Longhua's parents were middle-level cadres in a state-owned enterprise, while his father was impatient and his mother could not understand mental illness. When Longhua wanted to go for electroshock treatment, which was expensive, he asked his mother for money and said he wanted to go to the doctor, and she said, "You're not sick, don't tell me, you go talk to the doctor." On other occasions, his mother would even hide the medication he was taking and would not support him in taking it. To this day, he still often needs to fight and argue with his parents at home. "The words that hurt you the most come out of the mouth of the person you love the most." Longhua says, "If my family had been supportive and understanding, would I have been better off today with this illness?"
"To be honest, I don't have that sense of shame about the illness, but there is a sense of fear." Long Hua said that although society's awareness of mental illness has improved a lot in recent years, most people are unable to appreciate the pressures of being mentally ill, which cannot be changed overnight. "The kind of aggression and stress a mentally ill person feels when they are misunderstood can be scary."
Lin Yihan, the author of Fanshawe's First Love Paradise, was unable to sit her final exams due to depression during her time at university. The head of the Chinese department said to her in her office, "I've seen many mentally ill students, self-harming and suicidal, but I think you're fine and normal." Then he picked up the diagnosis and said to Lin Yihan, "Where did you get this?"
The disorder is still not well known. What is even more frightening is that a large proportion of bipolar and manic disorders are misdiagnosed as "schizophrenia", with a misdiagnosis rate of over 30% in outpatient clinics and over 10% in hospital admissions.
Generally speaking, the life of a person with a mental disorder may seem fine to the outside world, with the appearance of peace and quiet, but the mental suffering is unseen.
As Camus says in The Outsider, "The distance between my soul and me is so great, while my presence is so real."
The distractions and accusations that come with a lack of understanding of the illness often push depressed and bipolar patients further into the abyss.
The unspoken exhortation to open up is a denial and rejection of the patient's true feelings, which conveys a self-righteous and brutal judgement of the suffering of others from a position of superiority. People don't ask people in wheelchairs, "Why don't you stand up?" Instead, one would question the depressed person, "Why can't you think straight?"
People with depression and bipolar disorder are often extremely perceptive, and they are not "thinking about it", they are actually suffering pathologically, like a cold or a fever. Even with the best of intentions, the incessant chatter is a disturbance to them. This is a time when they need quiet respite, patient company and support, even if they don't say a word.
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