Delayed Life Neurosis

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Author: Elena Martynova

A young girl is sitting in front of me. She cries bitterly that everything in her life is not going the way she would like. There is not enough love and warmth in relationships with people, difficult relationships with parents, there is no opportunity to realize her own abilities and talents, there is NOTHING that would be interesting and meaningful for her! I look at her carefully and warmly:

- Do I understand correctly that you do not like your life that you are living?

- Yes! - she sniffs. - I don't like it at all. - and sobs again.

- And when will you start living the way you want? How do you like it? I ask.

She thinks, her eyes dry:

- Here I will have my own home, and then everything in my life will be different, - exclaims my client, rejoicing at the answer she found.

She looks at me, looking in my face for approval and confirmation that this difficult task in life has been solved correctly. But I am silent. There is no point in hiding disappointment! Now I know that this client of mine also has a "life deferred syndrome."

How many times have I heard such phrases from people who dream of changes in their lives. Phrases in which real life should begin later, under certain conditions, and the current one, the one that a person lives with, is only a preparation for that real one.

For some, the conditions of a new life depend on the person himself: "Here I will quit this job …", "Here I will write a diploma …", "Here I will earn a lot of money …", "Here I will live separately …"

In the second half of the cases, the conditions for starting a new life should be provided by others: partners, parents or relatives, and sometimes completely strangers! people: “My husband will stop drinking …”, “My son will graduate from university …”, “My daughter will get married …”, “That hated neighbors will move out of the next apartment …”, “Let's move to another city …”

And a person lives, from year to year postponing for later not just a new and interesting job, hobbies and hobbies, rest and travel, but his own personal happiness and good mood. This can take several years, and sometimes decades.

Even at the age of 20 and even at the age of 30, it seems that all the conceived conditions are sure to be realized. Exactly. One has only to wait a little more. But at 40 and 50 people are already beginning to understand that life is passing, and the long-awaited changes do not come. A person falls into depression, falls ill with a serious incurable disease, runs away in dependence, tries to commit suicide. This is how the "delayed life neurosis" manifests itself.

This term was invented by Vladimir Serkin, Doctor of Psychology, the author of the most interesting book "The Laughter of the Shaman". In his opinion, the main difference between a neurotic and a normal person is that normal people solve problems, while a neurotic, on the contrary, constantly postpones them, explaining why it is necessary to do this.

I remember how I once came to visit a friend of mine. After the divorce, he was going to sell the apartment, as he decided to move from this city. His wife left early and took almost all of the things. The apartment was empty and neglected. It was evident that there had been practically no repairs here. But a family with two children lived in this apartment for about 10 years! I went to the toilet and saw a terrible old broken toilet seat. It was so old that it was impossible to even guess its color. Cracked to the ground in several places, it was lovingly wrapped in duct tape.

- Listen, Alexey, did she (I mean his ex-wife) take the toilet seat with her? - I asked, suspecting the poor woman of absolute commercialism.

“No, no,” he replied easily. - This seat was here even when we bought this apartment from a granny.

- Ten years ago??? I gasped.

“Yes,” he replied simply again.

- And you sat on this seat for ten years? - my amazement knew no bounds.

- Yes. So what? - it's time to be surprised at him.- After all, all the time we were going to leave this city. Therefore, no repairs were made, and this cover was not changed.

- But such a cap is worth a penny compared to your salary. Couldn't you buy a new cap? - I was indignant again. Alexey just shrugged his shoulders in silence.

I stopped arguing. The sight of this sad empty apartment told me that in this house, and therefore in the family, there was little love, little joy, little happiness. Only his constant expectation lived here. Not waiting for happiness, the family broke up …

Why do people choose the strategy of deferred life? Who is most susceptible to such a life scenario?

In one of the elite clinics in Moscow, the "delayed life syndrome" was named among the newest diseases that modern man suffers from. Women and men, young, mature and elderly people, regardless of their level of wealth and income, who live in villages, small cities and megacities, on islands, peninsulas or the mainland, are susceptible to a similar neurosis. In short, each of us can find ourselves in a similar trap.

What makes a person postpone his life? From my point of view, there are at least two reasons for doing this. The first reason is hidden in the life that a person leads. In order for real life to be only a preparation for the real one that will come one day, one must very strongly reject the existing one. Why might this be happening?

