Nervous Breakdown
Nervous breakdown is the culmination of grief unresolved. Anything could be the cause of acute sorrow. Before breakdown a person goes through a gamut of emotions. The emotions appear quite confusing and the person refuses to comprehend them. This confusion leads to tears. Tears are a means of reducing the intense feelings. Extreme confusion causes anger too. These are the two emotions exhibited prior to a breakdown. Anger finds expression in the form of self inflicted pain and violence. Nervous breakdown in other words can be described as the overloading of the circuit.
One third of the American population goes on the brink of a nervous breakdown at some point of time in life. 100 million Americans or 15% of the global population is suffering a major depression at any given time. Of this 15% of them commit suicide.
Causes for a nervous breakdown
- Some people suffer a nervous breakdown after a major depression.
- Some people have a nervous disorder after a very stressful event. They would have been normal prior to the occurrence of the event.
- Breakdowns can also occur due to schizophrenia, or bipolar depression.
Duration of a breakdown:
Breakdown lasts from a week to six months in the extreme of cases. Sleep is needed the most and the patient is normally sedated for ample rest. Remedial cure begins in sleep. This is the best form of early treatment.
Nervous breakdown or mental breakdown both mean the same and these attacks probably recur. But many a time self determination has helped people turn around and they were cured without medication. But if a nervous breakdown is caused by some underlying mental illness then it has to be treated. The term nervous breakdown is not appropriate and the proper term for such a condition is ‘mental breakdown.’
There are times when people start functioning better after a breakdown. The reason being that nervous breakdown opens them up to the benefits of psychotherapy. A talk with the psychiatrist helps them to grapple their problem and this enhances their performance.
Symptoms of mental breakdown:
- Severe weakness could be an important symptom.
- Unable to handle even day to day stress the person suffers from a sense of worthlessness. Added to this the person starts hearing voices of people who are not there and feels the sensation of something crawling on the body.
- Imaginary feelings of being victimized or persecuted occur.
- Extreme guilt and unreasonable jealousy is followed by a strange speech that cannot be comprehended.
- Panic attacks are common in nervous breakdown.
Prevention of a reoccurrence
- Prevention of reoccurrence can be by seeking recourse in proper medication.
- A full collapse has to be prevented by timely help though all cases cannot be prevented. Having a nervous breakdown means losing all the confidence.
- Small things cannot be performed due to energy lack.
- Getting rid of the perfectionist complex helps prevent the relapse of this to some extent.