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On the afternoon of March 20, 52-year-old Jiang Chun was finally persuaded by his daughter Lin Jiajia to see a psychiatrist for the first time.

When asked by the doctor, “Have you ever had any thoughts of committing suicide?” Jiang Chun choked up and was speechless. Throughout the consultation process, she cried many times and said, “Now I can’t do the things I was interested in before.” She was diagnosed with “menopausal depression” and her depression was severe. Before that, she went to the gynecologist to treat the physical problems caused by menopause.

Before Women’s Day, Lin Jiajia was on a business trip and received a call from her father, saying that her mother no longer wanted to live. Lin Jiajia was anxious. After returning home on Women’s Day, Jiang Chun saw the flowers her daughter brought and her mood gradually calmed down. This is the first time Lin Jiajia knows that her mother’s condition is so serious.

Menopausal depression, medically known as “perimenopausal depression”, is a type of depression that occurs in women before and after menopause.

Perimenopause is a special period in women’s lives, mostly between the ages of 45 and 55, and has become a period of high incidence of depressive symptoms in women.

When women enter menopause, they have to endure physical and mental discomfort caused by changes in hormone levels in the body. They also face complex pressures from family and society before and after retirement. The “2022 National Depression Blue Book” jointly released by the People’s Daily Health Client and other platforms shows that 73% of women feel helpless and irritable during menopause, and 60% of women feel lonely.

Yet the voices of menopausal women are rarely heard, and most of them endure this long transition alone.

Visual China data map of the picture in this article

Emotional distress that is not understood

Lin Jiajia remembers that before menopause, her mother was a positive and self-disciplined person in life. She is a junior high school teacher. She gets up before seven o’clock every day, goes to school to supervise morning self-study, goes to the gym after get off work to exercise, skin care, completes study tasks on her mobile phone after returning home, and goes to bed. She has a mild mysophobia, and the sink and floor at home never accumulate dust.

Today, my mother is sitting at home, not wanting to do anything. The sink is piled with dirty dishes, and there are dust and debris on the floor.

Lin Jiajia felt that Jiang Chun had become sensitive and fragile. After attending the funeral of an acquaintance, although she was not very close, my mother lowered her head in silence and said, “Now I feel that human life is really short. Yesterday, the person was sitting there peacefully, but today the old man is no longer here.” , and shed tears as he spoke.

Conflicts with family members are more likely to trigger her emotions. In Lin Jiajia’s eyes, her mother has strict requirements on herself and does not allow sleeping in at home. 9 o’clock is the latest time to get up. In the past, she would angrily say to her daughter, “Either I will take you out, or you will stay in bed”; now, when she hears her daughter say, “Leave me alone,” her eyes will immediately turn red: “You are Don’t you dislike me?”

Even if nothing happens, Jiang Chun will be depressed for no reason. She shut herself in her room for a long time, with the curtains closed. In the darkness, she lay on the bed, her head and hands exposed from the quilt, and her eyes kept open. Lin Jiajia stepped forward to ask, and Jiang Chun shed tears, “Leave me alone for now, let me stay alone and calm down.”

At first, Lin Jiajia was very distressed and would even cry with her mother. Later, when her mother often got angry with Lin Jiajia over trivial matters, “It would be a bit unbearable, and I had to calm down first.”

This kind of emotion is not understood by the people around me, and it also makes me feel confused. Wang Ling, a 52-year-old librarian, felt grievances uncontrollably when she saw her husband not waiting for her to have dinner with her. In the past, she used to make “you have a lot of meat” as a joke to her husband, but now she wonders if her husband is not treating her well. .

Wang Ling believes that these are “little things that cannot be mentioned”, but they have been expanded unconsciously by herself. When her grievances were out of control, she often used “Stop wallowing in self-pity” to enlighten herself, trying not to think about it and forcing herself to think about pleasant things, but her emotions would still explode. “In less than a minute, I felt regretful. Why was I angry again?” ”

“Symptoms of different dimensions will make women feel a sense of loss of control, in which they can no longer control their bodies, but are instead dominated by their bodies.” Menopause means decline in ovarian function and disordered hormone secretion in women, said Si Jia, a consultant in the health field. All are directly related to mood disorders such as stress, anxiety, and depression.

