It’s all over my internet. I hear people around me stuff like ‘omg you’re so stressed you’re going to give yourself a mental breakdown or you’re having a mental breakdown because you’re XYZ’
What is it?
It’s all over my internet. I hear people around me stuff like ‘omg you’re so stressed you’re going to give yourself a mental breakdown or you’re having a mental breakdown because you’re XYZ’
What is it?
Comments
Essentially a “mental breakdown” or “nervous breakdown” is a term used to describe an event in which someone undergoes a sudden and severe bout of depression, anxiety, or stress. It’s important to note that this is not a medical diagnosis because it’s not a specific mental condition. Instead, it’s a mental health crisis or a breakdown of your mental health that happens when you have intense physical and emotional stress, have difficulty coping, and then aren’t able to function effectively. It’s the feeling of being physically, mentally and emotionally overwhelmed by the stress of life in an acute way.
It is what it sounds like: your mental breaks down. When you are stressed, your mind is in overdrive, causing cortisol (stress hormone) levels to increase. Eventually, your body gets so burnt out that your mind short circuits, causing the operator to malfunction. This action is often characterized by sudden vocal outbursts, violence, or erratic behavior (all due to the brain not able to logically/rationally compute in a normal function).
From the movie Office Space, Milton is shown as a coworker that is slowly ostracized and belittled, causing Milton to eventually burn down the office due to him not being treated right and thus causing mental stress and breakdown.
From the movie Wanted, Wesley is shown as an overworked office worker that is traumatized by his boss. Eventually, he lashes out in violence because he can no longer stand the environment.
While the two cases mentioned above were cathartic for the characters and was viewed as positive for them (for revenge in the system), it takes a massive amount of stress to cause someone to act in that manner.
Mental breakdowns are just when the person can no longer take the stress of everyday life and acts out against their normal behavior.
Is a non-specific colloqualism for an adverse mental health event.
People use it to describe anything from someone venting intense sadness or frustration to someone having a psychotic break (becoming disconnected from reality, believing fundamental physical things are happening or not happening when they aren’t/are).
This is why you shouldn’t put much stock in analysis of individuals mental health that don’t come from professional sources (and sometimes even those that do). Someone being momentarily overwhelmed with emotion is not the same as something like a psychotic break but it’s often construed as such by bad actors to discredit or gaslight for their own ends.
Most often it’s just untrained and uneducated people rolling any “bad mental health event” into one umbrella term, when in reality it’s different issues with different causes.
When I say I have a mental breakdown I mean I’m feeling intense emotions that’s effecting everything in my life (I’m bipolar so it’s when my episodes start to turn on)
This is coming from someone who has experienced this kind of mental health crisis, and I will do my best to add to the scientific responses you’ve already gotten in a more personal manner.
Think of it as your brain going into overdrive in order to protect itself and the body. The sheer level of stress an individual is experiencing causes your brain to hit the panic button.
In my case, I was going through extreme depression and my job was not helping. I became mean to customers who were mean to me. I lost all my soft skills, something essential with customer service. I got sassy. I got rude. I got ugly. Because my brain was telling me to fight and defend myself. This was, again, brought on by extreme depression due to a sudden, and arguably violent, stressful event.
My mental breakdown wasn’t cute, or funny, or something trivial. I went into a bleak place for months, one of which I am only now reviving from about a year later. My brain was telling my body to be safe by any means necessary. And if that meant pushing people away by putting on a mean mask, so be it.
Compare it to a fever. The body is sick, so it raises the temperature to kill the virus making you sick. Seems counter intuitive right? Because that fever makes you feel worse. But in the end, your body is trying to protect itself.