mental health quotes

The mental health quotes you really need are never the empty slogans of "stop internal friction and love yourself" that you see on the Internet, but are action guides that can be implemented in real cases by counselors from various schools and practitioners who have experienced emotional difficulties. Even the same sentence may have completely opposite logic when placed in different emotional states.

Not long ago, I received a visit from a sophomore in high school. She was so anxious about exams that she couldn't sleep all night. She read countless articles about "accepting your own imperfections", which made her even more depressed - she felt, "I can't even accept my anxiety. I didn't do well in the exam, and now my mentality is worse than others. Is it completely hopeless?"

In fact, counselors from different schools have completely different interpretations of the four words "self-acceptance". Psychoanalytic counselors will feel that many people have too deep a misunderstanding of "acceptance": true acceptance first allows you to "not accept". You don't have to force yourself to be open-minded, to forgive, and to be calm and calm. First, see yourself who is holding a pen with sweaty palms and is afraid of failing in the exam and sorry for your parents. Don't scold yourself for being useless. This is already the beginning of acceptance. Cognitive-behavioral (CBT) counselors may be more direct: don’t start talking about acceptance or not. First, get rid of the automatic thinking in your mind of “I must be in the top five in the class to prove that I am useful” and replace it with “I will win if I can do all the questions correctly this time.” After achieving this specific small goal, it is not too late to talk about acceptance.

No one is right or wrong, it's just that the people they are suitable for are different. For people who are always attacking themselves, it is more important not to force yourself to change, but to stop scolding yourself first. ； For people who are always stuck in catastrophic thinking, it is more useful to put aside their false feelings and solve specific problems.

There is a saying that has been passed around a lot: "Emotions are neither good nor bad." My former HR friend used this sentence as his motto. Every time he encountered a subordinate who made a big mistake, he would get angry because he was afraid that he would lose his temper because he "cannot manage emotions." Last time, a new employee mistakenly sent the quotation of the company's core customers to a competing product. Her supervisor added the second half of the sentence to her at the time, which she now prints out and posted at her workstation: “There are no right or wrong emotions, but there are boundaries for the behaviors triggered by emotions. ”Of course you can be angry, and you should even be angry - a mistake is a mistake, and a loss is a loss. You don't have to force yourself to be an emotionally stable saint. As long as you don't throw things or attack others personally, and directly list the consequences and ask the other party to bear them, you can truly be responsible for your own emotions and your work.

Interestingly, many of the "mental health quotes" that can really help people are not the original texts of psychology masters, but are the words of people who have experienced them and have gone through the pits. I have spent some time in a mutual aid group for patients with bipolar disorder, and I saw the signature of a girl who had just stopped taking medication for half a year. She changed it herself: "It is never life that gets better, but yourself. ”When she was ill, she quit her job, broke up with her family, and was hospitalized twice. At the most severe stage, she didn't even have the strength to get out of bed and brush her teeth. The most annoying words she heard at that time were "Everything will be fine." Every time she saw it, she wanted to throw her phone away: "I can't even eat, how can you tell me how to get better?" ”Later, she started by forcing herself to get up and pour a glass of warm water every day, and gradually she was able to go downstairs to buy a steamed bun for breakfast. Later, she took a private design job that did not require her to work, and she slowly picked up her days. This sentence is now the screensaver of many people in the group. Compared with the empty "everything will be fine", this kind of true saying "you have to reach out and help yourself" is more energizing.

Oh yes, there was another time when I was squatting in front of the convenience store downstairs to think of a plan. After squatting for half an hour, tears suddenly fell from my eyes. An aunt carrying vegetables next to me handed me a tissue. She didn't advise me to "don't be sad" or "it's not a big deal". She just said, "Everyone has troubles. Don't leave until you've cried enough." I later remembered this sentence for a long time, and it was more effective than many of the principles I had heard in the dozen or so professional trainings I had attended.

Are there really any mental health quotes that are universally applicable? Not really. I have seen someone put the words "Stop internal friction" on the bedside. Every time they were dazed for a while, they would scold themselves for "internal friction again", which instead put a new layer of shackles on themselves. ； I have also seen people survive the most difficult three months of unemployment by relying on just five words: "Eat something good today."

To put it bluntly, those words themselves are useless. Those words that can catch your current emotions, make you suddenly feel relieved, and can give you even a small direction of action are the best words for you.