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- Lesson 4.1: The Art of Telling. To Tell or Not To Tell
The provision of mental health care for expats in China is not adequate. In the capital alone, there are over 200,000 (Xinhua Net, 2012) expats. Many are facing the constraints of a limited number of qualified, English speaking psychologists in Beijing. Mental illness in China is heavily stigmatized, and people’s ignorance of depression prevents the majority of Chinese nationals from seeking help. One of the great fears for those living with mental illness is that in revealing their struggles to others, even close family and friends, it will result in incomprehension at best and severe judgment and social derision at worst. To open up to someone near to you and then be judged as weak, melodramatic, crazy or even worse is certainly a terrifying proposition. But what is so easily forgotten is that discovering the compassion of others is how we truly know friendship, and how we discover who our true family are, both in blood and heart. This fear may also hold us back from an even more amazing experience: the opportunity to show compassion to others. Welcome back to CandleX Classroom! In this session, we’ll discuss the important topic of self-care by answering some frequently asked questions: “Should I tell others that I have depression?”, “And if so, who, when, what and how?” These are common questions people ask themselves during periods of depression. They know they need help but may have concerns about asking for it. Some common concerns people have are as follows: Will my friends think I am weak? Am I going to lose my job if tell them? But if I don’t, I am not really performing anyway… Is this going to make my parents or partner worry about me? This is our advice; if you have depression, please do tell others. It’s the first step in seeking help. Be aware that not everyone will understand, or know how to respond to that. But some will, and they’ll be your life pillars through the episodes. Level of Depression is the Primary Factor for Consideration There are different levels of depression: mild, moderate and major depression (for more details on the symptoms, please refer to Lesson 2. Regardless of what level you are at, the purpose of telling others should always be helping yourself. Everyone has a different personality, environment and coping mechanisms. And so there isn’t a general yes or no in terms of deciding whether to tell, whom to tell, what to tell and how to tell. Those questions need to be answered by you. You can do it in whichever way feels the most suitable for you. The main question to ask yourself is. “Will the help me to cope with my depression better?” This is the primary principle and is more important that concerns over saving face. ACTION: Yep, it’s now time to write this question on a sticker and put it on the bedroom wall! Here are some general guidelines. Remember that you can accept or reject or adapt these guidelines to whatever is easiest for you. For mild-moderate depression: telling others is not as important as following the doctor’s advice: good night sleep, exercise, nutrition, and mental health counseling, etc. If you can manage to get these done, you are on the way to recovering on your own. Telling is only very much needed if you think you need external supervision/support to get you on a healing track. Focus your energy on getting things on track in life, instead of being stuck with the dilemma of telling or not. For severe depression: you have to tell others! One symptom of unavoidable symptom is repetitive suicidal thoughts, this is life-threatening. On top of that, severe depression comes with severe cognitive impairment. It has a substantial negative impact on your social life, intimate relationships, work performance and even daily routine functions like getting out of bed or taking a shower. By that, we mean, you need external help to get you through it because you’ve lost the basic functions temporally. There shouldn’t be any shame in this. Just like any other organ in our body, our brain does get sick, it’s just invisible and less understood by our society. (Go to CandleX Classroom Depression Essentials Series: Lesson 3 Causes of Depression to understand why it happens). So when we are sick, we tell people that need to know so your boss will allow you to take sick leave, and your loved ones will bring your chicken soup, for the soul. Marco, CandleX’s Representative, shared his story of opening up in the hopes of encouraging you to take this step too. 3 years ago, having suffered a severe breakdown, I responded by opening up to my family and friends, of whom there were many, purely as a matter of survival. If those around me were not aware of what was happening to me during a severe episode, they would have no way to help, and if they weren’t there to help, I might not make it the next time. The effects were lasting. I quite quickly had a support group that I could rely on as my faith in them had not been misplaced. What’s more, my openness led others to reveal to me that they had similar struggles that they had always been too afraid to share, and it was my honesty and lack of humiliation that allowed them to speak up as well. They knew that I had some sense of what they were going through; I would not be one to judge. And I began to see myself as one among a group of people that formed a special sort of club, one in which we shared a language of adversity that only we could truly understand, but to which those who were willing could also listen to. In receiving empathy and compassion I found courage, and in giving it, I found meaning. For it is in the light that we can enjoy the company of others, but only in the darkness that we find true friendship. For Marco’s full story, you can find it in CandleX column: Marco’s Story with Depression. Do not forget, our peer support group for people with depression in Beijing is a safe and confidential space for you to start the conversation. Take baby steps. We are here to hold your hand.
- Shangshan Monthly Salon
Do you know how CandleX started? Most people started to help other people with mental health issues because they have been there themselves. We are no exception. We are very honored to be invited by Shangshan Foundation to join this month’s Salon of “Depression Story”. Xiaojie, Founder of CandleX will be sharing her personal story; Zhao Xiangyang, a professor at Beijing Normal University will talk about their documentary on depression “One Man Battle”, which presents his own story and reflection on depression. We are happy to have the opportunity to make connections with local Chinese mental health advocates, and we’d like you to join us as well. Time: 19:00-21:00 25th Monday July 2016 Location: Yuan’en Space (Jiaodaokou area) Note:the event is a local event in Chinese. Here is the introduction of this event http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzI2OTAyMjE2NQ==&mid=2650552347&idx=2&sn=3775f653f95725f32c82c2ff536c1478#rd For Registration: http://lxi.me/whdj0 CandleX’s Resources Are you or a friend in a Crisis? Crisis Support Your questions on mental health | CandleX Classroom https://www.candlex.cn/classroom Depression stories from our community members (both adults and teens) CandleX Column | Community Writing https://www.candlex.cn/community-writing Pretreatment CandleX Wechat Groups all ages, add our admin: niama_elazzab for 15-22 year old, add our admin: amaraprenderyya Peer Support Group biweekly meetings and biweekly hangout
- Workshop on Depression with British Council
On April 26th, 2016 CandleX held a workshop on depression for the British Council staff. The workshop was conducted by Melena, a certified counsellor, and Xiaojie, CandleX founder. The presentation included a 60 minute multi-media and interactive workshop followed by a Q&A session. The goal of the workshop was to inform people about depression, and to promote self care and care for colleagues, friends and family members who may be experiencing depression. We covered key components of depression symptoms, the prevalence of depression, and also spoke about how to help both ourselves and others. Depression is a serious issue, but we don’t have to treat talking about it as if it is something shameful and hopeless. CandleX’s workshops all take an easy to digest approach and make use of role-play, multi-media, group work and self-reflection exercises. Afterwards, we were very happy to receive positive feedback from the staff and to learn that the posters we handed out to them were already stuck up on their office walls. 350 million people in the world suffer from depression. This means you probably know someone who is currently suffering or has suffered in the past. You may not know who this person is. It could be your friend, colleague, or even a family member. We want to tell those that have depression that there is help in Beijing and to inform those who don’t have depression, how they can help. If you think your work place or school could benefit from a workshop such as this one, email us at info@candlex.org . When we start to talk about depression we start to heal. #workshop #mentalhealth #depression #China
- First Mental Health Support Group Meeting
CandleX has been hoping to establish a mental health support group ever since the beginning of our project. We want to provide a space where people who are going through a difficult time can meet to offer and receive support. It isn’t easy to set up this kind of group. We don’t have a sufficient budget for such activities and it is a constant struggle to pay for the required media publicity to enable those in need to find out about our group. We need a private space in a good location that can provide a comfortable and soothing setting – we also need this space to be freely available for us to use. We were also worried as to whether or not the people who sign up to attend would actually come – and if they did would they be comfortable enough to share their deepest feeling in order to receive support or would they feel as though they had to keep their thoughts hidden? We were also worried that that the attendees would not get on with each other. Friends of CandleX kept on prompting us to start this group and helped us to spread the word that we were looking for a space. We were generously offered the ideal space to use at no cost and so we decided to be brave, and mustered up the courage to face our fears, and held our first peer support group on 27th October 2017. People came without knowing what to expect and we are so grateful to these attendees for taking the chance to meet with us. Attendees reported after that they felt warm and supported and would like to continue to meet in the future. And so it was that our fears of organizing this group were proven wrong and thankfully relieved. This session officially marked the beginning of a English language peer support group in our own Beijing community. We will meet once every 2 weeks. Please email info@candlex.cn to reserve a spot. The power of connection and compassion heals. Do not suffer alone when you can heal in a group! #mentalhealth #supportgroup #Beijing #depression
- Event Review | BJfoodies Community’s support for CandleX, 23rd Aug 2015
On 23rd August 2015, the awesome BJfoodies community warmly hosted CandleX for their August dinner gathering. Xiaojie Qin introduced CandleX to the dinner group and presented the upcoming events all aimed at increasing the metal well being of the Beijing community. We’d like to express our appreciation to Kristen from BJFoodies for making this happen. Thank you too our CandleX friends and supporters from Moishe House for joining us for dinner. We really appreciate the community support and your support will keep this project running. #Beijingfoodies #China #mentalhealth