Arnhild Lauveng: Bullying can affect anyone

Arnhild described the history of her struggle with mental illness in two books: “Tomorrow I was always a lion” (for excerpts from this book, see the article “The Story of a Man Who Recovered from Schizophrenia”) and “Useless as a Rose”. Arnhild Lauweng is a man with an amazing outlook, exceptional benevolence and a sincere interest in people. Today, she conducts research and helps people with mental illness at the legislative level, as a member of a group established by the Norwegian Minister of Health. Psychologist and translator Nargis Shinkarenko met her in Oslo.

Psychologies: In Tomorrow I Always Be a Lion, you describe the first signs of schizophrenia that you noticed in yourself – feelings of fear, suicidal thoughts, a distorted perception of reality, strange voices and sounds … And also talk about bullying that you experienced in middle school. Can bullying cause mental problems?

Arnhild Lauveng: Bullying is so dangerous that I don’t understand how we even allow it. In some cases, it can even be more dangerous than physical violence.

According to longitudinal studies, survivors of bullying suffer more than those who were beaten in the family. Moreover, we are talking about ordinary bullying (face to face), and modern children and adolescents also deal with cyberbullying, the impact of which is even worse. After all, bullying on social media can go on around the clock, with dramatic consequences (many commit suicide). It is happening in front of the whole world, and the feeling of shame is so great that many cannot stand it.

Bullying doesn’t necessarily cause mental problems. If parents support the child, are in contact with him, everything can end well. But the constant bullying and persecution is causing monstrous harm.

Studies say that the longer bullying is, the more severe its consequences are, and the problem is not solved simply by transferring to another school, because the very expectation of bullying can give rise to it.

Which people are more likely to be victims?

Bullying can affect anyone, anywhere. But, perhaps, something still unites the victims – they have weak social ties. If the child’s parents have a lot of friends and relatives, and he grows up in a comfortable social environment, plays with other children from childhood, he is unlikely to become a victim of bullying.

And if he grows up alone and hardly communicates with anyone, he may develop social fears and insecurities. Some stalkers say they instinctively feel who is vulnerable, whose parents won’t intervene.

You are talking about cyberbullying. Today we are all members of the digital community. The Internet makes our life more open to others. How does this affect us?

We don’t know this completely. However, the recent trend scares me: many teenagers are trying to find answers on the Web to questions that should only be asked to relatives or close friends. For example: “Am I beautiful?”, “Am I a good person?”, “Worthy / am I worthy of life?”.

Their self-perception is still being formed, and if there is no mom, dad, girlfriend, adult nearby who is able to give a teenager feedback, a teenager goes to the Internet for answers, to other teenagers. And often it ends badly – at best, ridicule and cynical comments.

At the same time, social networks create an illusory feeling that you are not alone.

Yes, hanging out on social media can be a compensation mechanism. But if we see that others have a much better life than ours, then we feel our loneliness even more acutely. Therefore, each of us needs to have a person in our environment who can always be called and talked to. This is especially important for people who suffer from chronic mental illness.

I have researched this issue. In Denmark, there are so-called day folk schools, where adult patients come during the day and stay at home for the night. At school, they are engaged in creativity, study mathematics, languages ​​and other subjects, cook, go for walks. I conducted interviews with teachers and students of this school, compared their well-being with the mood of the mentally ill in Norway – they receive standard treatment in a hospital.

The condition of the Norwegian patients is appalling. They are lonely, they have a lot of symptoms, they do not move, they have no interests and no friends. They are deeply ill. These people do relatively well when they are in hospital, but after being discharged, they end up in their lonely apartment. They get worse there. They again apply for hospitalization, receive a refusal. They get even worse. They go back to the hospital and out again. This goes on endlessly.

Danish patients who have the same mental problems are much happier. They go to school every day, where they have delicious food and friends. They are happy to communicate, go for walks, draw, discuss something interesting. They develop as individuals and end up feeling much better. Often in young patients, the disease recedes, they stop taking medication, start going to a regular school, or even get a job.

