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And here's a straight forward answer. Yes, I have witnessed someone having a "nervous breakdown" AKA a psychotic break.
As have I. A fellow mental health worker once "came apart" in my office, sitting across the desk from me. We were just talking about nothing in particular. He had been under serious long-term stress in both his professional and personal lives.
Yes, here's my story. Working 2 stressful jobs and coaching my son's football team. It seemed like I never had any time to myself, always going, going, going. Throw in some self medication, and a terrible coaching season, then fired from the team, and I just went. So for 3 weeks just a functioning shell of a person, so quiet, so depressed, couldn't sleep, eat. That's a breakdown.
This poor girl at work started talking about hearing voices and I had suspected that she was schizophrenic. One night after work she started talking about how her neighbors had a camera in her bathroom and were watching her. I encouraged her to seek some help but she insisted that what was happening was true. She wound up being taken away by ambulance at work one night and was finally diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. She took her meds for awhile and decided to stop since she was feeling better. I told her she was feeling better because of the meds and to start taking them again. She didn't listen and wound up in the hospital again. She's fine as long as she takes her meds.
Everyone is right...it's definitely not a one-dayer. Mine built up over who knows how long (some say a year, some say 10). But when I snapped. I snapped! I walked out on my job (literally just got up and left at 8:30AM w/o telling a soul), went home, grabbed my gun, and drove to the desert to kill myself. It took me over a week to go home. It took me a 2 months to stop sleeping with a loaded, cocked gun under my pillow. It took me another month to stop sleeping with my gun. It took me another month to put the gun away. It's been 8 months since I snapped. I have since quit my job, moved 1,000 miles away from all my friends and family, and I have picked up most of the pieces of my life. I have a feeling 2014 will be me rebuilding my life from scratch.
I'm usually a chill and forgivable person but every once in awhile someone will do something to drive me insane by screaming and breaking stuff and people get scared to be around me.
My mother had a number of nervous breakdowns which I was around to witness personally. The triggering event was always trivial. She would retreat to her bedroom, sometimes crying all day. The duration of the breakdowns was relatively short, that is, a couple or three days. For a child, such breakdowns on the part of a parent can be terrifying.
My mother had a number of nervous breakdowns which I was around to witness personally. The triggering event was always trivial. She would retreat to her bedroom, sometimes crying all day. The duration of the breakdowns was relatively short, that is, a couple or three days. For a child, such breakdowns on the part of a parent can be terrifying.
I totally agree.
I believe my mother suffered from bipolar disorder. Though she is still alive, I use the past tense because amazingly, after she had a stroke at age 63, her personality changed - FOR THE BETTER. The doctors did say that they believe this striking personality change is directly related to the stroke. Whatever - I'll take it! Growing up with a mother who alternated between manic activities and taking to her bed for days at a time, interspersed with the occasional "I'm leaving -fend for yourselves" and that subsequent drama, was tiring to say the least.
Actually, "tiring" is a very mild word for it. Exhausting, frightening, and heartbreaking are better words.
I think what saved me early on was that I had a sort of an epiphany at about age 7. I realized, with great clarity, that something inside my mother was "broken" (that's the exact word that came to me). I also realized that whatever was broken in her was not broken in me - that for whatever reason, I didn't feel the struggles and anxiety and depression and hysteria that she so often grappled with. This gave me a much more pragmatic view of it, and actually helped because I felt sympathy for her more than I felt anger or fear.
Not that this made things all hunky dory - she soon realized this and for some reason it infuriated her. It was like an aspect of me that she couldn't control or manipulate - it was a sense of removal on my part, stepping away from the emotional maelstrom and finding a peaceful place in my mind. I did this by reading a lot, spending a lot of time in my room to avoid confrontation, or playing outside till nightfall. I kept my room neat and was a good student - heading off trouble that way too. In other words, "laying low." Actually, I was pretty happy doing so, even though occasionally my mother would scream at me, "I don't UNDERSTAND your way of thinking!!!! You are NOTHING like me!!!!" Inwardly I would actually feel relieved when she said this - mixed with pity for her.
Several years of therapy took care of these issues for me and now I have a pleasant relationship with my mother, though she does still irritate me at times. I have learned how to establish healthy boundaries with her though.
As have I. A fellow mental health worker once "came apart" in my office, sitting across the desk from me. We were just talking about nothing in particular. He had been under serious long-term stress in both his professional and personal lives.
Just to add a bit more. We were employed at a state mental hospital (he was a licensed psychologist and I an experienced bachelors-level social worker). We both had considerable experience with psychoses of all shapes and sizes, and were currently working on a new-at-the-time behavioral therapy program.
Nevertheless, it was still a major shock to watch a learned, trusted colleague's grasp of reality shatter into a million tiny pieces.
I think mine (recently) came from just stress from life (and a couple of larger events) and not having a proper outlet. I have never been diagnosed with any sort of mental illness but I'm suspecting that I may suffer and have been suffering from something; anxiety and depression. I virtually have no motivation internally. All of my motivation is external and I just don't feel that drive to do, well, anything.
In the early 90's, I had a traumatic event force a stay at a mental health facility. It was a long, insidious process . . .
Crying, strange, horrible, vivid thoughts I couldn't stop and no sleep at all. Days with nothing more than nodding off for a few minutes here and there. It was like opening Pandora's Box. After this event, It made changes/did something in my brain that made it impossible to go back to the way it was before. I'm an adventurer, I've broken bones and stuff like that, but being clinically depressed was the most debilitating life event I have ever suffered. I couldn't even move sometimes.
While taking this little holiday, I saw people who were in way worse shape than I, really scary stuff!
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