Getting the Facts Straight…
A ‘nervous’, or ‘mental breakdown’ is what doctors describe as a period of severe depression or psychosis, caused by extreme stress or overwork, or some other highly distressing external environmental factor. For the benefit of anyone who wishes to check the various definitions, symptoms and descriptions available, I have included a number of links below at the end of this post that outline what is presently understood about ‘breakdowns’.
Moreover, it is generally accepted that a ‘breakdown’ is not a permanent condition. And that the effects of such a condition vary dramatically from person to person. Nevertheless, it is recommended by medical experts, that anyone feeling overwhelmed by stress or anxiety or feelings of despair, should seek medical help immediately.
This post is about what happened to me following an extended period of great stress, overwork and severe prolonged fatigue. I cannot say what this event was, as there seems to be no medical definition or description of it, at least, I have not been able to find a medical description of whatever it was that I went though, so I will refer to it as a ‘mental breakdown’. But in all honestly, for me, the event was catastrophic, and it proved to be permanent…
I write this article in the hope that anyone else who may be experiencing any such symptoms will get help from a medical professional as soon as possible and not suffer alone. And that in such an event, perhaps help from a professional, will result in a full and speedy recovery. Finally – please be assured that this is solely my story, and that I did not get medical help when I should have. Therefore it is not a general description of what may happen to someone undergoing a period of severe stress…
A Life Shattering Event
I had worked myself too hard, for too long, not realising the potential damage that I could cause to myself. Relying on just my willpower, I had pushed myself beyond exhaustion on a daily basis. I had taken on far more than I was able to cope with, and had been getting by with no more than three or four hours of sleep a night. I was also studying for my ‘A’ levels at the time, and when I couldn’t carry on any longer, and started falling asleep during lectures, I started taking slimming pills to stay awake. I had no idea what a terrible risk I was taking with my life… The result was a complete ‘mental breakdown’…
I subsequently found that I was no longer the person I had been prior to this terrible event. And somehow I had to learn to live with it. I couldn’t understand how the person I had known as myself could have just vanished. And the memory of what I had once been tormented me. From someone who was exceptionally organised, very dependable and had enormous amounts of willpower, I had turned into a great big heap of confusion and haplessness. There was chaos in my mind, and my life reflected that in every way.
I had been obsessively driven; I expected perfection from myself, in everything I did. The few months leading up to the event, I could feel that I was heading for a ‘crash’, but I had no idea at the time that it would be life changing – a devastating event from which there would be no return. I thought I was just tired and with a couple of months of rest I’d be perfectly fine. Unbeknown to me, I would never recover from it. And when it happened, my whole life changed… And everything I had worked myself into the ground for, went with it… Who knows, perhaps if I had got help, things might have been different for me.
A Stranger to Myself
Initially I didn’t understand what had happened to me, or the impact of it. Except that I knew something was very, very wrong with me. Suddenly I didn’t seem to know who I was as a person any longer. I no longer knew anything about my own personality... I had become a total stranger to myself! I looked the same, I sounded the same, I knew all the facts, my name, my DOB, my address, my phone number… But that was all – just the facts and nothing else. I no longer knew myself.
I felt confused and anxious all the time, I couldn’t organise myself anymore, I felt panicked, stressed and debilitatingly fatigued. Furthermore, I had become unreliable, when all my life I had been exactly the opposite. It felt as if I had cotton wool stuffed in my head and I had to try and think through it, my thoughts were all jumbled and I couldn’t assess or analyse anything properly any longer. Worst of all – I couldn’t motivate myself to do anything anymore, and I couldn’t manage any of the things that I had previously done…
It was something that I had never experienced before – I had always been an exceptionally organised person – and I didn’t know how to cope with it. I had no idea how to stop feeling like that. I didn’t know how to get away from it… Day in, day out, nothing seemed to change, I felt I had fallen into a whirlpool of despair… And I didn’t know how to come back out from it. When the new academic term started – I couldn’t even study properly anymore. I left college before my ‘A’ level exams – I was in no fit condition to go through with them.
Getting Away from Myself
Thus, I went to stay with my Auntie, she said the change would do me good… I could take things easy, and try and get back to my ‘A’ level studies in my own time, with the help of a private tutor; just take everything at my own pace away from the world. It seemed like a nice idea, at least something I felt I could cope with… Most of all, the thought of getting away from the world appealed to me. In reality though, I was trying to get away from myself and the turmoil in my mind…
Every day seemed bleak and suffocating as if a heavy, dark cloud smothered me. It felt as if I had entered some alternate reality. The world carried on – just the way it always had – it just happened around me, and I was somehow stuck, just watching it like a movie, but unable to move with it. I felt I was trapped and I’d never be able to find my way out.