Of course, those who suffer from schizophrenia all their lives are not completely cured. However, these people no longer require emergency hospitalization: they live at home, communicate with their families.

Having learned about the folk school, I thought: but it’s so simple! It is clear that this is not news – people who eat well, meet friends and are interested in something feel better than those who sit alone in four walls. The discovery is different: we thought that people suffer from schizophrenia, but they feel bad not because of the diagnosis, but because of loneliness and lack of interests and activities. If we focus on meeting these needs rather than treating the symptoms of schizophrenia, then their condition will improve over time.

Are the symptoms a kind of reaction to some difficult situation?

Yes, trying to deal with it. Let’s say if you’re lonely, voices appear, and then you already have someone to talk to. Or another example: my dad died of cancer when I was little. I convinced myself that I was guilty of his death, that I could perform some kind of magical action that would not allow other people to die. It was my way of dealing with grief and fear.

The wolves that I saw when I lived in the “wolf era” (this is my metaphor for that period of my life) had a communicative function. They made up for what I lacked.

Returning to my research: a patient who is doing well in the social sphere does not need compensatory symptoms. And if they are not needed, they disappear. There are symptoms of childhood trauma. Some of them are removed in the process of psychotherapy, others remain, but are minimized.

So schizophrenia is a kind of reaction to childhood trauma?

To date, we do not know what schizophrenia is. I would say that this is a kind of collective category for various processes, about which we still know little. However, the vast majority of people with psychosis experienced trauma in childhood.

If a person experienced five or more traumatic events in childhood, the chance of developing psychosis increases 540 times. New research shows that trauma experienced by parents can influence the genes of children. Such children are especially sensitive to specific situations, and this causes them to react in a certain way, according to a pattern “embedded” in the genes. And this can be called a kind of vulnerability.

Each person is individual, each has his own story, and there can be no universal advice. Psychotherapy will help one, it is extremely important for another to get to the bottom of the reasons, and the third needs to rely on his social environment.

What was the turning point for you?

There has never been such a moment in my history. It was a long and monotonous work. I hoped to reach a turning point, I wanted to experience catharsis, to see, as they say, the light at the end of the tunnel. But that did not happen.

Instead, I worked on myself for years. I got up when I didn’t want to get up. Went to school when I didn’t want to go there. I held back and didn’t cut myself when I wanted to. I didn’t listen to what the voices were saying to me when they made me listen. Ate three times a day, walked the dog. This went on for 5 years.

The employee of the employment service with whom I spoke believed in me. One day we sat down with her and wrote a plan. I decided that I would be a psychologist. It was kind of a turning point – she came into my life, we started working, I had a goal. And for several years she supported me. I could call her if I needed help. Often this concerned practical issues – buying a home, attending courses.

It is important not only to have a plan, but also to adjust it according to the circumstances. Life rarely goes as planned, and sometimes you have to find other ways to achieve your goals.

The plan helps to achieve success. But you need to constantly work with this plan, and preferably not alone, but with a “support group”: these can be doctors, social workers, family, friends. Practice and research show that the larger this group, the more effective the work will be.

What made you move on?

Stubbornness. I lived in a nursing home for 4 years – I was placed there as a chronically ill. But at some point, a lady from the employment service found me a place as an intern at the university. I started cycling from the nursing home to the university in the evenings, talking to young people there, and then, after work, I returned back.

So gradually I moved towards the goal. Of course, everyone has their own path. But be that as it may, it is important to have a plan and people who help to implement it. Even if you give up and lose hope, the “support group” will remind you of the goal, will not let you give up and stop.

What are you doing today?

Today I am involved in a big project, the goal of which is to reduce compulsory treatment in hospitals in Norway. Our group is working on legislative changes. When I consulted patients, I helped specific people, but did not influence the system with its absurd rules. I hope that now I can help improve the lives of more people.