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

Here’s the situation: we had a cat and a dog living on our fazenda. Their character and relationship were typical: the cat was important and sometimes hysterical, the dog was naive towards the cat, kind to her own people and mean to strangers. They probably respected the fact that they shared a house, but they definitely weren’t friends. One time the cat gave birth to kittens when it was still cold outside. The kittens were in the barn, I think. A few days passed, she was taking care of the kittens, everything was fine. And one day my grandfather and I came to the fazenda, and some kind of hell happened there. As far as I remember, we then realized that either the dogs or the cats had attacked our cat. What a horror. And when I came there, I remember feeling like I had come to a crime scene. There was tension in the air, and the cat and dog looked worried and shabby. The cat seems to have dragged two kittens into our dog’s kennel for protection. And one or two kittens died. And those that she dragged in, we initially took for dead, because they were like ice cubes, but then it turned out that they were alive and we were warmed up for a long time they. The point here, which was important and interesting for me, was that our cat and dog acted so wisely and thoughtfully in a catastrophic situation. It is valuable in itself that I became a direct witness of how animals demonstrated the ability to help each other. And, of course, now such they’s behavior, which goes beyond the framework of “animal instinctive behavior”, is always in my field of interest.

And in general, without separating the psycho of man and animals, I was surprised and wanted to learn more about the structure of common life phenomena. For example, how I can see the world around me, how this information is processed in my head, how my thoughts, images in my consciousness, feelings and emotions appear and what they are woven from.

Also, in addition to my research interest in the psyche, I had closely related emotions of compassion for people or animals who are outside the “framework of their normal state” or outside the “framework of what is accepted as normal in society.” I remember concentrating on this in particular and on the issue of human or animal suffering in general. I wanted to help with something, sometimes I did, and sometimes I didn’t, because I didn’t know how or didn’t want to spoil someone’s already not-so-great situation. For example, I could have helped that naked woman walking through the city with something, but I didn’t know what my help might look like.

When I thought of writing about personal interests that involve being alone with myself, I thought I would remember much more than I did. This, in my opinion, reflects the fact that I have long been a “learned extrovert”, that is, I focused on spending more time with other people, and accordingly, satisfying my interests in this way. This state of affairs also indicates that by nature I am more of an “introvert”, that is, focused on actions with the object (not the subject) of my interest and “interaction” with myself. And the need to retrain my nature most likely became one of the factors in the development of depression, which will be discussed later.

The listed interests concern the age of up to 15 years and moving to Russia, Tyumen.

Family as a source of ideas and an example of life path. Free invention and prosperity as my life choice

Above I described my actions that could be observed from the outside, they were also manifestations of my view of myself and life. And it was based on conclusions made based on the results of my observations of the family. It is unlikely that these conclusions were clear to me at that age, I rather felt them intuitively. Therefore, now I am trying to add clarity, turn them into words and express them.

Here they are: “can freely invent and have financial wealth – in this way you can consider that life is a success.” Then it is necessary to explain what I mean by free invention, and what financial wealth means to me.

As a child, I had an example of how to live on your mind own and earn good money. Although it is impossible to single out one family member from whom I gathered material for formulating my conclusions, but maybe the main role was played by my father and his activities. And the role and contribution of other family members may not have been so noticeable to the eyes of a child, but they were just as significant.

At that time I saw that my father’s work was a business related to cereal production. We had several workshops scattered around the city, where huge piles of different cereals were stored: buckwheat, pearl barley, semolina, etc. My father’s company processed them, packaged and sold them. They also produced and sold pasta. Some of the products were sold at retail in a couple of rented points of sale in the city markets, the other part was bought in large quantities by other companies. Good people worked in the workshops and the office, I think I knew them all. The production had different equipment – big, loud, iron, beautiful. Some equipment was made by ourselves, for example, loaders, crushers, etc. The territory was guarded by dogs, one dog – “Pirate” was taller than me, and I was afraid, but still made friends with him, the other – “Mike” – a stocky brown mongrel friend who had seen life. Everyone got along with them and fed them well.

And work “came” home in the form of bundles of big denomination “Tenge” (currency of Kazakhstan) bills tied with a rubber band. I remember how I sometimes counted them, interesting emotions… Then the bills were converted into the blessings of life. So, during my childhood, we successively changed apartments: one-room, two-room, three-room. They were all in the city center. We had two summer cottages. There was a beautiful private house in the foothills of the city. Its plot was on a rather steep slope, from which they eventually made three even tiers with steps. There, a large excavator dug a dungeon, on which they built a barn.

We drove cool foreign cars. My friend once noticed that my father changed cars like gloves. In addition to the family car, there were always work cars. Small and large. There was even three identical but different colored Volkswagen Transporter minibuses. My father had his own driver – a good man. And once we went to the store, and my father bought himself a mobile phone, although I think I didn’t even know about such things before. A similar situation was with the computer, when it appeared in our house, I didn’t know that anyone else I knew had one. In addition, it appeared in our house in a complete set: a printer, a scanner, a modem. Accordingly, the clothes and food were good.

My family led a socially open and proactive lifestyle, and understood how to maintain a sense of interest. My father was often the initiator of entertainment and ideas for them. So, it was common to go on joint trips with family friends and parents’ colleagues in a large company in the summer to the water, and in the winter to the hills and forests. In Kazakhstan, we loved to go on vacation to the lakes among the mountains “Borovoe” and “Chelkar”. We often visited Russia on vacation (Omsk, Kurgan, Novosibirsk, Chelyabinsk). It seems that no one went to distant foreign countries, like Turkey or even further, in our circle didn’t even know how to think about it. All of the above was for their own cash, not on credit, not on mortgage or debt, and I only learned the word “mortgage” after moving to Russia.

So, I didn’t know what it was like when my parents worked from morning till night. I didn’t know how to expect them to come home from work at a certain time in the evening. I didn’t know that any of them had bosses. I didn’t know that any of them took public transport. I didn’t hear that any of them needed to take time off from work, for example, for family reasons or illness. I didn’t hear that they were underpaid. I didn’t wait for my parents’ vacation to do something, but when they needed a rest, they simply took it from themselves from theyself.

That’s how I understand it for myself free invention – you know how to make money and you make it the way you like, and you don’t depend on an employer, whether it’s the state or a private individual. You breathe freely, you feel that the fruits of your labor are important and in demand in society. I sometimes I could watch my father at home making various sketches, drawings, diagrams, translating his thoughts onto paper. It was so arbitrary and so inventive and creative. It was similar when my father came up with how many grams to pack cereals in for retail sale. The arguments were something like: “Well, what about a kilogram, it’s somehow well… – a kilogram, let it be 800 grams.” The arguments were certainly weighty, but the most surprising thing for me was that they then packed the cereal in 800-gram increments, and serious figures were written on the pack: “800 g.” One might think that the decision to pack exactly 800 g was based on serious considerations in the company or compliance with some standards, but no, off the top of one’s head. So it was as if I learned something about this world from experience, learned the inside of the goods on the shelves. They are not all serious, much of this is just the spontaneous creativity of the producers, that’s all.

In much the same way, my father came up with a logo that would be on the retail packaging. The phenomenon itself, when you come up with an interesting logo. In doing so, you show and tell the world something, knowing that the logo will be looked at, remembered, and used to distinguish our products from others. And it’s really cool that no one is standing over you, no one will say that the logo needs to be redone because one of your bosses or customers doesn’t like it. A logo as self-positioning. Nowadays, one can assume that a person’s presence of a company logo has ceased to carry such a significant meaning, because even a teenager or any self-employed person can make one in Photoshop. But back then, having a logo was the lot of companies. The company needed to get on its feet, and only then a logo, like a well-deserved cherry on the cake – the opportunity to freely invent.

It turns out that my parents were not poor workers, but occupied a good position in society, had a status. Once my father celebrated an anniversary in a cafe, and I remember that there was a very long table, in fact, it was more like a wedding in terms of the number of people. And it was nice to see that many people knew my parents, they had a good relationship.

To sum it up, I can say that my family understood how to earn good money using their abilities, did it freely, and in addition to that were conscientious employers and producers of goods.

And my grandparents were also open, cheerful and sociable. Especially if I went somewhere with my grandpa, I was surprised how he met so many of his acquaintances along the way, and managed to stand and chat with everyone. And when I walked in their yard, my friend and I often ran to eat at my place, where my grandma treated us. And they also knew how to earn money in a rather inventive way – making and selling moonshine. When I stayed with them, there were, so to speak, “X” hours, when the door to the kitchen was closed so that if someone came, they would not see what they were doing here.

These fears are probably like relics of the “rainbow” “free” Stalinist times, when the walls had ears, and anyone who made a report was quickly isolated from society for a long time or forever. And the kitchen was so intricate then: tubes, hoses tied to a cupboard, flasks, gauze, and in the bathroom there were flasks and an interesting instrument for measuring the strength of a drink, similar in size to a thermometer for cows. Then, especially when I stayed overnight with my grandfather at the “hacienda”, I saw how buyers came for moonshine. It’s interesting, so alive – you produce a product, and it is bought up, and everyone is happy about it. Here I leave out the ethical side of the fact that the product was alcohol, and not, say, a cure for cancer, which would relieve people of suffering.