Nevertheless, somehow I had to learn how to live with whoever it was that I had become, and get to know myself again, little by little, just as I would have to, if I were trying to get to know someone else… My Auntie tried to get me help by arranging an appointment with a psychiatrist; he talked to me for a while, and gave me some tablets. But I didn’t want to take “more pills” – I knew it was “pills” that had been the cause of what had happened to me in the first place, so I didn’t take them, and I didn’t go back to him.
Confusion and Turmoil
I went on like this, in what seemed like a never ending state of confusion and turmoil… I couldn’t think, I couldn’t concentrate, I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t rest, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t wake… I couldn’t really do anything. I felt unbearably anxious all the time, the tiniest, most banal of events sent shudders of panic and fear through me – for no apparent reason. To say I was a wreck would have been an understatement – I was completely demolished.
Soon my physical health started to suffer. I had kept myself trim for many years with daily exercise – but I could no longer get myself to do them. My body went through agony with numbness in my limbs due to the sudden drop in circulation, and muscle cramps from the reduction of adrenaline levels that my body had become used to. I started putting on weight. Day by day, everything that had made me feel good about myself got laid to waste in front of my eyes and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I hated myself for it, but I was unable to change it…
The days turned to months, just waiting for those suffocating clouds that hung over me to lift, telling myself tomorrow will be a better day. Only to find it was as unbearable as the day before. I lived in despair, not knowing where to find the real me; desperately trying to learn to live with the person I seemed to have become. I was a stranger to myself. And what I learned about this stranger came as a terrible shock – I didn’t like what I discovered…
The Bitter Truth Sinks In
The ‘new’ me was unreliable and weak, with practically no willpower. She was totally disorganised and couldn’t stick to any form of routine or schedule. She was almost incapable of keeping her word… She would make promises to people, but she’d usually end up letting them down – sometimes in the most deplorable of ways, like leaving a partially sighted lady whom she had promised to take somewhere, waiting at a railway station for her… No matter how hard she tried – it was no use… She was incapable of exercising any form of discipline over herself.
This was the ‘new me’… How it anguished me, but I kept on doing such things; either at the last minute, I would get so panic-struck, that unless someone came with me, I just couldn’t get myself to go wherever it was I had to go; or I’d simply not be able to get up due to the constant and crippling fatigue I still felt. I despaired; but no matter how much I convinced myself that it would be different the next time – it never was. In the end I stopped making promises… And perhaps the hardest part was that people stopped asking me.
How could I ever come to terms with being this person? I had never broken my word to anyone – not even to myself! The worst aspect of it was how it affected my family – I had started letting my family down… They’d expect me to get up and I couldn’t. They’d expect me to do things, and I’d end up not being able to get them done. It created arguments and rows, and no end of insults and recriminations… All of which added to my misery, to the point of utter despair.
Desperate for a Way Out
I wanted to tear my hair out, scream, bang my head against a wall… My life was a shambles and it seemed there was nothing I could do to change it. How could I recover my mind? Where could I go to find a solution – some way to bring my ‘old self’ back? What had happened to ‘me’? Where had ‘I ‘– the ‘real’ me, disappeared to? I had become someone whom I found totally pathetic. I was in utter turmoil. Would I ever find a way out of this dark pit I had fallen into? Would I ever be ‘myself’ again?
It seemed like a never-ending bad dream – making myself believe that everything was going to be fine, but not having the slightest idea how to go about making it happen… I bungled through every day – just waiting for the fog to lift, trying to get through somehow; each day promising myself it would be different, and each day realising that it was just as awful as the day before.
Still, I kept on hoping things would be the way they used to be. Sometimes, it was so unbearable, I found myself talking about what I was going through, over and over, and over and over, the same things, again and again, to anyone who cared enough to listen. I was like some haunted soul trapped in a recurrent nightmare. But then, for all intents and purposes, that’s how it was; only it wasn’t a nightmare… It was real life – my beleaguered real life.
Day After Day…
Day after day, the months went by, until eventually it didn’t seem to matter anymore – so many days had gone by already, what difference would another day make? I felt I was watching my life pass by in front of my eyes and I was getting nowhere, and as before – I didn’t know what to do about it. An overwhelming dark cloud hung over me – I felt any moment I would slip over some invisible edge into oblivion… When would I finally be able to emerge from the darkness that seemed to have engulfed me…?
I was in a constant state of desperation, from the time I managed to get myself up, to the time I went to bed. Relations with friends and family remained as strained as ever; out of their own frustration and bewilderment, they said hurtful things to me like: “You’ve just become lazy now.” Or “You need a kick on your backside.” It didn’t seem to matter how many times I told them I was trying really hard… No one seemed able to believe me.
