Depression at a psychologist from Russia: history and treatment. Life, Illness, Science, and Job search

Informals and rappers were very unfriendly to each other because of different tastes and the desire to worship different “idols”. For example, I didn’t like rappers, I considered rap a stupid tasteless trend, I was irritated by the wide “pipe jeans” that they wore, I reacted with disgust to the “peace” sign, because at any convenient opportunity rappers drew it. And we – rockers/informals had the “Anarchy” sign, and sometimes the “Satanic pentagram”. And if our teenage behavior was at least marginally reflected in the “Anarchy” sign, then I, in any case, “loved” the pentagram and drew it because it looks beautiful and is relatively easy to draw. Well, maybe the spirit of rebellion and disbelief in religion also attracted me. But otherwise, I did not eat cats, did not drink blood.

I always liked doing things with my hands. My grandparents had several boxes of tools and other materials at home, and, probably, a classic section for the Soviet Union, in the hall closet with all sorts of boxes, mirrors, batteries, wires, small mechanisms, and I spent a lot of time there. At the “fazenda” I had to hammer, saw, cut, build a lot – all this was done to improve the house and the adjacent territory, sheds, dog kennel, beds, shower, gazebo, front garden and so on. It was an interesting time. Wood was the main building material.

I also tried to study and repair equipment. Once there was a radio or a TV, I think I took it apart and repaired it. It happened by chance. Another of our dachas was located very close to the airport, and my grandfather worked there. So I had the opportunity to climb around in a real large airliner, that is, an exhibit plane that was parked near the airport. It had no skin, only the cabin frame remained, wires, tubes, cables were sticking out… You could climb out onto the wing. Of course, I was happy about this opportunity back then, but even now I understand that it was absolutely wonderful, I would climb up there now. I like airplanes, the flight itself, and I also had the opportunity to see and steal incomprehensible small mechanisms, units for myself, and study them.

Of course, I also really liked driving a car. I usually drove when we went to the forest to pick mushrooms or to the dacha. And if in the forest I drove along a country road, then on the way to the dacha my grandfather let me drive even on the highway. It was nice to have such trust. I also felt confident when I could drive along a road washed out by rain, and my grandfather would sit calmly, open the window, a passenger like… Yes, picking mushrooms! I especially liked picking chanterelle mushrooms – because they are beautiful, tasty and grow well, if you come across one chanterelle, then it is clear that you will pick a lot of them. After mushrooms, eating in a clearing, drinking tea – peace.

From sports: I could run short distances quickly, and jump far from a standing start and from a running start. Somehow I was lucky with this, so much so that I never met anyone who ran faster or jumped further, neither in the schools where I studied, nor later at the university. It’s nice to live with this. I have this feeling when I start running, as if I can turn on the acceleration, so that the wind starts to blow past my ears.

Also during my lifetime a personal computer appeared, which already offered games and other programs. I remember the following games that I liked: “Zeus”, “Age of Empires 2”, “Midtown Madness”, “Truckers 2”, “The Neverhood”. It was especially nice to spend time at the computer when it was freezing outside. And when the tasteful russian cartoon “Masyanya” came out, I found out what program it was created in (“Flash macromedia”), and for a long time it interested me, I kept figuring out how the miracle happens – how my thought can be transferred to the computer screen and still be mobile (dynamic). I remember practicing and drawing some kind of pill that rolled and jumped. And the game “Counter Strike” stands out for me separately – a game that I started playing in Petropavlovsk when I was still young and continued periodically already in Tyumen. Many memories were associated with it. Dust, Assault, Mansion – opening these cards seemed to transport me to those past times of my life. Besides, it would never have occurred to me to play it sober, so in an altered state of consciousness it gave me pleasant sensations and nostalgia.

Returning to my interests in music, it makes sense to tell about my piano lessons. Although learning, strictly speaking, was not related to my true interests, but was more the embodiment of my parents’ ideas about a cultured person, nevertheless, it took up quite a lot of my time. I studied for 3 years. My grandmother from the music school came to my house twice a week to give piano lessons, and almost every day I did my homework. In general, I did not want to study, but in particular, sometimes I was still fascinated by playing this instrument.

But in general, my soul and nervous system gravitated towards the electric guitar. I learned to play it myself in the era of paper collections with chords and “tabulation” from the Internet, that is, before the era of YouTube and other applications. I liked the feel of the guitar in my hands, I liked that the strings made a sound in front of me, I liked the body of the guitar, the feeling on my fingertips and, of course, the ability to extract from it a heavy, varied Grunge sound, the opposite of the “sterile, mathematically precise” sound of the piano. And also, the piano is the same in appearance and touch, black and white smooth keys and that’s it for you. All the strings and hammers are hidden inside. The musician as a user, not as the owner of the instrument, as if there was no “communication” with the instrument. Still, time went on, I studied, and learned to the logical conclusion for myself. I learned musical notation and trained my ear, which helps both to play the guitar and to build, and to live. And right before moving to Tyumen, I sold the piano.

Among my river and lake interests, I also really liked fishing with a rod. My first encounter with a rod happened when my father and I went fishing near a dam, or rather behind it. It turns out that we were catching a disturbed fish that had fallen from a high artificial waterfall a couple of hundred meters upstream, and then it was caught – too many events in a row for a fish. Yes, sitting, looking at the float of the water surface, and skillfully distinguishing the various reasons for the float’s swaying – from waves and/or wind or from a bite. And then determining the best moment to pull in, without confusing a “tricky” clever bite with a real bite. I remember how I was also surprised by events that seemed unreal, when I caught a fish on an empty hook when I was re-casting the rod, or catching a “ruff” fish by the dorsal fin – I don’t understand how that even happens, but it’s so amazing.

There were also interests related to invention. When I was young, I wanted to make a car, mostly out of wood. I remember how strategies were spinning in my head about how it would be set in motion, how the heating system would be made, and even what kind of glove compartment it would have. At that age, I thought that I would implement a good engineering solution – I would create a heater in the car. Everything seems simple, but I thought I had to come up with such an idea. Something like this: I put a fan, and in front of it a thick, warm (maybe woolen) fabric: the fan blows cold air through the fabric, the air warms up in it and comes out warm. And already at a later age, I realized that clothes do not generate, but retain body heat. In particular, perhaps due to such childish peculiarities of thinking, I abandoned the idea of building a car at the stage of its knocked together frame on the roof of a house on the “fazenda”.

I didn’t like reading books. But I had a few favorites, for example, a thick encyclopedia from the USSR – learning the meaning of unfamiliar words is fascinating. And of the books that were able to transfer me to a pleasant state, there was a series about antiquity with cool illustrations, which, by the way, were also compiled in the logic of an encyclopedia. I think they were called something like this: “How would you live in ancient Rome”, “How would you live in ancient Egypt”, “How would you live among the Vikings”.

At that same distant age, I had a kind of desire to tell stories, including in writing. So, once at school we were given an assignment to write something on a free topic, and I described how my parents and I picked up a dog on the street, then this dog lived with us, and I developed a whole reasoning about dogs and people, about actions, in general, it turned out interesting, the teacher even wrote next to the grade that I was a good boy. And my grandfather back in those years found a person somewhere who retyped this story, and released it on a printer. It was nice and there was a feeling that there was something of mine hidden here, something to which I was not indifferent.

Of the cartoons, fairy tales and TV series, I definitely liked: “Tom and Jerry”, “Prostokvashino”, “Once Upon a Time There Was a Dog” (cartoons from the USSR) and fairy tales during the New Year holidays. But I didn’t like “Well, Just You Wait!” (also a cartoon from the USSR, similar in concept to Tom and Jerry) – it felt like he was drawn as a heavy drinker, smoker, and uninteresting as a person citizen of the Soviet Union in an uncomfortable cold kitchen with blue tiles on the walls. There was also a cartoon about monkeys, about pirates, and I also didn’t like the “spirit” of these cartoons. I really liked “Alf”, “The Mask”. I was afraid, but watched Freddy Krueger. I loved watching “Field of Miracles” (it is analog american TV show Wheel of Fortune) with my grandparents, I was sad at the end of the program when the host said the final words, because I wanted to prolong this feeling of home comfort. Later, when I was 12—13 years old, I liked watching MTV and channels where they showed various extreme sports and beautiful videos accompanied by rock music.