It is probably worth mentioning general data on the psychological climate in the family, or rather, what was not there, and accordingly, this what was not there did not influence me and my choice of life path. I was not beaten at home, I was not really forbidden anything, I was not punished by being a homebody, my computer or phone were not taken away. No one placed unreasonable expectations on me, like I have such high hopes for you, you are our support and blah-blah. They did not compare me with other children, they did not set me up as an example. I did not have “hard to reach” parents, I could talk to them informally and at any time, I felt that I was loved. Both my mother and father were married once, there were no divorces, betrayals, the family did not hang by a thread. I did not have stepbrother or srepsister. I was not forced to “drag” excellent grades from school, they did not force me to cram – I studied as I wanted, as long as they moved me from class to class in an ascending order. Something like this.

And since I started my life in such conditions, a desire to continue in the same spirit was formed in my consciousness – to invent freely, to be my own master, to have financial sufficiency. Intuitively, I understood that my desire fully corresponded to my capabilities, that is, to good inclinations for intellectual and creative activity. Also, that inside me there was something that was not entirely clear to me, but definitely important, unique, alive, interesting, and I really liked it.

I wanted to live this way for a simple reason – because I liked it. Although I didn’t see myself in the activity of processing and selling cereals or producing moonshine, I wanted to adopt the rest. And I envisioned a different leading activity for myself.

I did not imagine myself as a full-time employee – a sad working person. In my view, which was mostly confirmed much later, sad working people are those who barely “make ends meet, live a life in which there is no meaning other than to earn for basic needs.” They have no time left in life for life itself. Everything is “devoured” to death by boring duties. I do not remember that I would consider these people cheerful. I could observe the parents of my classmates, buddies or friends. Manu of this was sad workers. And they lived as if in a cage, they are not free. The only entertainment, as I imagined, for them was spending time in the company of alcohol and “greasy”, pathetic jokes below the belt or about those who live better than them socially.

I had a hints of rebellion when I thought about working for hire. What!? What do you mean!? How can anyone tell me what to do? How can I be dependent on my boss? What kind of nonsense is this: a 9—6 workday? I want to live, not be tied to some schedule. What do you mean!? Do I have to ask for time off or warn someone that I need to leave early today? What kind of nonsense is this: working 5 or 6 days a week. How is it that all daylight hours are taken up by work (especially dark came winter too early), and I have a miserable little bit of time left in the evening to live on, and that time is taken up again by preparing for tomorrow’s work!? How can you live like a human being on this salary? How can you spend your whole life waking up in pitch darkness and crawling out from under the covers into a cold room with irritating lighting that hits your eyes to go where your legs don’t lead you!? And why should I suddenly go and specifically fall asleep in order to get enough sleep before work when I don’t want to sleep at all!

I was terrified when I thought that something like this could happen to me. It’s a hopeless situation. And to this are added, to put it mildly, modest living conditions – often a miserably small apartment or an apartment in a depressive area, which you never want to go into. Monotonous cheap food is added there, not to enjoy it, but to fill the stomach and not die. Then – cheap clothes, made without a drop of sympathy for the human being, but only for commercial purposes – to dress the poor. There is no life for workers, they were born, tried to run, jump, ran in the rain, saw snow, played with a dog and a cat, rode a bike, swam in the river, ate ice cream, fell in love, stopped loving, then had sex, and dead. That’s all the “highest” impressions. Further, in the narrow sense, from Monday to Friday, they will wait for the weekend, and in the broad sense, they will wait for this life to end!? It has always hurt me that the society of the World has shoved the working person into such a cage, reduced his entire human being to the elementary.

I also observed another category of people – “men in jackets” with clean hands, who most often served the “king”. And if I sympathized with the workers, then I did not consider the latter to be people at all. I remember how I came across them several times on TV in some talk shows, where they bark at each other, and in moments of calm they chatter about the structure of the country, society, uttering incredible nonsense. Two smart guys once decided to explain some phenomenon in society in the following way: one fat guy in a jacket can barely stand on his hands, as on his feet, only on his hands, he is held and while he is in this pose, redder than a lobster, a glass of water is brought to his mouth for him to drink. The moral of the story – it is difficult to drink upside down, so some similar situation is happening in society. And there were not enough words in their lexicon to express it in words. Kings of metaphors and figurative meaning. Holy shit, they’re grown-up people, okay, singers or something, they’re supposed to be circus performers by nature of their work, but those try to seem smart, and they also have the levers of control over society in their hands. And of course, I didn’t want to become one of those either. Because besides being stupid, they’re also probably no freer than workers. After all, workers are at least allowed to tell someone they don’t like to go to hell, it’s kind of excusable for them, but these people have to filter what they say and dress it up in supposedly smart statements, wear a mask and not reveal their essence.

