When living in China isn't always a picnic..
There has been a huge flow of foreigners coming to China for the past decade. Many of them come here building castles in the clouds about a good job, fair payment, accommodations, insurance and good attitude and in the end have to face the reality which is different from what they expected. Living here is not always a picnic. China might be a very cruel world with a high competition and it takes a lot of strength to settle in here.
You can face different kinds of trouble in China – language barrier, cultural differences, unreliable employers, shrewd landlords, unfriendly working team, bad attitude, visa issues, insurance issues. Moreover the flow of foreigners in China never ends – people come – work or study for some time – then they leave, most of them go back home to realize their ambitions, some of them try to settle in the other countries. Many people understand that China is not a place to migrate because its overpopulated and even if you manage to – it's not forever. Same as your relationship with certain people – one day you will have to say good bye.
Stress during the work, inevitable separation from friends or maybe even loved ones, whom you met here, accommodation issues and other problems might lead to a depressive state. You feel like you keep fighting for a better tomorrow but it doesn't become better, sometimes it even becomes worse. You start thinking that probably you should just leave it all and go back home. But at the same time you keep hearing this voice inside of you saying: but we've spent so much time fighting, we put so much effort – will you let all that go down the drain? You want to go home but at the same time you don't want to see those eyes of your relatives understanding that you failed to succeed. It is even worse when you get separated from someone you love due to some circumstances. Especially if it ends with the ending of the relationship. Especially if one of you did not want that. It is painful.
You feel depressed. You don't smile anymore. You come to see your friends with a bottle of whiskey or something else and you have fun, but as soon as you step over the doorstep of your temporary home all your sadness comes back and you realize that it is just a temporary measure but not a solution to the problem. Your friends can help you, but they cannot babysit you ,because they have their own life and their own problems and you are a grown up already, you are supposed to solve your problems yourself.
In this case a set of questions arises. Where do go? What should I do? I'm supposed to do something about it, but what? How can I find the solution? How am I supposed to fix all this, change all this?
In such cases psychological help might be a good solution. Many people mix up psychologists and psychiatrists and therefore sometimes are afraid of them. To start with, what is a psychologist? First of all, it is a person willing to listen to all of your emotional experience, what do you feel right here, right now and help you understand what exactly do you feel and why. You can tell them what you want to tell and keep the things that you don't want to tell to yourself. Psychologist is sort of a shoulder to cry on, but this shoulder will also guide you through your feelings to help you figure out how to fix everything. The main medicine they use is communication. A psychologist will never call you 'sick', he or she will help.
Arts in Psychotherapy – is the team of experienced and professional psychologists that is based in Hong Kong and offering psychological services in Hong Kong, Macau and Shenzhen, also they offer Skype consulting for their clients in other cities of China. The consulting is provided in English language – very simple, clear and understandable, so even if you are not a native speaker of English you can use their services as well.
I personally got acquainted with one of their psychologists – Emily Lee. Her warm and friendly treatment made me feel like home from the start, at the same time she paid attention and analysed every little detail during our talk and her methods really give hope for a better tomorrow. In addition to sessions Arts in Psychotherapy provide constant support to their clients sending warm emails containing beautiful pictures and supportive messages.