It is very difficult to remember the details now, but I was interested in what is called the soul or psyche. The behavior of some people raised questions, I wanted to understand why they acted this way and not differently, why some were strange. And in my head there were so many different states that I sought to understand, to explore them. I felt it as a pleasant desire to learn, to explore, to “declassify” what is connected with the soul, the structure of man and society. Unfortunately, I cannot remember what words I would have used to describe my interest then. But, probably, most of all I was attracted by pathological manifestations of the psyche. Several cases come to mind, which, of course, do not exhaust the entire interest in the soul.

I remember how near the “Universam” store, where we often liked to walk with friends, I saw a naked, and most likely homeless woman, she was walking somewhere slowly, was dirty and, probably, in a state of alcoholic intoxication. I am a smart boy, at school they teach me to write, read, count. But no one taught me that a society of people can give out such amazing things. Explanations like: “well, she is probably sick”, or “she is probably drunk” – are no good, it is clear as day. I wonder how this happened? So many people, such a well-organized society, everyone looks like each other, they go on green, stand on red, go to the toilet properly, and then suddenly. The “molecule” (that woman) of society up and fell out of the combed line – naked, she says, I want to walk, it’s summer after all. For me, this is an interesting “glitch” in the system of society, and in the head of one person, which I wanted to explore.

Another case is a woman who age was beetween women and grandma. She was a janitor in my yard, and was, I think, deaf and dumb, and most likely with significant mental disabilities. I was very little then, so my memories are fragmentary. But the main ones are that my then acquaintances and I bullied her and ran away. She ran after us and made inarticulate sounds. And I remember how sorry I felt for her, and then I also wanted to understand how this happened to her, what she was thinking, worrying about. But my behavioral repertoire was then only enough to play secondary roles in the process of bullying her.

Another interest from the psychological field is dreams and the state before falling asleep. What kind of phenomenon is this: I fall asleep, switch off, and some movie or cartoon starts showing up for me, and in such a strange “language”, filmed by strange, inconsistent, illogical and overly mysterious “directors”. Where do they come from and why do I need them? For example, to walk I need my legs, I know that. And why do I need dreams? It would be fine if they were harmless entertainment, but there are also nightmares. And what are they for? Don’t I have enough problems in reality? And why do I have some kind of fears before going to bed, sometimes I need to wrap my legs under the blanket as much as possible so that no one, no monster, can get in there in the dark, sometimes I’m afraid to fall asleep near the window. Even at that distant age, I seemed to be afraid, but at the same time I understood that this was some kind of nonsense that had stuck to me, these incomprehensible fears, this was something unnatural.

Another micro situation happened when I just started going to acrobatics. And there is a big unfamiliar room, a lot of people. And then during one of the first classes the main trainer is replaced by another. We are standing in a line, and he commands something unintelligible to me, even now I can’t recall it with complete certainty, but I had to spread my toes apart by the length of my foot. And I don’t understand what he wants, there is noise in my head, and I hesitated and spread my toes wide. He comes up and starts yelling, like: “Are your feet size 41?” (and it size is very big), and continues something else. And at that time I had to grow and grow to 41. And then, probably, I got scared, embarrassed too, but I definitely remember that I also felt anger then, I thought “why are you yelling, idiot!”. I also became interested in why this horse suddenly decided to yell at me. … what in his head allowed and/or forced himself to behave like that. What kind of social situation happened that made me feel so bad?