Every person in childhood and adolescence develops an ideal way of his own life - how and where he will live, what he will feel, what to do, what to strive for, what his family and relationships will be like, what his house will be like, what heights of life he will reach, what will be his material wealth, etc.

And here comes the present. But it is not what it was in thoughts and dreams. You don't have your own home or not the one you wanted, the job is uninteresting and unpromising, the profession you don't like, your partner is not the same and does not behave as expected, there is either no car at all, or it is of the wrong brand …

We can still enumerate for a long time all the discrepancies with those expectations that we once dreamed for ourselves in childhood and adolescence. And the more such discrepancies, the harder it is to perceive reality.

Then a person wakes up in the morning and feels that he seems to be living someone else's life, not his own. His place is in another city, in another company, next to another person. Reality becomes unbearable.

It is even more difficult to realize that YOU yourself made a mistake in your choice - in your profession, in your partner, in your life strategy. And if you made a mistake, it means bad, stupid, wrong. How to live with it? If a person understands this, he has three ways, three possible solutions.

First, start changing your life. Change your job, family, partner, profession, place of residence … But in order to start changes, you need determination, courage, support from friends and relatives. And fear fetters. The courage is not enough.

Friends and relatives say: “Why do you need this? Are you crazy. Everyone lives like that. What do you want most of all? " My head is teeming with insidious thoughts "Will it work out?", "Will it not get worse?" The person begins to look for other solutions.

The second possible solution is to abandon the changes. It means agreeing with the life you live. Agree that you are not satisfied with life with this partner, but you stay with him FOREVER. Agree that you are a failure and you will NEVER succeed. Agree that you will NEVER be happy. It is unbearably painful to admit it.

Is it possible to withstand such a heartache? Such flour? Such suffering? Probably you can. If there is a high meaning in this suffering: love, faith, a great idea. And if not? And the person again goes in search of a solution.

Third, changes can be postponed. A person does not seem to refuse to change everything in his life for the better. On the contrary, he wants changes, he talks about them, he believes in them. But he either does not name the exact date, or complicates it with new conditions. First, "I will quit my hated job in September." Then "I'll quit in the fall." Then "I'll quit as soon as I find a new job." Finally, “I'm too busy when I work. No time to search. I'll wait until vacation."

Time and again, changes are postponed. Over and over, another, better life is delayed. Success, prosperity, happiness, joy are postponed again and again.

How can working with a psychotherapist help? This is beautifully expressed in one Eastern wisdom. Find the strength to change, what can be changed. Accept that which cannot be changed. And to distinguish one from the other.

You cannot change your parents, but you can change your attitude towards them. It is difficult to change your gender, body, appearance, age, but you can change your attitude towards yourself. It is possible to change the relationship with a partner without changing the partner himself. You can get a new profession, move to another city.

In fact, you can change a lot. If there is support that gives courage and confidence. Of course, it is important that your therapist is also not afraid of changes, not only in your life, but also in his own life.

Remember what you dreamed about in childhood and adolescence, how did you imagine your adult life, what family, what partner, what job? Understand your dreams, separate reality from fairy tales. Say goodbye to children's fairy tales about a prince on a white horse, about great glory, about great deeds. See your real life. Is it really that bad? What is especially unbearable about her? And what do you even like and what you were not going to change?

Once in a therapy group, a woman in her forties cried for two days in a row. All the questions - what is she crying about? what with her? what does it feel? etc. - it was not that she did not answer - she simply could not answer. As if she had forgotten all the words that denote her state, experiences and feelings. Alice, let's call her that, was also in poor health.

She had a significant number of all kinds of diseases: duodenal ulcer, mastopathy, vascular dystonia, migraine, varicose veins, gastritis, colitis, a bunch of gynecological problems. Although she was constantly treated, her symptoms were her constant companions. It was clear that she was absolutely not satisfied with her own life. But what is wrong with it?

I kept asking myself this question, looking for answers in the history of her life, her family, her rare and scanty descriptions of her own attitude. And found nothing. Alice had a wonderful family, a loving husband, two adorable daughters. In addition, she was the only and beloved daughter of her still living parents.

In the family, too, everything went well. Any woman could envy such a husband. A tall handsome man, an officer with a scientific degree, a jack of all trades, he just carried his Alice in his arms, not giving her even a hint of a reason for jealousy. And she continued to hurt and cry. I don’t remember how, but this version suddenly occurred to me.

- Alice! - I asked, illumined by a guess. - Correct me if I'm wrong. The life you are living does not correspond to your youthful dreams, not like what you dreamed about.

Hearing my words, Alice nodded and burst into tears. And then our work on reality began. About the fact that in this reality, not everything is so bad. And a lot is even very good. This woman recovered pretty quickly.

Now he lives an active rich life: he works a lot, goes in for sports, travels. Today it is difficult to recognize in her the lethargic and flimsy Alice, whom I once met.

The second reason for the constant “postponement of life” is striving for a result and ignoring the process. Process and result are two sides of any action. Everything that happens has its own process and its result. Unfortunately, in our lives we often overestimate the meaning of one and underestimate the meaning of the other.

Striving for the result, we forget about the process. We enjoy the process, ignoring the result. In my opinion, both of these sides should be balanced and complement each other harmoniously.

Once, in a dialogue with one client, we found out that she is focused on the result and completely ignores the process. She proudly said that at lunchtime she eats lunch the fastest and she has to wait a certain time for her companions to finish their meal.

- What is it that takes so long to sort out in the plates? - she was indignant. - The main thing for me is to get enough. And again into battle. Back to work.

I drew her attention to the fact that the process of eating food can also be enjoyable. And then we found out that it skips not only this process. In fact, she skipped the entire process of life: she was in a hurry all the time, hurried the days - she waited for the evening in the morning, in the evening for the morning.

At the age of 36, she was waiting for a pension in order to leave to live by the warm sea. We also talked about the process and the result, and she noted that the result is really very important for her, she constantly strives for it. Then I asked her:

- And what do you think is the result of life?

I paused. She, too, was silent.

- Isn't it true that the result of life is death? - I concluded.

My client looked at me in silence and confusion. But I had no other answer.

Often, clients who initially ignore the process, trying to make changes in their lives, rush to the other extreme: they are carried away by the process and completely forget about the result. This can be expressed in a huge number of started and unfinished business, in a relationship that has neither a past nor a future, in loans and borrowed money, which there was initially nothing to return.

Unresolved problems accumulate, their solution is postponed for an indefinite future. A person becomes scared to look not only at his present, but also at his future.

Life is not just postponed. It turns into a special kind of illusion, self-deception, when a person lives exclusively on his own fantasies, because only they are safe for him. These illusions are accompanied by all sorts of addictions: alcoholic and narcotic, gambling and emotional.

Psychiatry has long been talking about Munchausen syndrome, a person who exhibits non-existent diseases. But people live next to us who also demonstrate their non-existent life: an invented career, a ghostly status, an imaginary prosperity, an imaginary family well-being - everything that they actually do not have and that in reality a normal person should have.

And at this time, their reality is actually filled with alcohol, virtual relationships, online games, empty pastime. Awareness of one's own worthlessness, emptiness can lead a person to tragedy.

If you find that the process and the result in your life are not balanced, then do not rush to despair and get depressed. Try to start by structuring your own time, activities, and plans. Determine how much you can actually do.

Prioritize, write down your goals. Investigate - are these your goals? Do you really want it? What is the meaning of these goals? Are these really veiled needs? Remember that needs are not satiable, unlike goals that can be achieved.

An experienced psychotherapist or coach will help you figure this out, plan your life and start implementing plans. Don't neglect professional help. This is why consultants are trained to help people solve problems. Your own view of yourself can be, professionally speaking, “blurred”. You yourself may not see your own illusions, for there is nothing sweeter than self-deception.

Many philosophers and scientists, already sophisticated by their own life experience, in their declining years noticed: people believe that they are most afraid of death, in fact, they are afraid of LIFE. Kant, A. Einstein, S. L. Rubinstein and many others.

So let's LIVE. To live in the fullest sense of the word is to feel, worry, take risks, make mistakes, fall and get up again, love and believe. Let's stop putting off our own happiness, joy, and love for an indefinite future.

Let's start LIVING TODAY. NOW!