In my desperation – I started smoking. I found the smell unpleasant, and it made me cough badly. But I was too distraught to care about its negative effects. I hoped the nicotine would help me focus, and think more clearly. I hoped it would help me get over the non-stop exhaustion… Most of all I hoped it would help me concentrate, so I could study again; my studies became my single aim in life to get myself out of the Hell I lived in… I had become a heap of uselessness – something, be it smoking, had to help me overcome it.
Searching for an Answer…
I kept on believing that somehow, one day I would find the answer. My life was in tatters; I couldn’t even maintain a coherent thought in my mind. Where could I possibly go to find a solution? I went to psychiatrists, counsellors, career advisors, librarians, curators… I went everywhere trying to get answers… But there were no answers – how can there be an answer for someone who doesn’t even know what she’s looking for?
And still, I found myself haplessly telling anyone and everyone, who was willing to listen, the same old accounts of the same old events… Thus, one evening while pouring my woes out to my Dad yet again for the ‘nth’ time, I told him how it anguished me thinking about what ‘I used to be’; I couldn’t understand how I could be the person I had now become… He listened quietly as always, and then said something to me that somehow ‘flicked a switch’ in my head… In his usual reassuringly soft voice, he commented: “Know who you are now, know your strengths; know what you are capable of today – and forget the past.”
Those words were the answer, somehow they were the solution that I so desperately needed – they were the trigger that helped me move forward with my life on the road to recovery, and finally to start living again – one day at a time. It felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off me and I could breathe again. For the first time in years, I felt there was hope, and I felt I might be able to move forward… My Dad’s words had somehow initiated a new state of mind for me… Finally, I felt calm… I had found acceptance.
Moving from Past to Present
Finding acceptance gave me the power to leave the agony of the past behind and start moving forward – into the present. Acceptance allowed me to lay the memories of my former self to rest and start on the journey of rebuilding my life, as the person I had become – little by little, one piece at a time. Slowly I found myself able to study again and sat for my ‘A’ level exams. Finally, I could put that whole period of time that had surrounded that ruinous event, which had destroyed my life, behind me once and for all.
It was still hard for me to cope with lots of things. I still felt confused and nervous. I still couldn’t get myself to things that were difficult for me… I was still ‘hopelessly’ unreliable… My family still berated, admonished and scolded me, and at times, resented me for not being reliable, and I still desperately wished I could be… But I no longer mourned over what I had once been… So, I did have a lot more shortcomings than I had had previously, and it did still distress me terribly, but at last, now I could try and do better – without constantly comparing myself with what I had once been…
My life had ‘stood still’ for years. Indeed time had moved on, but it had taken only my body with it – my mind, my emotions, my thoughts, and even my feelings, had remained stuck in that period of time when that life shattering event that I called my ‘breakdown’ had happened. For me ‘moving on’ emotionally, away from that time, was a monumental achievement.
Taking it One Day at a Time
I had stopped trying to turn the clock back… It was sad for me – but I had accepted it. I had a lot of issues; I had lost my confidence in myself; I felt scared and anxious all the time and needed a lot of moral support from friends and family; I got confused very easily; I could no longer rely on myself to do the things I intended to do… But I did still have a few qualities that had remained unchanged that I could feel good about, and which I could try and remain focused on – I was still very determined, I still knew what it was I wanted out of life, and I still had the desire to keep trying.
Each day brought its difficulties – only perhaps mine were more immediate than most people’s – being able to get up, being able to get to bed, taking care of my personal needs, maintaining some kind of routine, and so on… But at last, emotionally I was moving forward… Eventually, I went to college and got my degree; and though my constant fatigue, along with other health issues – problems resulting from a long term sleep disorder, and former eating disorder – prevented me from getting the degree I wanted, for the career I would have liked to follow; but I did get a good degree all the same – and from the University of my choice!
So, from someone who had been a total mess and unable to focus on anything, to now where I have set up my own business, and I can look forward to my future… All I can say is that things do get better no matter what… There is an indomitable spirit within all of us that compels us to carry on in the face of crisis and difficulty. It is this spirit that gives us the capacity, not just to survive – but to succeed! Indeed at times we can all feel overwhelmed or beaten down by life – the times when we feel we need help… It is precisely at such times when we should allow ourselves to get the help we need. There is emotional help and support out there for all of us; we just have to be willing to accept it.
So ’till next time, keep well, and look after yourself and your loved ones.
Dana xx
PS: If you feel you would like to reach out to me for a chat about things in general – feel free to contact me. Just send me an email from the Contact page.
Some Useful Links
https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/nervous-breakdown#symptoms
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-nervous-breakdown-4172381
https://futuresrecoveryhealthcare.com/blog/mental-breakdown/