Another story is connected with the fact that in the courtyard of an ordinary five-story building where my grandparents lived, in a small low front garden opposite the entrance, some parents periodically poured water from a bucket on their daughter, my age. When they came out, she was already naked, they doused her with water, then dried her. I saw her both in winter and in summer. Okay, the reason for such behavior would seem to be obvious – it is the body’s hardening. But two questions. One is not very interesting, but still: is this the only way to harden the body: do you have to be naked and in the courtyard, that is, in front of people? The second question is more interesting. When I saw this girl, I could not take my eyes off her, she was beautiful, her manner of standing and moving, her reaction to being doused… I was indescribably drawn to her. These were also my new, unclear, but pleasant and interesting experiences. Just like with the above, I wanted to understand what it was.

I also remember a couple of stories described in books that I thought about. The stories were moral-oriented for children. The plot of the first one took place at school. One boy discovered during recess that he had no food to eat, although he usually had some. There was no mention of a cafeteria. And so his classmates behaved approximately as follows: one said something like: “well, you probably dropped your food somewhere on the way to school”, another said: “well, you need to be more careful and attentive so that this does not happen to you”. And the third said nothing, he just broke off half of his sandwich and shared it with him. Moral: the third boy is a good boy, be like him. But somehow it did not add up in my head. Now we can say that the moralistic authors somehow did not leave room for other options. For example, what if I do not share, then I am bad? Can we discuss the motives (reasons) for my actions? Or only “black” and “white”? And it’s strange, how does the Earth carry the first two boys at all if they act like that. Okay, the Earth, let it be indiscriminate, how does our society carry them then? In general, this morality left me with an unpleasant feeling. It would be easy to join the third virtue, to associate with it, but this is too superficial an approach. So here is some material for reflection for me.

And in another described situation there was also enough material. Here it is: the events most likely took place in a village. A large family is sitting and eating. They all look healthy, young, well-mannered, their cheeks are rosy, they chew with their mouths closed. Somewhere in the distance sits a very old grandfather, he is not at the table, but somewhere they placed him so that other healthy and young people do not hear, do not see how he smacks, how food flows from his “leaky” mouth, do not see his wrinkled face, etc. And then either a new character appears or someone from those previously present has a guilty conscience, and he begins to scold the family for treating the grandfather as if he were not a person. He began to shame everyone, list the grandfather’s merits before those gathered. It seems that he even returned the grandfather to the table. And I automatically connected to this topic, what kind of injustice is this, why is a lonely old sick grandfather sitting there, and you healthy young guys are like pigs with him…

But even here the situation cannot be so morally one-sided. If the authors of the fable are such humanists, then what should I do – the child I was then, when I see a very old wrinkled body, food running down his cheeks, that smell… That is, is it morally right to make the child pay for this whole discrepancy? Like, “Okay, I feel sorry for the grandfather, he fought, and we are in his house, let’s seat him at the table with the child, let the child suffer, everyone will more or less win, except for the child, he won’t be able to demand rights yet, he’s small.” But the fact that the child will be torn apart by terrible feelings at that moment – that’s okay. And not because the child is spoiled, selfish or just a jerk, but because nature itself has arranged it so that in the eyes of a child watching, the sight of extreme old age or even the visual embodiment of death does not evoke sympathy and deep respect in him. Of course, these book situations are like an attempt to instill kindness, purity, light. But considering that they no longer stand up to criticism from a person who has not even reached the age of ten, it means that adults themselves are somehow naive, one-sided and not so smart to normally illustrate their teachings to a child. So this also became interesting for research.

Another thing that was in the air, in society and aroused interest was religious – faith in God, arguments in favor of his existence, interpretation of phenomena and actions of people based on faith in his existence, etc. It is far from being said that my family was religious, except that my mother sometimes went to church and knows a few prayers. It is so difficult to remember now, but somewhere in the very beginning I liked the idea of the existence of a higher being, but when several times in difficult situations for me there was no reaction to my requests for help, of course I doubted, and then the spell fell off me altogether. Moreover, I found so many logically unfounded, blatantly contradictory assumptions in this idea of the divine that the question of whether to believe it or not quickly disappeared.

