What kind of experience is hospitalization for depression?

For many people, it is hard to accept that they have a "mental illness" such as "depression" and receive formal treatment in the hospital-let alone stay in the mental health department for a month. On the way to the Seventh People's Hospital in Hangzhou, Uncle Chen, my father's best friend for many years and "give me a ride" instead of my busy father, held the steering wheel and looked at me with heavy eyes in the rearview mirror: "Xiaoyi, don't tell anyone about your hospitalization these days. Others are not like uncles, knowing that you are just under too much pressure to study. "

The study pressure is ok. But I also know that Uncle Chen's interpretation of "depression" is friendly enough. If it was someone else, maybe I would have been secretly labeled "This little girl is insane and has lived in seven hospitals. I am afraid it is not illegal to kill people. "

The popularization of mental health has a long way to go, I sighed. The car slowly pulled into the gate of the seventh hospital.

Maybe everyone with depression wears a smile mask and refuses to admit that he is choked by depression. After three years of medication in high school, I finally stopped taking the medicine when the symptoms of grade one were relieved, and I didn't want to go back to the state of being groggy and unable to eat every day because of side effects. But in fact, I also clearly know that depression is always lingering in my heart, waiting for the opportunity.

"Living is still boring." One sunny afternoon, obviously nothing happened, but I closed the curtains and swallowed the remaining half bottle of perphenazine.

Actually, half a bottle of perphenazine didn't kill me, but the counselor was scared to death by me. "Student suicide" may be an event that every school administrator is extremely afraid of. Whether there is a school or not, such a thing will become a stain on this school. The leader of the college contacted my guardian urgently, and the meaning was simple: drop out of school until the child recovers, and we won't stop dropping out directly. But I had the experience of dropping out of high school for one year. Dropping out of school didn't seem to be very good for my condition, which was a waste of time. Finally, my parents and school came up with this plan, which is to send me to the hospital until the hospital issues a rehabilitation certificate.

It doesn't seem difficult for me to "issue a rehabilitation certificate". After all, I almost memorized the questions of SCL90 and SDS-it seems that "hospitalization" is a bit exciting.

In fact, the conditions of hospitalization are better than I expected-four rooms, independent bathroom, although I can't get out of the inpatient building, my department of physical and mental disorders even has a small gym for patients. Schizophrenia patients who "kill people without breaking the law" live on floors with tight closures and strict security measures, but they don't have to worry about their own safety.

The treatment in the hospital is also easier than I expected: three tablets a day, psychological counseling twice a week, transcranial magnetic stimulation twice, and doing whatever you want in the rest of the time. In addition to the initial dynamic EEG examination, I was a little annoyed because I didn't wash my hair for three days. Compared with school, I am happy in the hospital.

No, peace of mind is quite comfortable, and leisure doesn't seem to be very leisure.

As a "patient friend" who always gives her roommate a fright and annoyance because of self-harm at school, it is, well, a very special experience to be scared to sleep well by a "patient friend" who acts more exaggeratedly in the hospital-a big sister who cries in the ward at midnight every day because of serious anxiety and mania.

The medication scheme is similar to my previous one: prozac, an antidepressant, perphenazine, another emotional stabilizer, ziprasidone. I believe that every friend who has experience in medication knows something about it. Transcranial magnetic stimulation has always been one of the mainstream therapies in the mental health department of the hospital, so I won't go into details here.

It is worth mentioning that in the psychological consultation arranged by the hospital, the counselor used CBT therapy, which achieved very quick results. This is also my first contact with "cognitive behavioral therapy": unlike the traditional psychodynamic therapy, it only pays attention to the follow-up effects brought by childhood trauma, and pays more attention to "now". Space is limited, so I will simply say:

People with depression always enter a cycle of sadness-thinking too much-blaming themselves-thinking too much-being sad-not wanting to live because of a little thing.

However, between trivial matters and feeling sad and unwilling to live, our views on trivial matters are actually very important. It can be said that the reason why normal people think small things are nothing, but we are depressed because of small things, because our views on small things are different from normal people.

Therefore, when we are depressed, we might as well think about it: what kind of views on small things make our mood have problems? Correcting opinions is much faster than trying to correct emotions-that is, happiness.

(Friends who pay attention to Blue Star Self-Healing Society on WeChat official account will get more detailed science popularization and healing tips about CBT therapy in the future. )

For example, there are always girls who feel inferior because they are fat. My depression is related to eating disorders caused by long-term weight loss. "Being fat" is an event and "feeling inferior" is an emotion, so my opinion is that "being fat is a bad thing". However, if you look at the news of girls being kidnapped, trafficked and sexually harassed in Weibo, being fat is not all a bad thing. Isn't it less likely that fat girls will be targeted by hooligans? This view will make me feel less sad about being fat. I got into the habit of checking my opinions when negative emotions hit, which has benefited me a lot so far.

There may be another advantage of living in the seventh hospital, that is, for depressed patients with extremely irregular work and rest, they can forcibly correct their sleep time. Turn off the lights on time at night and go to the gym with patients during the day, which is healthy anyway. Perhaps considering that people with depression are prone to fatigue, gyms also provide equipment with less activity, including walking treadmills, waist twisting machines, sit-ups, benches and table tennis tables for the elderly in parks.

Except for treatment and exercise, I spend the rest of my time reading books. If I were in a better state, I would study with professional books. If I'm in a bad state ... during my six weeks in hospital, I finished reading a full set of grave robbery notes.

Other inpatients don't seem to have delayed much study and work. One day in the gym, a little girl who looks about my age quietly approached me: "Sister, do you want to buy slimming products?" Oh, didn't WeChat take a vacation when he was in hospital ... But at that time, I already knew the logic of CBT therapy and didn't care about "obesity" at all, so I replied to her: "No, I think most weight loss products are mixed with illegal drugs." Beautiful small and micro businesses seem to meet customers who are obviously overweight for the first time, but they don't seem to care about their weight. They looked at me more in shock: "Ah … really?" . But our diet products won't hurt you. No wonder you're in the hospital.-Are you delusional? "

Finally, I'm not cured-the final exam is coming, so I'm afraid I really don't have to repeat the grade until I leave the hospital. My improved state and my desire for survival in the GPA have enabled me to get beautiful scores in several discharge evaluations, and the discharge diagnosis of "effective remission, continuous medication and follow-up" has also enabled me to successfully return to school. Of course, the school leaders did not fully trust me, and at the same time deprived me of the qualification to stay.

Oh, that's all right. According to the theory of CBT therapy, I quickly changed my view on "staying out of it": although it costs money and it is a long way to go to school, I have milk tea to drink every day.

Although I'm not sure that hospitalization for depression can make you fully recover, effective relief is definitely no problem. When your illness is out of control and has caused great harm and trouble to your family and friends, maybe hospitalization is your choice.

In addition, if:

? Your illness has reached the point where you can't study and work, so you can only rest at home. However, your family can't accept and even hate depression. They always carry out a life-and-death three-time series of "If you are lazy, try to overcome it. You see that the disabled are so miserable and not depressed";

? The atmosphere at home itself is not good, and family members are always at daggers drawn, which brings you great pressure and excitement.

Then for you, going to the hospital to hide, having a good rest and receiving systematic and professional treatment must be a more favorable plan.

Maybe some friends will ask, then "being hospitalized because of mental illness" will affect others' views on us and label us as "sick". The answer is yes. Although this conclusion is cruel, you should know that no one can control your right to cure diseases and make a living. Those things they don't understand are handed over to psychological popularization workers; All you have to do is smile and tell them after you leave the hospital, "but I have recovered."