When she was nearly 50 years old, Dai Lingling entered menopause. She couldn’t eat, had insomnia, and sweated a lot. Dai Lingling pays attention to health care. When menstrual disorders first appeared, she went to the gynecology department and endocrinology department for treatment, and took medicine slowly to regulate her body. Chen Yun knows that mothers will undergo physiological changes during menopause, but she does not know that menopause is also a susceptible period for psychological problems.

“Suddenly, my mother started to do things that hurt herself,” Chen Yun said. She took her mother to the best psychiatric hospital in the province. “The doctor said there was no doubt that it was depression.”

Family members who have no time to pay attention to

After Dai Lingling fell ill, her husband knew her condition and watched over her 24 hours a day. At first, she was able to go out, buy groceries, cook, and do housework at home. For a period of time, she was at the bottom of depression, and after a while, she returned to normal, as if nothing had happened.

But later, her depression became more and more serious. In extreme cases, she often fantasized that something was wrong with her body, “Maybe she can’t see her eyes and can’t walk. It happened very frequently, basically twice, three or four times a day.” .” Her family took her to the hospital for a checkup. They found out that there was nothing wrong with her, but nothing could be found.

When Chen Yun came home every day, she saw her mother crying. Dai Lingling said that she felt guilty, sorry for her family, and felt that her life was in a mess. Chen Yun tried to take her mother out for a walk to divert her attention, but Dai Lingling wanted to jump in when she saw the water, so she did not dare to take her out again.

The mother’s depression seemed to be “contagious” to the rest of the family. Chen Yun said that during that time, no one in the family wanted to cook and basically bought ready-made food. The father cried feebly and asked his daughter what to do. In the later stages, Dai Lingling will hurt herself repeatedly. Chen Yun’s voice became softer and softer as she described this memory.

The chaos at home ended after two or three months, and her mother left. “You didn’t have time to react.” Afterwards, Chen Yun often regretted it when she thought about it. She wondered if she had given her mother more love and care at that time. Maybe it won’t end like this.

Similar to Chen Yun, Dai Wei also experienced the process of not having enough time to understand his mother. In the second half of 2016, 51-year-old Chen Hong was diagnosed with depression. She suffered from severe insomnia. One night, in the middle of the night, when the courtyard gate was locked, Chen Hong tried to climb the fence and leave the house, but was stopped by her husband. That time, her leg was cut and bleeding, but she still walked out because she felt uncomfortable in her head and didn’t know how to solve it. She just wanted to leave the place where she was.

In the year after her diagnosis, Chen Hong attempted suicide. Dai Wei was working out of town, and it was only later during a voice call that he learned that his mother had committed suicide more than once.

The first time Chen Hong cut her wrist, Dai Wei remembered that his father relayed it in a relaxed tone, “It’s okay, it’s been bandaged.” In Dai Wei’s view, his father didn’t understand his mother, and the only way to help Chen Hong’s depression was with a bandage. She went to the doctor, who asked her father to pay attention, but both he and his father ignored the seriousness of her mother’s condition. “If it has never happened to me or experienced it myself, I really don’t know how extreme depression can be.”

At that time, conflicts arose between mother and son because of Chen Hong’s urging to get married. Dai Wei was often angry and even felt that his mother’s self-mutilation was forcing him to submit.

Until that morning, his uncle said that his mother’s phone could not be reached. Dai Wei panicked and prayed in his heart that nothing would happen to his mother. Finally, they found Chen Hong in the reservoir.

Stigmatized and ignored menopause and depression

Previously, Dai Wei and his father had “no concept at all” about menopause, had no experience with it, and did not know that menopause existed in women’s life stages. It wasn’t until after his mother passed away that Dai Wei searched for “depression” and came across the topic of “menopausal depression”, and then he realized that menopausal hormone fluctuations might also be an important factor affecting his mother’s depression.

More people have misunderstandings about menopause. “The word ‘menopause’ carries too much emotion, imagination and stigma.” Si Jia interviewed many boys. Most of them said they were afraid to talk to their mothers about menopause. “They were worried that if they asked their mothers if they were in menopause, they would The mother will definitely feel that her son is scolding.” Relatively speaking, daughters will be more proactive in asking and caring about their mothers. Lin Jiajia shared her mother’s menopausal depression on social platforms and received many private messages from girls, “They all told me to do more Stay with my mother and hope she gets better soon.”

Zhou Jianhong, chief physician of the Gynecology Department of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, said that menopause itself is not a disease, but one of the stages of a woman’s life. Currently, nearly 200 million women in China are going through perimenopause, and by 2030, 290 million women will enter menopause.

