If you can't find a job after graduation, you are a failure? These 5 "dangerous misunderstandings" are quietly destroying young people's mental health

May 25th of each year is the National College Students' Mental Health Day. "5.25" is the homonym of "I love me", advocating that everyone should love themselves first before loving others better. However, in today's fast-paced society, loving yourself is not an easy thing. More and more young people, especially college students, are facing various pressures.

Today, Science Debunks 5 "psychological misconceptions" that young people worry about excessively, analyzes them, and helps young people recognize them and get rid of them.

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Myth 1: I can’t find a job even after graduation

I'm a Loser!

This is a typical cognitive distortion phenomenon, called "generalizing from a single example", that is, making negative judgments about ourselves based on our own one-sided and negative information, ignoring other positive information. In the case of employment anxiety, we mistakenly equate "the result of finding a job" with our overall value, but in fact, the source of our value is diverse and complex. Just because we haven't succeeded in landing a job, we cannot deny ourselves as a whole.

Finding a job is not an exam with standard answers, but more of a two-way selection and job matching process. Temporary failure to land a job means that you have not found a job that suits you. If you are still in a state of confusion, it just means that you are in the process of re-understanding yourself and exploring your own direction, and every interview is an opportunity for self-exploration.

Everyone has his or her own pace. Give yourself some time and space, and believe that you can find a job that suits your inner interests and goals.

Myth 2: My parents have so many expectations of me

I can't let them down.

This is a phenomenon of "absolutization" of cognitive distortion. This irrational belief often appears in the form of "should", "must", "cannot", etc., believing that things must happen according to one's own subjective wishes rather than the actual situation. When things do not go as expected, one will feel frustrated and disappointed.

In fact, many things in life are not "musts" but a choice.

From the perspective of parents, their expectations are often a manifestation of their care and love for us, and are also a driving force for us to pursue a better future. However, as we grow up, we also need to learn to think independently and make choices. Sometimes these independent choices can meet the expectations of parents, but sometimes they cannot. In this case, we can forgive ourselves and express our understanding to our parents. More importantly, explain the choices you made and ask them to respect your right to make independent choices.

Misconception 3: Feeling that there is something wrong with your mind

Worried about having a mental illness

In terms of the most common mental illnesses, according to the "2022 China College Students' Mental Health Status Survey Report", the risk ratios of depression and anxiety among college students are approximately 21.48% and 45.28%, indicating that a considerable number of college students still suffer from anxiety and depression.

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It should be noted that "risk ≠ illness". We may be in a negative emotional state due to difficulties, which will increase our risk of suffering from mental disorders. However, only when this negative state reaches the clinical diagnostic criteria in terms of intensity, duration or frequency, making it difficult for us to live a normal life, can it be regarded as a mental disorder.

If you feel that you have some unusual thoughts or habits, it does not necessarily mean that you have a mental illness. Each of us is a unique individual, and it is normal to be different in some aspects. Only when these abnormalities will obviously affect the normal life of ourselves or others, we need to seek help from professionals, such as going to the psychology department of a regular hospital for psychological diagnosis.

Myth 4: If I don’t do things well, no one will understand me.

I won't be happy anymore

This is a common manifestation of rumination, which refers to a person's repeated and passive thinking about the event, negative emotions, and possible causes and consequences after experiencing a negative event. People who are caught in rumination often think: "Why does this always happen to me?" "Why do things always turn out this way?" "I can't do these things well."

Studies have found that ruminative thinking is often not helpful in solving problems. Instead, it will make people constantly think of negative events that have happened in the past, reduce their ability to understand and solve problems, and increase the risk of inducing depression.

When facing rumination, we can try to focus on problem solving, such as asking ourselves questions like: What else can I do about this? What have I learned from this? In addition, we can also try to distract ourselves, such as reading, watching movies, relaxing, doing housework, painting, etc., to give ourselves a chance to pause, stop our negative emotions and reflections, and live in the present moment.

Myth 5: Once depression is diagnosed,

If others knew, they would be despised.

For a long time, people have had a sense of shame and stigmatization towards any mental illness, which has led to self-stigmatization among patients with mental illness, believing that this is a very shameful thing.

But in fact, everyone is likely to suffer from some kind of mental illness, which is related to a person's innate genetics, acquired family environment, major negative events, coping methods, etc. Being diagnosed with depression or other mental illnesses does not mean that you have been labeled with a series of negative labels, but that there is a problem with your own psychological adjustment mechanism. You need to make adjustments or seek help from professionals to find your self-worth again.

Social psychology believes that the most effective way to resolve stigma and discrimination is through information exchange and more personal contact. With the development of today's society and the spread of psychology, people have become more and more understanding and accepting of the existence of mental health problems. For people with depression, the most important thing is to accept themselves so that people around them can also accept themselves.

In fact, after reading it, we will find that these misunderstandings are not unique to young people. Each of us may encounter the problems mentioned above. Let us better understand ourselves, understand psychology, overcome these misunderstandings little by little, and live more easily.

References

[1] Yu Guoliang. (2022). The prevalence of mental health problems among Chinese students and its educational implications. Tsinghua University Educational Research, 43(4), 20-32.

[2] Ma Jingying. (2023). Research on countermeasures of college students' mental health education from the perspective of positive psychology. Advances in Psychology, 13, 1817.

Planning and production

Author: Chen Yufeng, Master of Developmental and Educational Psychology

Reviewer: Fan Chunlei, Associate Researcher, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences