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

Chapter 19 In-depth analysis of depression (2)
When a person loses his true self, he will not know who he is and what his real needs are.The whole person will fall into a morbid pursuit, either to get rid of inferiority complex, or to maintain self-esteem.In order to get rid of inferiority complex, he will try to do things perfectly; he will try to prove himself with success; he will unintentionally imitate others to get rid of this incompetent self; he will hope to have a good relationship with everyone, and he will not hesitate to do so Wronging himself; he also sometimes attaches to people he thinks are powerful to make up for his own shortcomings.In order to maintain his ego, he will strive to succeed, not for the love of the thing itself, but simply to prove that he stands out from the crowd by being the best.He will become extremely tolerant or narrow. "Tolerance" means maintaining his good image, and "narrowness" means that he cannot tolerate being hurt.If he can't tolerate his own small shortcomings and mistakes, it's not because he loves himself, but because he hates himself and hates himself for not reaching the perfection he imagined.When he can't perform as perfect as he thinks, he will either try hard compulsively or choose to escape.

Under the influence of this pathological perfectionism, an outstanding girl may feel anxious about not getting attention from others; a successful man may be ashamed of seeing others because of shortcomings; A good person may be nervous when he meets someone better; a mature-looking person may speak badly or punch someone because of a little disrespect... All his efforts are To maintain the fantasy of an idealized self, only becoming the ideal self can satisfy him and make him feel safe.For this morbid pursuit, he sold his life, happiness, needs, and hobbies, all in order to become the "perfect self" in his heart.Even though he is excellent, successful, and popular, he is still unhappy and does not feel that he is successful, because his goal is so "ambitious", and "very good" in the eyes of ordinary people may just be "very good" in his heart. pass" only.

As a result, he seemed to be a driven donkey, running so fast that he looked like a horse.But this is not out of the original intention of the donkey, but the need of the devil (idealized self) who drives the donkey. whipping.But at this time the donkey still didn't realize that it should go its own way, instead it hated itself for being a donkey instead of a fine horse.Any clue that would reveal that it was originally a donkey would frighten it, so it could not get close to its kind, because such closeness would make its kind discover that it was nothing more than that.This will make it lose the sense of superiority it imagined.

When he can no longer act as a "horse", or the terrible reality makes him know that he is just an "ugly duckling" and not a "white swan", maybe he will sigh like this: "Life is so terrible, it is full of reality. !” At this time, he will use various methods to escape from reality in order to reduce the impact of reality on his morbid conceit.He may live in isolation so that he can satisfy the devil's needs in his own world, in fantasy.

But fantasies are fantasies after all, escaping from reality will eventually require accepting the punishment of reality, and fulfilling the devil's agreement will eventually have to pay a price.When the fantasy can no longer continue, when he can no longer satisfy the requirements of the devil, when he can no longer act as a "steed horse" or "white swan", when the idealized self is shattered by reality, there are often two endings: one It is giving up, mild giving up manifests as depression or social anxiety, the most thorough giving up is committing suicide; the other choice is struggling.Although he is already full of loopholes, even though he knows that he is at the end of his strength, he still has to desperately maintain his fantasy, and still hopes that he can achieve the perfection in his fantasy.The result will be manifested as compulsion or anxiety-in order to make yourself perfect, in order to prevent yourself from making mistakes, you need to desperately check, check, and confirm, and do not allow yourself to make "ordinary people" mistakes.Because "God" cannot make mistakes or fail, so he does not allow himself to be surpassed by others, and he does not allow himself to be underestimated by others, so he must use the standard of "God" instead of the standard of "man" to force ask yourself.When he realizes that he has the potential to fail or make mistakes, intense anxiety sets in—a fear of anticipation, of not being able to become "god."

Therefore, pathological perfectionism and the pursuit of an idealized self are not advantages, not virtues, not positive, but a fantasy, not a real ideal.When a person lives in the fantasy of himself, he will be unable to face reality and himself in reality, and dare not live in reality. At this time, life becomes a heavy burden.He must force himself to work hard all the time, without stopping for a moment, life is not an enjoyment for him, but full of fear and anxiety.He is afraid to face reality, afraid to face his own limitations.At this time, depression is just a kind of despair at not being able to achieve the ideal self and ideal life.He has been struggling, even though he looks calm, successful, and excellent on the surface, but the inner struggle makes him a prisoner of his idealized self.Sometimes he can't even realize the source of this pain, so others can't understand his helplessness. He seems to be a soldier fighting alone - lonely and hopeless.