Well, I probably didn’t observe other categories of people. Although, no, there were others. At the market, it’s clear that I wouldn’t want to work. Even now in my mind I have images of saleswomen who smoke a lot, and on frosty days they themselves stand on the cardboard where customers try on shoes, in greatly improved felt boots, and to warm up they knock one foot against the other.

There, in childhood and a little later, I took steps towards earning money in a free, inventive way. If in very early childhood, then I handed in bottles. It was like cumulation – each bottle cost a certain price. You find, wash, count and handed, knowing how much you will get from it. Of course, I did not have to look in the trash, but I could take at home, from friends, or a neighbor who liked to drink beer from “cheburashkas” (bottles with dark glass) had a particularly large “catch”. It was especially interesting to search and think where else you can get bottles. The reward for a successful search idea was not delayed – found more, received more money. A good exchange of energies with the outside world. But you can’t make a career out of this, so I did not hand in bottles for long.

Later, during the summer holidays, I wanted to do something other than hanging out with friends, and we worked for my father several times. It was simple housekeeping in the fresh air. Even later, my ability to play the guitar brought me fruit in the form of payment for coming to a friend’s house and giving lessons. My two skills came together – the ability to explain something to someone and the ability to play in one “ability to explain and accompany the process of learning to play the guitar.” This is, in my opinion, an example of free invention – helping another person, a person I like, master my favorite instrument, and even for financial compensation.

Sources of mental pain and depressive roots

There would be no book if everything were fine and smooth. As if parallel to or independent of the psychological climate in my family, I was feling something bad, so difficult to describe. The sadness of hopelessness.

I haven’t had too many objectively difficult events, shocks in my life, that is, something that would happen outside my head. Well, let’s say, earthquakes, loss of loved ones at an early age, various violence, persecution, suicides, drug addiction of relatives, problems with housing, finances, moving. I will describe those that were, and in my opinion, among other factors became the basis for the development of depression.

There were a few assholes. Some from they, when I was in first grade, I don’t remember how exactly, took my toy soldier (I think it was a soldier, or some other toy dear to me, I don’t remember). I think I went home and returned to that place with protection and the intention of returning what was taken, but they weren’t there, they were never found. It was a bitter loss. I grieved over the fact that the World, among other things, is arranged this way.

Other assholes stole our bike. My brother and I were riding around the area where we had a “dacha” when we were stopped by two very unpleasant drug-addicted men. One said, “Let me ride for a while and then I’ll be back soon.” The other stayed with us, sort of waiting. Some time later, under some pretext, he also disappeared. We finally understood what had just happened. We went to the police and started looking for those people ourselves. I remember that we even found the private house where they lived, and the old mother said that my son wasn’t home, but at that moment he was runing away through the vegetable gardens. Everything was mixed up in my memory, but the loss was also very bitter. I reproached myself for my naivety and gullibility. I asked life – how is this even possible? Hm? What is the purpose of what happened, huh, life? Why do I need this? How does nature justify the fact that my bike, against my will, moved to live with someone else? Why, in particular, do assholes exist? In order to cause anger and disappointment in me and others like me? But that’s somehow not humane, isn’t it? So my attitude to life in general was shaken. It wasn’t a problem to find support and peace from such a “stormy” isolated situation. But in that situation i needed some more standart support. After all the thing is that I didn’t agree with the world order then, that there is a need to include such goats and situations associated with them in people’s existence.

But, still, as a small but useful discovery, I then understood from experience that you can’t expect anything good from the police at all. As if: “Hello, police, I’m being killed!” – “So why are you calling us?! When you’re killed, then call.” What can I say about a bicycle, a couple of children and a couple of drug addicts. And of course, then I wanted to find a way to exist, to avoid such situations and not experience such feelings in the future. The search was going to be long…

I had three operations under general anesthesia. One of the moments scared me to death with its hopelessness, and the cold, I think. I don’t remember which operation, I was about 5 or 6 years old, they wheeled me on a gurney to the operating room. The terrifying thing in itself is that I went from a cozy, soft, warm home to lying on a sterile, cold table surrounded by unfamiliar faces in robes in a room which more suitable for leaving life, but not live. I look at the ceiling with huge eyes at this big round lamp, where there are many small bulbs in a circle, and they tell me to count the bulbs, and they put on this transparent mask for anesthesia. I probably counted to three, and then I started to choke. And the horror came. It lasted for a few seconds, probably, but such helplessness and hopelessness overcame me before I passed out. The feeling is roughly as if at first the air came to me through my two nostrils of normal optimal diameter for this function, then after putting on the mask I seemed to be trying to inhale air through the hole of one medical needle. It is as if after this incident I somehow began to live more quietly, since even something like this can happen. This is not even something that makes you want to cry or seek consolation, it is something that makes you just look at a point, and in your head there is a tumbleweed.