Nervous breakdown what does it look like

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It is as if their backbone has been torn out from them. Their identity has been ripped apart meaning they doubt their beliefs and dismiss their worth. One thing they are likely to be starkly aware of is that how they are now is having a negative impact on those closest to them. This only makes it worse. It can mean that a normal life at home, work and in social situations ceases to exist. There seems no end, which adds to the sense of hopelessness.

A breakdown can last anything from a few hours to months and even years. It is also known as a mental or nervous breakdown or reaching rock bottom. Symptoms vary from person to person. This is often due to the underlying cause. A person having an emotional breakdown will feel unbearably intense symptoms of stress. This means that at times even the simplest thing , such as receiving a letter reminding them to resume a subscription, can trigger floods of tears. Everyone is different and no one has exactly the same life experiences.

However there are some common life events that have been seen to lead to emotional breakdowns. Someone with a family or personal history of anxiety disorders is more likely to have an emotional breakdown. This could be due to not learning how to respond effectively to certain things in life.

In one study almost half of people admitted they felt uncomfortable opening up in an emotional way, even to people close to them. I'd been in a stable relationship for a long time, which I think might have protected me. When it finished, I wasn't able to deal with it, so I latched on to something else. I was delusional and thought that I was in love with somebody and that he was in love with me. But then, when it seemed obvious that the person I'd fixated on wasn't in love with me, I kind of thought, "Now what happens?

I could hold a conversation. I carried on, but in the back of mind I'd think, "Well, actually, I'm an alien. Sarah was treated by a psychiatrist. It happened again, but in a slightly milder way, about a year later.

I think it was when somebody was leaving me and I was also leaving a job, albeit voluntarily. The main symptom was that I thought I was dying again, dying of Aids, which wasn't totally irrational because I'd had a relationship with a bisexual man, but I'd had an Aids test which was negative.

The fear might be rational, but what is irrational is the extent to which you feel it. I'd had an Aids test, so why was I still afraid? The last time I was properly delusional and thought I was dying was about eight years ago, when I was evicted from a flat - it's always at times of intense stress. David Bell feels it is important to see psychotic breakdown as distinct from our normal understanding of a breakdown.

There are many types of psychotic breakdown, but people tend to have altered experiences defined by losing touch with reality - having delusions and hallucinations and other strange experiences, like travelling on the bus and not thinking, "I hate it because I think they're looking at me" but "They are looking at me.

Key to understanding any sort of breakdown is understanding 'why'. Why Ian? Why Sarah? Broadly speaking, experts agree that breakdowns are caused by interaction of the external and internal. Massimo Riccio says that with mental illness, there is always a catalyst. In other words, there is an interaction between internal vulnerability and an external event. In fact, according to consultant psychiatrist Dr Cosmo Hallstrom, 'All breakdowns are a function of three interacting factors: genetic vulnerability - what you're born with; then the way you've lived your life - your emotional robustness, and then an interacting event.

If you know your area of vulnerability, you might accept and acknowledge it, but some of us might find our weakness intolerable and try to avoid it.

Some of the ways we cope with anxieties are positive and developmental, but others impose a restriction on our personality because they're rather rigid defences. For example, a person might dread vulnerability and so pretend to their partner that they're self sufficient - in other words, they're always acting. This would make them a very controlling person, so when a girlfriend or boyfriend leaves, in addition to the ordinary feelings any of us have, they might feel out of control, overwhelmed with anxiety and vulnerability, and they might break down.

Sarah sees her breakdowns as 'a mixture of circumstance and genetics combined with a highly strung and nervous person; I was weak and also immature - give another person the same stress I had, and I think they would have dealt with it.

Ian Ewart, meanwhile, has traced the seeds of his breakdown directly to childhood. The fact is I'd had a crap upbringing. I always wanted to do creative things, but my father encouraged me into jobs in offices, and because he was a well-known solicitor I was under his shadow.

I went in to the wrong line of work. Now I know I will never get another office job, and it's such a relief. I do think it's wrong to try and pinpoint one cause of a breakdown, though, when it's often three or four, but in simple terms I would say that my inability to cope with work came from being mentally undermined by my past, which eventually lead to a breakdown.

Even when we've reached rock bottom, though, we don't always act in our best interests. It took Ewart several months to get to grips with his treatment properly, even after he'd accepted that he needed medication. I waited until the following morning to start and then I had a total freak-out because I thought I was having some sort of fit, which was all in my mind. With antidepressants, there's a period when you're still very ill before they kick in - you get panicky about side effects.

Symptoms of a panic attack include:. Panic attacks come on suddenly and without warning. They are shorter-lived than nervous breakdowns and when they pass, they can leave a person feeling fatigued and stressed.

While some people who have panic attacks may not have a lot of stress in their lives, these attacks can be triggered by a lot of stress, just like nervous breakdowns. Panic attacks are very frightening because of how sudden they are and because they cause a lot of physical symptoms, more so than nervous breakdowns do. Because a nervous breakdown is not technically a mental health condition or diagnosis, there are no real defined types.

However, there are many different experiences that individuals experience when going through this kind of crisis. A breakdown may be sudden or build slowly; it may be the result of mental illness; it may be a psychotic breakdown; or it could be a panic attack. What these all have in common is that they are caused by stress and require treatment and ongoing care to recover from and to prevent in the future. Nervous Breakdown Treatment. I came to Bridges depressed, angry, and scared.

After settling in, I realized that I was in exactly the place I needed to be. Treatment Specialties. View Our Facilities. Meet Our Experts. We are here to listen compassionately. Our free, confidential telephone consultation will help you find the best treatment program for you. We can also guide you in approaching a loved one who needs treatment.

Skip to content Admissions Search for:. Nervous Breakdown Types of Nervous Breakdowns. Types of Nervous Breakdowns. Page Contents What is a Nervous Breakdown? What is a Nervous Breakdown? Symptoms and Diagnosis of a Nervous Breakdown Regardless of factors that make a nervous breakdown different from one person to the next, there are some common signs and symptoms.