Morbid perfectionism comes from the fantasy of an idealized self. It is precisely in order to transform the real self into the ideal that it will put forward various "non-human" requirements for itself.The source of the idealized self lies in: traumatic experience and maintaining a sense of superiority.Of course, these two points cannot be completely separated, but more or less. The root of the idealized self will be explained in more detail below.

"Perfectionism" Caused by Traumatic Experiences

There are two main types of traumatic experiences: one is the trauma caused by the accumulation of negative experiences in growing up; the other is the trauma caused by sudden events.Strength is greater than the former.These two kinds of traumatic experiences will cause anxiety and fear in the parties to a certain extent, and the idealized self has become a method and strategy to eliminate their inner anxiety.But this strategy itself brings us even bigger problems, as if signing a devil's agreement.

Our childhood upbringing has a huge impact on the way we see the world and our inner sense of security.Just imagine, a child who lives in a family full of beatings, indifference, denial, harshness, lack of love, or "conditional love" (that is, I can love you only if you do what I expect), How to be confident, how to cultivate an inner sense of security.If a person's inner sense of security is lacking, basic anxiety will arise, and he will not be able to see his own value as a person.But people are "smart", and they will always think of ways to eliminate anxiety and fear, and will always find ways to affirm themselves, even if this method itself is distorted.Just like a hungry person, as long as he can fill his stomach, nothing else matters.

When children are scolded, beaten, scolded, or indifferent, they will naturally think: I am not good enough, my mother (or father) treats me like this, it is all my fault, and I made them angry.The child will not realize that it may be the parent's fault, or that there is something wrong with the parent itself.Since you are wrong, you have to correct it. Only by correcting, only by solving all your "problems", and only by turning yourself into a better child can you satisfy your parents and stop everything that happens to you.But when he can't satisfy his parents no matter how hard he tries, he will have a sense of inferiority and incompetence.This kind of negation from the outside will become a kind of inner self-denial.In the end, he will lose himself and fall into this vortex of constantly seeking affirmation but not being able to truly accept himself.

When he can't realize that all this is not his fault, nor that he is not good enough, he will not be able to show his true self, and he must achieve his ideal appearance.Only in this way can he become a good enough person in the eyes of others and find a sense of security in his heart.When people are unable to face the cruel reality, they are prone to fantasies, and the idealized self is also the product of fantasies.But this is not the saddest thing. The saddest thing is that when a person regards fantasy as reality and his idealized self as his "true self", then the tragedy will really happen.He will strive to achieve his idealized self, and will feel inferior when he fails to achieve it; if he really achieves the results he expects in certain things, he will become conceited because of it.In short, he has no self-confidence-acceptance of his true self.There is no perfect person in the world, and no one can do everything well and satisfy everyone.But because the anxiety and fear in his heart prevent him from recognizing this fact, he will continue to force himself to achieve his ideal. If he fails to achieve it, he will be even more dissatisfied with himself and even more unable to hold his head up.

