it was as simple as that.
After moving out, I overslept many times, and the medication made my spirit very poor. But I am still very happy, I seem to burst out of a force, I found that I can do anything once or twice, slowly do better, I can solve it myself, many things are actually not so difficult to do.
It was a relatively long period of restlessness, I experienced the joy of doing my own work every day, I found myself suddenly no longer procrastinating, I found that my inner voice began to grow, and I followed my inner voice, the space of solitude let the voice that belonged to me grow, I felt a kind of freedom.
I began to learn to take responsibility for my emotions, take the initiative to choose to be happy friends when lonely, comfort myself when I am sad, light my favorite lavender scent when I sleep at night, I am trying to take better care of myself, I began to feel that happiness and happiness is actually an ability that is not easy. I have a lot of new friends who are friendly and warm and I really feel worthy and lucky. Although I often have a bad spirit during working hours, I am very happy to arrange my life outside of work.
Innocence lit up, and I stopped spending every day in an unbearable restlessness. Waking up in the morning to breathe fresh air, and going home at night to sit on the bus and see the pink sunset, these very ordinary life things are moved to my eyes and make me want to cry.
It was as if I had lived again, and in my heart there was a free bird singing every day.
Countless times I have been glad that I did not give up in the trough of despair and gave myself the opportunity to live again.
Over the years, I seem to be a person on the verge of collapse silently wandering, a person struggling to support, a person growing up with income, and finally having the ability to find various resources for help, silently getting better, in which various processes, as if there is no way to tell anyone, can only experience the bittersweet and bittersweet in the middle by myself, but I think I may not be alone, maybe the same struggle, many people have had.
The most recent change is that I learned to go to bed early and get up early, and after 2 months of grogginess, I basically finished running into drugs. My mental state now is probably something I didn't think was possible before. As long as I can adjust the sleep time, I can easily work all day.
At that time, I really felt that the consulting goal was very far away, but in retrospect, it had basically been achieved. Being aware of my feelings and actions is my most powerful tool. Those uncomfortable and stuck places, through many adjustments and communications, have finally produced incredible results, and I feel that my life has been turned upside down this year.
In the past, I felt as if I lived in a cold snow cave, coldly examining the world, sharply protecting myself, but I was actually cold and lonely.
Now I often unconsciously do a lot of friendly behaviors that I would never have done in the past, and my vision of people has begun to become completely different. Yes, I always didn't believe the world would love me, but it still gave me a lot of warmth that I couldn't believe. Of course, my state is still fluctuating, I am still continuing my consultation, and the medication is still taking as prescribed.
I think I was relieved, and I began to accept that this should be an experience that life itself would have. I used to think that if I didn't have a bipolar phase in my life, then I wouldn't have to spend a period of intense pain in which I closed myself off — but without bipolarity, would my life be smooth sailing? All kinds of pain and discomfort may be my lesson on this road of life.
But I feel through myself that our education system, in addition to paying attention to children's academics, is really not doing enough in terms of mental health.
I would hope that one day our society will have a more complete mental health protection mechanism, to do something for our next generation, for the children, because it is really lonely, really helpless, it is an island of isolation, and many people do not know what they endure alone in the center of the storm. Our people still don't know enough about mental health.
I started to get very relaxed, and I began to become very calm. No matter which way you go in life, you may fall many times. In the past, we were intimidated by teachers and parents, the college entrance examination is the only opportunity to change lives, the examination is the best opportunity to change the fate, and then it is the civil servant examination, and the choice of partner, each option seems to be the wrong choice of the sky will collapse.
But life is actually not really so fragile, you can have many opportunities to fail, you can fail to pass the graduate school, you can fail the college entrance examination, you can fail in love, you can fail in marriage, you can fail countless times. Life is really not so two-dimensional, you must maintain a certain state, do every choice right to be successful, you can explore as much as you want, you can fall many times. You'll fail, but you'll also get up. Each of us can have a different path to success than others.
Image source: "Go to His* World"
A friend who is reading the article, if you are still troubled by your original family, give yourself another chance to live.
I know it takes courage to find yourself, but please believe in your own strength, you are very strong, you really deserve it, you should have self-esteem and self-confidence, you deserve all kinds of good experiences as a human being, there are many people who have struggled with pain like you or are like you, there are many people in the outside world who are willing to help you, you are not alone, may we all be happy and embrace our own lives.
We are always exploring how to provide efficient and accurate service to everyone who comes to seek psychological help.
It is for this motivation that we launched the Psychological Assessment Service.
If you are hesitating, do not know whether your situation requires psychological counseling, do not know how to choose a counselor, then this service may be a good choice.
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