Nancy is an international healthcare executive and host of a podcast focused on women’s menopause. After conducting in-depth interviews with 600 women, she found that some menopausal women will have doubts about their identity. The absence of menstruation will make them feel confused and have no female identity. “In our culture, the definition of women is directly related to fertility. If a little girl does not have her period, or an older girl ends her period, some people will doubt whether they are women. We need to break this inertial thinking.”

Women are often full of fear and anxiety about menopause and do not accept its existence. Wendy shared on Si Jia’s podcast “Heard About Menopause” that her mother suffered from breast cancer during menopause. She underwent chemotherapy and shaved her head. She was very strong and resilient, but her mother never mentioned the word “menopause”. . Wendy feels that cancer brings far less fear to mothers than menopause.

There are probably only a few people who don’t feel embarrassed when talking about menopause. In Wang Ling’s unit, there are many female colleagues who are going through menopause like her. When everyone talks about menopause, no one will shy away from it, including male colleagues. When talking about the discomfort experienced, everyone expressed sympathy and worked together to come up with ideas on how to help ease the discomfort. When the young guys in the department saw Wang Ling’s condition, not sleeping well and being irritable, they would take more care of Wang Ling.

When suffering from depression during menopause, mental disorders have become a secret that many women cannot tell, causing them to miss the opportunity to be rescued.

Lin Jiajia said that her mother was very defensive about psychiatrists. She had a friend who was a psychological counselor, and her studio held a Lantern Festival themed event. She brought the sick Jiang Chun to the scene, trying to get her to slowly open up and talk about her current situation. During the activity, you need to draw a tree. The image of the tree can reflect the painter’s heart to a certain extent. Jiang Chun became wary, and Lin Jiajia only felt her drawing very lightly on the paper. When many people shared their trees, Jiang Chun folded the paper and put it in his bag, “without even leaving the paper on site.”

Jiang Chun has a strong sense of shame. She often tells Lin Jiajia that she really doesn’t know why she is like this sometimes, but she just can’t control her emotions. Lin Jiajia said that her mother had always been worried that she had mental problems. In the perception of people of that generation, who did not understand the concepts of mental hygiene and mental health, they would feel as if they had become a “madman”.

Lin Jiajia kept persuading Jiang Chun that we should go to the mental health department not to see a doctor, but to listen to the doctor’s advice. Your mood swings are due to unstable menopausal hormones. This is not your problem. “If it is a simple psychological problem, it can indeed be overcome through one’s own subjective adjustment. But if it is emotional instability caused by hormones, intervention is needed,” Lin Jiajia told Jiang Chun. Jiang Chun struggled for a long time and finally chose to go to a hospital some distance away from the local area.

After Chen Hong gradually showed pessimism, irritability and suicidal tendencies, her husband also “coaxed and deceived” her to take her to the psychiatric department of the city hospital. Chen Hong was very conflicted when she saw the words on the package of the medicine for treating mental illness. She would lie to her husband who was giving him the medicine and say that he had taken it, “but she might have it in her mouth,” Dai Wei said. “A lot of the medicine was not swallowed, and my father couldn’t do anything about it. When the illness was very serious, my mother was I don’t take any medicine at all, and my father doesn’t take care of me anymore, and I can’t persuade him.”

Dai Lingling also did not insist on taking psychiatric medication, believing that it contained hormones and was unnatural, and her family could not persuade the former family leader. Daughter Chen Yun doesn’t know what Dai Lingling is thinking about. She just told her daughter that life is boring and I don’t want to live it.

Healing for body and mind

Yu Min from Shandong is a general consulting doctor. At work, she encounters many women who are troubled by menopausal problems. They don’t know which department to go to for treatment, so they go to the general consulting doctor for diagnosis. She feels that people nowadays don’t care about her that much. Patients know that menopause has arrived and feel that this is the path they should take. The discomfort they are experiencing is not a disease that requires hospital treatment, and everything is “bearable.”

But in fact, “menopause is linked to each other and can cause various diseases. Anxiety and poor sleep may cause high blood pressure, which may further cause cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases.”

In fact, physical symptoms are positively correlated with mental health during menopause. In 2012, Chen Sulan and others from the Affiliated Hospital of Hebei Union University conducted a stratified survey on menopausal women in the “Chinese Journal of Gerontology” and showed that compared with other social and family influencing factors, the physical menopausal syndrome is menopausal depression. The biggest influencing factor, the discomfort symptoms the body is experiencing, often affects mental health.