But two other very important questions arose. The first is how can I live if no one from above will help me? Wait, be patient, pray, try to understand the plan, repent, rephrase my request a hundred times – this is not for me right away, thank you. This means that an alternative concept of the picture of the World that I should have. But I don’t have it yet. This makes it difficult. I need to come up with something. The second question is – if I have rejected the idea of the religious, since it has not passed the test of ordinary human logic, then why is the “religious market” so vast in society, and why does this phenomenon have so many fans? … questions that were also hanging in my mind and wanted to be solved.

Along with these questions were the questions of my mortality and the mortality of my loved ones that had recently fallen on my head. Here, perhaps, it is not even necessary to show interest in psychology in order to hang for some time from such news, or rather not news, but awareness. But nevertheless, I hung in my own way, and in addition to experiencing anxiety, this also caused me to have “sprouts” of research interest in the phenomenon of mortality and how to cope with it when the outcome is clear.

The issue of mortality was accompanied by my encounters with the death of other people. Thus, at different times I happened to see three dead men outside the coffin and outside the quiet funeral ceremony – one in the entrance, the second under the pipes in the bushes, the third under one of the back steps of my school. Another little boy who was fatally hit by a trolleybus, although at the moment of the accident my mother turned me in the other direction, but I remember the cry of the boy’s mother. And by that age I had already been taught that in society, a person’s life means a lot! A person himself is a great creation of nature! And if so, then they should die, it would seem, somehow majestically or something. But no. In the bushes under the pipes lies quietly in ordinary worn clothes, he lies, and everyone else lives. In the entrance as well, and under the porch, and at the intersection with the trolleybus.

Everything is so prosaic and mundane. That is, not only is the outcome clear – death, but it also comes to people practically in house slippers, without ceremony, just like such working moments of the Universe. It came, took a rabbit, a couple of pigs, an old cow, a titmouse, and a boy – something like that, and they were all on one list. And death comes regardless of the small human joys of life, so my paternal grandmother died on his birthday. Now it was necessary to develop an appropriate attitude to this too. And along the way, society itself revealed its little-understood, and at that time outrageous for me, sides. There are wailers at funerals. What is that? If they don’t want to – let them not cry, if they want to – they will cry themselves. How do people manage to stuff theatricality, pretense, commerce and these artificial tears, groans into such an intimate, personal event?

I also found interesting psychological questions that left me with unanswered questions in animal behavior and relationships between people and animals. Why, if you are friends with a dog, does it still growl if you approach its bowl when it is eating? That it is impossible to cancel your nature’s hackneyed instinct and believe that I do not claim food? A cat reacts calmly, but a dog does not.

Another situation: a puppy appeared to our fazenda, I wanted to make friends with him, but he barked at me non-stop for a very, very long time. At the end of the day, he simply could not bark abruptly like a dog, but pronounced “ava-ava” in almost Russian sounds. Apparently, it was easier that way. For the record: I did not squeeze him, did not scare him, but simply sat in the our outer entrance hall, and tried to talk to him – or rather, with the intonation of my voice, to make him understand that I was normal and did not pose a danger to him. and Earliner I found a common language with other dogs both before and after. And we became friends him they, and he lived with us for several years, both at the farmstead and at my father’s work. But the question has already arisen: what was this phenomenon that prevented normal communication almost immediately?

Another situation: we got a budgie. These are parrots the size of a sparrow that can be taught to talk. But we didn’t have enough strength to do it. When the TV was on in the room, the parrot chirped non-stop. And if you turn up the volume on the TV – the parrot chirps louder. Unfortunately, for me personally, the excitement of having an amazing new resident in the house soon gave way to irritation. And I wasn’t the only one, so we soon gave the parrot to good hands, with its cage and all its belongings. I don’t know, maybe this situation is not really about an animal, but perhaps about the relationship between people and animals. Although no, not only. I remember then being upset by the fact of “stubbornness” and the rigidity of alive, wild nature. We tried a thousand different ways to persuade it not to chirp, but it chirped. It was a pity to accept the fact that some living creatures are only nominally alive and cannot make contact with humans, are not capable of changing their behavior – as nature told them to chirp, so they do, without reviewing anything or climbing into their nature’s settings. Oh, what a pity, so I wanted such a handsome parrot to be able to understand humans at least a little.