A male patient, because his father has personality defects of anxiety and pursuit of perfection, so he is quite harsh on him.He had never heard affirmation of himself from his father's mouth.Not only that, when he made a mistake, his father would beat him severely, and his mother was his father's "partner", and the two of them seemed to be fighting hard.In this way he became a "bad boy".In Buddies, when he was being bullied, his father would just call him an idiot instead of coming to help him.At this time, he could only swallow his anger, never dared to resist, and walked with his head down, as if he was afraid that others would find out that he had failed.He also tried to change all this, trying to prove himself.When he was in junior high school, he tried to become a person who could fight and make others afraid of him in order to regain his confidence and respect from others, but he failed because of lack of courage.He also tries to prove that he is cute and attractive by dating, but the girl he likes ignores him.In this way, in the end even he himself looked down on himself, and even he himself doubted his own value and ability as a human being.It is precisely because of this self-denial that he pins his hopes on fantasy.He has always imagined that he can be different and perfect, so he is very concerned about what others think of him, or he is very worried that others will look down on him.He will try to look good in front of others, sometimes even talking big to elevate himself to win approval from others.But after all, no matter how hard he tries, he can't make himself perfect, and he can't make everyone like him, because he is afraid that others will find his incompetence, and he is afraid that others will despise him, so he lives in tension all day long.A joke made unintentionally by others, he will think it is a kind of harm to himself; a look in the eyes of others will be interpreted by him as a negation of himself; He will always feel that he is talking about him; when others spit, he will feel that others are targeting him... Finally, when he finds that no matter how hard he tries, he cannot be impeccable, and no matter how hard he tries, he cannot satisfy everyone. He fell into depression.When he is in a bad mood, when he makes a mistake, when someone looks at him differently, that is what frightens him the most.Because in this way, he will not be able to obtain external affirmation to eliminate the inner inferiority complex, nor will he be able to become his ideal self.At this time, he will desperately look for his own faults. The "subtext" is: if I am perfect, others will accept and respect me, and only then can I think highly of myself.In this way, he constructed an idealized self image for himself, but the more he pursued, the more dissatisfied he was with his real self, and finally fell into the abyss of inferiority complex and self-hatred, only to be accompanied by depression.But he can always find a scapegoat - it was "depression" that kept me from being who I wanted to be.But he did not reflect that the root of the pain was not depression, but that he had never given up on the pursuit of an idealized self, living in fantasy without accepting the real self.

Major traumatic events in life can also be a reason for a person to fall into fantasy, to escape reality.

A male patient, although he already has a stable job, a happy family, and a handsome appearance, he is still prone to self-blame and self-deprecation.Sometimes he thinks he is not funny enough, sometimes he thinks he is not popular, sometimes he feels that he is nervous, sometimes he feels that he is not successful enough, and sometimes he feels that others do not respect him enough... In short, he is rarely satisfied with himself.So why is he so prone to self-deprecation?Why do you have such high demands on yourself, and don't allow yourself to have the slightest flaw and inferiority?It was later learned that during adolescence, his father passed away, and he took on a lot of responsibilities that he shouldn't have to bear at his age.Because of this sense of powerlessness to reality, he betrayed himself to the "devil".So he fantasizes that one day he can become a "big brother of the underworld" or "successful", and he can walk sideways in his hometown, look down on everyone, and even take revenge on those who bullied him in the past, so that he can express his "bad breath".Because of this, he fell into the fantasy of an idealized self, and then the fantasy replaced the reality. He forced himself to achieve the ideal, and then lost his true self.That's why he sets such high demands on himself, and becomes self-hating when he fails to meet them.Although he has worked hard and lived a good life, he is far from his "goal" and "pursuit".It is this morbid pursuit of idealized self that makes him so dissatisfied with the ordinary self in reality and unable to bear a little harm from others.

Idealizing the self is also a way of self-protection, in fact, to escape the cruel reality.

A male patient tried to play himself as a "hero" in his life, for fear that his shortcomings would be exposed to others, and that his image in others' minds would be damaged.He was so afraid because when he was a child, he was used to seeing his father's quarrels with others and others' belittlement and distance from his father.And the same is true for his father, no matter how hard he tries, he can't satisfy his father, and can't let his father affirm himself.In the end, he gave up all his attempts to please his father, and instead went to the other extreme—becoming a person different from his father and rejecting everything similar to his father.All his efforts are to prove that he is a different person from his father.Any disapproval from others terrifies him, because it brings him one step closer to his father.When he was young, he especially liked Jin Yong's martial arts novels, and he often dreamed that he was a hero.Gradually, this fantasy became a kind of self-requirement, and finally he simply thought that he should be better than others, and he should be superior to others.In this way, he was far away from his true self and dared not expose his original self to the crowd.He often said a sentence: "I am afraid of people!" Because people will find that he is not perfect.As a result, he has been hiding in the "Dream of Heroes".

When a person regards his idealized self as his real self, he will be afraid of reality, and he will be afraid of himself in reality.When his morbid ego is pierced by reality, he may choose to escape, or he may become irritable, unable to tolerate a little hurt from others, and will be bitter about it.Only in this way can he continue to maintain the image of his perfect self, so as not to let his pathological conceit be shattered.

(End of this chapter)