“Physiological functions will affect psychology. For example, waking up early and having difficulty falling asleep will aggravate anxiety; psychological self-worth is reduced, leading to depression, which will further disrupt endocrine hormones and affect physical health.” Yidianling Psychological Platform Registration Consultant Deng Xinhong said.

Around Chen Yun, there are many women who take the initiative to see menopausal departments, but they only go because of physical discomfort. They do not think that menopause also has a psychological impact.

Because of her mother’s experience, she paid more attention to the women around her who were experiencing depression during menopause. “They were originally very positive, but when they reached retirement age, they suddenly experienced a similar situation to my mother.” For example, a 54-year-old colleague said, I will retire in two years. Not long ago, I suddenly told my boss that I was leaving my job. The reason was that my health was getting worse and I needed someone by my side to live a normal life. Chen Yun knows that her colleague is actually very lonely. She is not keen on socializing and is often alone at home. Her children go to school in other places and her husband is a prison guard. He has a special job and is often away from home.

“Menopausal depression must be understood from a biological and psychological perspective. From a biological perspective, fluctuations in hormone levels will affect endocrine, leading to an increased risk of depression and worsening of symptoms. From a psychological perspective, menopausal women face aging, including facial appearance and body shape. Changes in life, as well as changes in career and family roles, etc., bring about a decrease in the sense of value, which will lead to a high incidence of depression.” Huang Manli, deputy chief physician of the Mental Health Center of the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, told reporters.

After her mother passed away, Chen Yun realized that her mother’s depression was related to menopausal hormones, but she did not consider this at the time. “She was all treated in a psychiatric clinic. Now that I think about it, I could have taken her to a menopausal department for treatment.” “

“When normal people enter the menopausal stage, the incidence of depression is as high as 23%,” said Zhou Jianhong, chief gynecologist at Zhejiang University Women’s Hospital. If menopausal depression occurs, joint treatment can be provided in the endocrine-related menopausal department and the psychiatric department.

“Menopausal women lack the most essential estrogen.” Zhou Jianhong said that symptoms appear after the brain lacks estrogen or estrogen fluctuates. After estrogen treatment, the patient can gradually recover, and in the process he no longer needs to take the antidepressants prescribed by the psychiatric department. “This is from the perspective of menopause. Some patients respond well to estrogen treatment.”

Huang Manli told reporters that existing conventional psychiatric antidepressants mainly target neurotransmitters and cannot adjust menopausal hormones, so hormone replacement can be considered. But some women are not candidates for hormone replacement, such as those with breast cancer or uterine-related conditions. Therefore, multidisciplinary collaborative treatment is needed, including psychiatry, endocrinology, gynecology, etc., to jointly decide whether the patient needs hormone replacement therapy.

“But currently, there is no recognized expert consensus on hormone replacement therapy, and there are many barriers to hormone replacement therapy. Although there are drugs approved abroad, they are expensive and the intravenous injection method is inconvenient. In the field of perimenopausal depression Research and clinical evidence-based evidence needs to be further accumulated.” Huang Manli said.

“At the same time, for some patients, hormone replacement cannot (completely) solve depressive symptoms, because hormones are not the only causative factor of menopausal depression. Chemical substances such as neurotransmitters and inflammation will affect menopausal depression. At this time, it is necessary Go to a psychiatric department and use antidepressants or other non-drug treatments for treatment.” Huang Manli added.

Huang Manli said that from a psychiatric perspective, mild menopausal depression can first be treated with non-drug treatments such as psychotherapy, physical therapy, and exercise therapy. If it is moderately severe or even at risk of suicide, antidepressant drug treatment will be given, followed by auxiliary psychological treatment.

a lifetime of anxiety

In Chen Yun’s eyes, her mother may have been suffering.

She was an ordinary factory worker who was laid off when she was 39 years old. At that time, normal female employees could retire at the age of 50, and state-owned enterprise workers also had state-paid insurance premiums, but the collective economy factory where she worked did not. After the company went bankrupt, she became a member of society and needed to buy her own pension insurance. The payment period was 15 years, and she could not retire until she was 55 years old. After being laid off, she had no income. She had to find a job and pay insurance of more than 10,000 yuan a year. She was extremely anxious.

