What is a nervous breakdown?

"Nervous breakdown" is a non clinical term which is used to describe the onset of mental illness or a psychological disorder such as a variety of depressive or anxiety disorder.

Why do breakdowns occur?

At its core a nervous breakdown is an inability to cope with the demands of life. Many people find that a breakdown happens slowly as pressures mount and the effects of the existing pressures result in more problems which creates a downward momentum.

A breakdown can also occur suddenly for example if a large increase in stress caused by a crisis such as bereavement occurs.

There is still a stigma attached to mental health issues, in fact the term "nervous breakdown" itself came into being because people preferred to relate their symptoms to something physical (the nerves) as opposed to its being a mental health problem. This stigma sometimes results in people trying to avoid facing up to the fact that they may have problems until it is absolutely unavoidable. This is very sad because the one thing that can lessen the impact of a breakdown, and in some cases even avert it completely, is acting fast.

The keys to dealing with any breakdown, whether it is looming or actually occurring, is to identify it, take action to fix the problems that caused it and then recover from the effects.

IDENTIFY

Possible signs of approaching a breakdown include;

You frequently feel like you are sinking under the weight of your life or generally feel like you're not coping with what you have to do or want to do. You feel panicky or have panic attacks. Your sleep patterns are disturbed. You lose or gain a lot of weight without trying to. Your concentration markedly deteriorates. You feel extremely irritable and perhaps snap at people over small things. You are acting out of character. Tasks you used to complete almost automatically now feel difficult or insurmountable. You have low self esteem or a pessimistic outlook.

Identifying one or more of these signs with yourself doesn't automatically mean that you're having or are going to have a nervous breakdown however it does mean that you should start to take notice of problems in your life and give serious consideration to straightening them out. The listed signs are all symptoms of not being able to cope and when that situation arises it means action is needed from you to change your life to something that you can cope with and are happy with.

As a general guide to how serious things are think about your

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