No time for socializing. No time for chitchat. No time to enjoy the seemingly endless leisure enjoyed by other children her own age. This was the life of a 15-year old girl in southwest China's Sichuan Province.
The girl, who wishes to remain anonymous, is an all-A senior in a middle school in Sichuan. Her achievements include winning a local mathematics Olympics, China Youth Daily reported Thursday.
However, despite an excellent academic performance, the girl still forced herself to spend every second on study. She even tried remembering English words and scientific formulas while walking, showering and using the toilet.
Not until the girl began to suffer from delusions and a lack of concentration, did her parents realize their daughter was suffering from a psychological disease, known as study obsession.
Yang Yanchun, the Sichuan girl's doctor and a psychologist at Sichuan University, said that most of his study obsession patients are top academic achievers.
These students are overwhelmed by an ever increasing expectation from parents, school, society and even themselves. As time passes, their learning ability is seriously damaged. In some cases, patients even loose the ability to learn for life, according to Yang.
Yang quoted another study obsession case from his medical experiences in a recent seminar. A boy in Chengdu, capital city of Sichuan Province, forced himself to remember teachers' lectures and book contents after he heard or read them only once. No-one else was allowed to answer questions that were beyond his knowledge.
The disease had been torturing the clever boy for 10 years and lead to several suicide attempts. Now, he has to be kept completely free of any study activities in order to live a relatively peaceful life.
Experts say that the personality development of these obsessed patients is abnormal. The only meaning to their lives is to seek praise from other people. They have no extracurricular interests, sports endeavors, or leisure-time among peers.
These patients try to control all their activities by will power and have lost any spontaneity which is indispensable to maintaining a psychological balance.
Human brains have their own rules which should not be violated. There are things that are beyond individual reach despite strenuous efforts. People have to realize this in order to justify the time and effort their children devote to extracurricular and sometimes seemingly meaningless activities.
Chinese tradition favors long and assiduous study. Parents usually expect high marks to assure a bright future for their children.
However, Yang suggested that parents not let their expectations of their children run wild and cause tragedies like the above cases.
(Xinhua News AgencyOctober 18, 2001)