Dai Lingling later became a housekeeper. Because of her age, her body could not adapt to work. She could only do morning work during the morning, lunch and evening periods. She often felt stressed because she could not make much money. Chen Yun said that although her father shared the burden with her, her mother’s own psychological pressure could not be relieved.

After retirement, she no longer has to bear the financial burden and can receive insurance benefits. Dai Lingling finally relieved a lot of mental pressure. Chen Yun remembered that her mother felt relaxed for a while and took the initiative to contact classmates and friends. But in Dai Lingling’s circle of friends, the topics when everyone chats together are mainly life gossip. Dai Lingling can’t stand the various questions people ask in these social situations, especially “Is your child married?” Not married yet, Dai Lingling couldn’t accept it.

Later, Dai Lingling returned to her own world, shopping for groceries, cooking, doing housework, and going out with her husband. She didn’t like square dancing, and she felt that she had no common language with these friends, so she gradually reduced her interactions with them. Because of her introverted personality, she stopped making new friends. “The education of their generation was limited. They were not interested in reading a book, listening to music, or going out to see a show. My mother did not have such a rich spiritual life.”

Dai Lingling will not tell Chen Yun her inner thoughts. Chen Yun can feel, “Maybe it is forced by the pressure of life, or her ability to enjoy life is limited. She (finds) even learning to use a smartphone is very difficult, so she can only Close yourself in your own world. She won’t listen to anything you say to her, and thinks what you say is wrong.”

In Chen Yun’s view, the hopes of the mother’s generation are all placed on their spouses and children, “but not on themselves.” Chen Yun and Dai Lingling said that people should be themselves and find the joy of life. But Dai Lingling couldn’t understand that what she valued was her daughter’s marriage.

Dai Wei described that the mother’s spirit is like a river that is close to drying up. The arrival of menopause may be just the external cause that causes the mother’s spirit river to dry up rapidly.

In Dai Wei’s memory, Chen Hong is a person who “feels anxious about everything throughout his life.” Chen Hong grew up in a strict family environment, and her parents often “hated their daughters for being incompetent”. Her grades have always been very good, but she failed the college entrance examination and failed to enter university. The factory where I worked closed down, and my life was hard to come by. Due to personality conflicts with her husband, the marriage was not smooth. In the small county town, she often felt inferior. Dai Wei said that his mother always regarded the evaluation of others as the standard and meaning of life.

“She has never recognized me in her whole life.” Chen Hong hopes that Dai Wei will make money, get married, and have children, while Dai Wei wants to live a happier life. In the later stages of Chen Hong’s illness, she had insomnia, collapsed, and wanted to hit the wall or jump off the building. Dai Wei tried to enlighten her anxious mother, telling her inner thoughts and her own views on life. He persuaded her not to care about other people’s opinions, and he also hoped that her mother would understand him. But it was like two people having a conversation separated by an insulator. No matter how much Dai Wei talked, in the end he only got one sentence from his mother: “When will you get married?”

Understanding menopausal depression in families

In Dai Wei’s eyes, the relationship between his parents also deepened his mother’s depression. My father is a civil servant. In the past, he encountered interpersonal problems that he could not handle and often went home to drink. After 2012, after drinking, his father would often fight with his mother. Dai Wei felt that his father could not cure his mother, and the relationship between the two would only worsen each other’s condition.

Similarly, Lin Jiajia also has complaints about her father. She described her father as an “outsider” in the family. Jiang Chun had to worry about many things in life. “My mother holds parent-teacher conferences. If something happens at school, the teacher comes to her mother. Housework and cleaning are also done by her mother.” Lin Jiajia felt that, After Jiang Chun got married, his life schedule was always full.

Jiang Chun often faced criticism from her husband when she failed to handle favors and gifts at work for her husband. Lin Jiajia recalled that her mother had been denied by her father for a long time. His father would not give her positive feedback and would make so-called jokes, “She is not beautiful and ugly.”

If Lin Jiajia didn’t take the initiative to ask Jiang Chun, it seems that she would never take the initiative to talk about her emotions and would always hold back. One time in the middle of the night, Jiang Chun had an acute urticaria attack. She told her husband lying next to her that she felt uncomfortable, but he was indifferent. Finally, she went to the emergency room by herself.

Lin Jiajia feels that the established objective fact that her father ignores and accuses her mother has always existed and remains unchanged, but the mother’s psychological tolerance threshold has become lower due to the influence of menopausal hormones. In the past, Jiang Chun’s thought was “Whatever, I don’t care about you.” Now she would lament that she had done all the thankless things and ended up like this, “What is the purpose of working hard all your life?”

