Are we all neurotic? recognize the symptoms

Are we all neurotic? Quick answer to the question: no, we are not. But maybe you don’t feel better with the other options: for psychoanalysts, anyone who is not neurotic can be perverse or psychotic – the three psychic configurations proposed by Freud.

The term “neurosis”, which came out of psychiatric offices a few decades ago, is still enshrined in couches and in popular usage: who doesn’t know (or consider themselves) someone full of “neuras”? The fact is that everyone suffers and needs to deal with their own anxieties, both the constituent ones, related to childhood, life history and the simple fact of being human, as well as those aggravated by the times we live in. By the way, the anxiety and dependence on the opinion of others, so characteristic of neurosis, can be very clear when you have a cell phone in your hand suffering because the message was viewed and not answered or the textão on Facebook did not have many likes. But what, after all, is meant by neurosis?

“One neurotic is the one who can only relate based on certain mistaken assumptions such as: what I want is what I imagine the other is asking of me. That is, I identify the desire of the other with mine”, explains Christian Dunker, psychoanalyst and professor at the Institute of Psychology at the University of São Paulo (USP). Thus, we are talking about a way of looking at relationships that involves fantasy, imagination and insecurity – but not hallucinations, which are part of the field of psychosis.

The neurotic suffers unproductively, in an excessively outward-oriented way that gets him nowhere.

Christian Dunker, psychoanalyst

Neurosis is usually seen socially as the most accepted way of suffering, as if it were a “lighter” behavior disorder – in movies and series, the crazy ones are the psychotics and perverts, with their sadism and their visions. But care must be taken in classifying neurosis as the “normal” way of deal with the pain🇧🇷 “There are many forms of neurosis and possible relationships with the symptoms. In some cases, these can be even worse and more intense than those of psychosis or perversion. By normalizing it, we make a form of suffering acceptable. It is more productive to face it and take care of it”, says Dunker. As Caetano Veloso put it to music, “up close, nobody is normal”. Looking at one’s own “abnormalities”, therefore, is the beginning of the path to transform them and achieve a fuller life.

It’s not easy though. The neurotic has a lot of difficulty accepting his desires, he behaves as if he lived for others. Dependent, often feels abandoned, questioning whether the other shouldn’t love him more, if they are teasing him. The greater the need for approval, the more neurotic. He is also distressed by his own behavior, questions where he went wrong and torments himself with guilt. “There are productive and unproductive sufferings. The neurotic suffers unproductively, in an excessively outward-oriented way that gets him nowhere. He wants to be everything to the other and expects to be admired for it”, continues Dunker. 🇧🇷Neurosis is the way in which everyone wraps himself up in an attempt to satisfy desire.“, defines psychoanalyst Dominique Fingermann, from São Paulo. In some moments of life, we can “curl” more. “Then the conflict between getting my satisfaction and giving satisfaction to the other takes on proportions that, little by little, make life impossible”, she adds. It is therefore crucial to look at how one deals with one’s desires.

sacrifice and gender

The more a person allows himself to be enslaved by social and family expectations, the more subject he will be to disturbing neuroses. For example, those who think “I can’t get married, because I need to take care of my parents” or “I have to continue in this unhappy marriage, because it’s the best for my children” are not allowing themselves to be who they are. And then life becomes a sacrifice. 🇧🇷Anguish is part of the human condition, it is not a neurosis.🇧🇷 Neurosis has to do with not accepting our incompleteness”, points out psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Mario Eduardo Costa Pereira, professor of clinical psychopathology at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp).

In this context, it becomes clear why, in a society that represses and restricts female desire, women are the main candidates for discomfort. It is not by chance that hysteria (a form of neurosis) is historically associated with them: in Victorian, traditional, patriarchal society, governed by a double standard, in which women had no right to sexual pleasure, while men enjoyed freedom to realizing their desires and fantasies, it is understandable that the demand for the feminine, for sexuality, exploded through hysterics. “Today, there are studies that show that you find more women having similar attacks in cultures where there is greater repression of their sexuality”, says Pereira.

possible outcome

Regardless of gender, it is not always easy to see that you are giving up your own desires and transforming your life into a series of sacrifices. Even because the neurotic does not suffer all the time. For a long period, it’s as if the person were doing a “gambiarra” to live more or less well. And then, when a thread is pulled – for example, the marriage ends or the mother, who was always there, dies – everything comes crashing down. And the sadness (or the phobias, or the obsession) comes with everything, out of control.

“It’s possible to transform neurosis so that it doesn’t interfere with life, but that, on the contrary, it provides for it”, warns Fingermann. It requires self-knowledge and a certain tranquility so that working with neurosis does not become (another) demand. The consulting room is one of the ways – for those who are after transformation, not just medicine. “Some patients arrive wanting to know where their depressionyour panic attacks, and that’s great. But it’s common for those who don’t want to talk about it and ask me for a sleeping pill. The pill will work, but it would be much richer to investigate what, after all, is keeping you awake at night”, says Pereira.

How many prefer not to remain in the same job, in the same marriage, repeating the patterns of behavior and relationships? Knowing one’s own desire is destabilizing, precisely because it can lead to the conclusion that it is necessary to reform one’s life. Terrified of not supporting freedom, the neurotic becomes a slave to what he thinks others understand as correct. “He is always controlling himself, imposing discipline, policing himself, making lists of things he needs to do”, says Dunker, who classifies the “post-neurotic” as someone who, instead of obeying others and himself, passes to take care of yourself. “This care involves the experience of accepting yourself.” Acceptance can come with therapy, or even with time or an eye-opening experience. The paths are unique to each individual and it is worth investigating his.

Basic characteristics of the neurotic, according to the psychoanalyst Christian Dunker.

• Hardly feel loved. It’s common to want to be the other’s world and need attention all the time.

• In the same way that he doesn’t feel loved enough, he thinks that the other doesn’t like the relationship as much as he does, that the partner isn’t as happy as he “should”.

• Doubts himself, doesn’t know if he has the “right” to be angry or if his spouse is right. It is typical for him to judge feelings as bad: I cannot be angry, I cannot be sad.

• Do you often repeat relationship patterns? To some extent, repetition is expected, of course, but there are those who don’t vary almost at all. “The more you repeat it, the more neurotic it is,” says Dunker.