When Lin Jiajia and Jiang Chun proposed, “You and your father can divorce,” Jiang Chun’s answer was, “Your father is also very good sometimes. He is filial to grandma and cares about you.” Lin Jiajia felt that her mother’s reason was very sad, ” All the good things he does are not for you.”

Psychological counselor Zhang Chun meets many female clients in their forties and fifties. In her opinion, in addition to physiological hormonal changes, menopause, etc., “I wouldn’t call their troubles menopausal troubles.” “In fact, we The body is changing all the time, and women’s life as a whole is full of big problems, traumas, and difficulties. Do these only happen during menopause? During pregnancy, lactation, and adolescence, when do they not happen? “

Many of the pains experienced by menopausal women occur within the family.

Zhang Chun said: “Maybe couples who are not in a good relationship don’t often meet each other, but the children have left home and both parties have retired. Now they have to face each other, which is even more painful.” In the compound of Zhang Chun’s hometown, there are more than 30 people Families, 11 of them are widowed old ladies. They are also facing new life pressures after the death of their husbands, “such as loneliness, or loss of income and other great changes in life.”

“It may also be that she finally retired at this time and her children have grown up. She used to live a peaceful life and enjoy her old age, but now the family or society requires her to take care of her grandchildren,” Zhang Chun said. .

Some menopausal women are tortured by the “freedom” of this stage. “It stands to reason that this is the freest time in my life, but I find that I have been serving others all my life, serving my unit, my job, my husband, and my children. At this moment, I am completely free, but I don’t know what I can do. I don’t know how to use my freedom,” Zhang Chun said.

“For example, after enduring it all my life, now that my children are older, I finally feel that divorce is an option that I can choose. But at this moment of divorce, I found that I had nothing and was so lonely.”

Psychological counselor Liu Shuangyang believes that menopausal women’s depression is largely related to the division of gender roles in the family. Women continue to pay emotional labor in the family, paying attention to and regulating the emotions of family members. “For example, when she feels that the relationship with her husband needs to be adjusted, she takes on the job of adjusting the relationship, but her husband feels that it is not needed, which will make her very desperate.” At the same time, women’s own needs have been ignored. “Among the mothers born in the 1950s and 1960s, not all mothers can quickly realize that the expectation of obtaining psychological comfort from their husbands has been shattered. This is a double blow to women.”

Zhang Chun believes that menopause may also be an opportunity for women to put forward some of their needs. “I have heard that some girls will say that I will go crazy during my menstruation. (For menopausal women) I usually don’t get angry about this, and I tolerate it, but now I can’t tolerate it anymore. They pick on me. If it’s not done well, I won’t do it, and I’ll trash the kitchen. You can cook whatever you like. If you’re so dissatisfied with me, then fine, I’ll leave. I’ll go on a trip.”

Now, Wang Ling has been adjusting her mood for a month. She feels that the heat in her back is much better. She continues to regulate herself in all aspects from diet to exercise. Wang Ling feels that the current age is the most peaceful time in life. “I don’t need to face anything. Although my career is average, I am very satisfied with it. My son has already started a family and started a business. There is no other pressure.”

In the first two years after his mother’s death, Dai Wei often woke up crying from his dreams. “So many heavy thoughts made her anxious. She should step out and find her own freedom.” By the third year, he accepted his mother’s advice. He left, knowing that he could not help his mother any more.

Jiajia talked to her father about her mother’s condition, “I can’t be the only one looking at her every day. It’s the two of you who live together. You have to pay more attention to her emotions.”

Afterwards, Jiajia’s father brought a puppy home, saying it was to treat Jiang Chun’s illness. Jiang Chun doesn’t like animals, so he often worries that the puppy will have no one to take care of him at home, which invisibly becomes a psychological burden. Jiajia said that after two weeks, her father sent the dog away without saying a word.

There was plenty of sunshine in the summer, and Jiang Chun continued to take medicine. Accompanied by her family, she started going to the gym again. She was interested in going on long trips with family and friends to relax, and occasionally bought herself a bouquet of flowers and put them in a vase.

(To protect the privacy of the interviewees, Jiang Chun, Lin Jiajia, Wang Ling, Dai Lingling, Chen Yun, Dai Wei, Chen Hong and Yu Min are pseudonyms)