Nervous Breakdown: Fact of Fiction?

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Part of our gothic family lore is that my mom had a nervous breakdown when I was a baby... we never talk about it much, but she's definitely a little off.

I had a bonehead psych class years ago and the prof said categorically: "There's no such thing as a nervous breakdown."

Is it just an old fashioned term, like "spells" or melancholia or "fits." Or do you know of people that had a genuine meltdown? I'm not sure what I think.

― andy --, Monday, 19 September 2005 21:33 (twenty years ago)

I'm about to have a nervous breakdown
My head really hurts
If I don't find a way out of here
I'm gonna go berserk cause
I'm crazy and I'm hurt
Head on my shoulders
It's going... Berserk!
I hear the same old talk talk talk
The same old lines
Don't do me that today
Yeah if you know what's good for you, you'll get out of my way
Cause, I'm crazy and I'm hurt
Head on my shoulders
Going... Berserk!
I won't apologize
For acting outta line
You see the way I am
You leave any time you can cause
I'm crazy and I'm hurt
Head on my shoulders
Going... Berserk!
Crazy! Crazy! Crazy! Crazy!
I don't care what you fuckin' do!
I don't care what you fuckin' say!
I'm so sick of everything
I just want to... Die!

― gygax! (gygax!), Monday, 19 September 2005 21:35 (twenty years ago)

Just as there is no such thing as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The term may be imprecise, but it describes a real event.

― Aimless (Aimless), Monday, 19 September 2005 21:35 (twenty years ago)

I think it's a lay term that sort of covers a whole bunch of different things, and doesn't mean an awful lot.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 19 September 2005 21:45 (twenty years ago)

I have wondered about this: people used to have nervous breakdowns and now no one ever does. I suppose it was the term used for someone suffering severe depression or similar, which manifested in ways dictated by the popular narrative of the times. No one ever gets 'the vapours' anymore either (if they did I am sure I would be a pale sufferer; I can imagine lying on a chaise longue, weakly fluttering my long fingers and agreeing to the solicitous suggestion that some tea and a small cream cake might make me feel better).

― estela (estela), Monday, 19 September 2005 21:48 (twenty years ago)

Severe depression is probably the most common thing hiding behind that term, but I think that it probably covered a wide variety of mental illnesses and conditions.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 19 September 2005 21:53 (twenty years ago)

This seems to concur w/ Martin's analysis:
http://people.howstuffworks.com/question653.htm

30's - 70's, ha! You can't have them anymore.

― andy --, Monday, 19 September 2005 21:55 (twenty years ago)

"The nervous breakdown, the mysterious affliction that has been a staple of American life and literature for more than a century, has been wiped out by the combined forces of psychiatry, pharmacology and managed care.

"But people keep breaking down anyway. Margot Kidder, Philip Roth, William Styron, Kitty Dukakis, Mike Wallace, Bobby Fischer, Betty Ford, Joan Rivers, just to name some of the famous -- all experienced a wrenching break from this world, a kind of living death..."

Margot Kidder did fucking freak out.

― andy -, Monday, 19 September 2005 22:00 (twenty years ago)

How dare you call my baseless speculation 'analysis'!

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 19 September 2005 22:06 (twenty years ago)

estela, you may enjoy a book I read recently, 'Mad Travellers' by Ian Hacking. It's an interesting read on the 'fashions' of mental illness, how they fall in and out of vogue up to the present day. I really enjoyed it:
http://www.fabooks.com/book.php?id=66

― andy --, Monday, 19 September 2005 22:09 (twenty years ago)

it's weird, i was actually talking to my girlfriend about this tonight, without seeing the thread. i basically realised that i don't really know what a nervous breakdown is, exactly, and was curious to hear it clearly defined.

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Monday, 19 September 2005 22:14 (twenty years ago)

xpost:
That book sounds terrific, however the "overanalysed society" bit at the end of the description seems incorrect. If anything, we are under-analysed which leads to quick diagnoses and then quick fix remedies.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 19 September 2005 22:20 (twenty years ago)

its like 'hysteria' in women of freud's time.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 19 September 2005 22:20 (twenty years ago)

The thing is, certainly historical circumstances traumas can in fact produce unique shared neuroses.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 19 September 2005 22:26 (twenty years ago)

Hacking talks alot about hysteria and epilepsy back in the day... those were the two roots of all kookiness back then, they figured.

― andy --, Monday, 19 September 2005 22:34 (twenty years ago)

No one ever gets 'the vapours' anymore either

Oh yes they do. The vapors=flatulence.

― Christine 'Green Leafy Dragon' Indigo (cindigo), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 01:10 (twenty years ago)

It's kind of like the term "germs." There are bacteria (good and bad), viruses, and things like that but scientifically speaking there is no such thing as germs.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 01:15 (twenty years ago)

Thanks for the book recommendation, andy, I will read that.

― estela (estela), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 02:05 (twenty years ago)

"Nervous breakdown" is not a clinical diagnosis, however, it can be an accurate emotional description of a psychological event which may have differing clinical, psychological or neurological causes.

My mum had one. In fact she might have had two I've had a couple. I reccomend that everyone have one at one point or another - they're quite freeing and therapeudic in some way. So long as you don't end up with a lobotomy.

This may sound flippant, but really it isn't.

― The Brocade Fire (kate), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 06:50 (twenty years ago)

This reminds me, when the hell did vodka replace gin as the default liquor in a martini?

― M. V. (M.V.), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 07:07 (twenty years ago)

http://www.mmais.com.br/fotos/noticias625a.jpg

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 07:20 (twenty years ago)

As much as I always appreciate pictures of James Bond, er, how did this thread mutation happen?

(I wonder also if Gareth has come down with "Mad Travellers Syndrome" - it would be just like him to get a malady that no one has had outside of 19th Century France.)

― The Brocade Fire (kate), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 07:22 (twenty years ago)

That was in reference to "when the hell did vodka replace gin as the default liquor in a martini?" Please carry on with the nervous breakdown talk.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 07:27 (twenty years ago)

No, I understood why James Bond was posted, I didn't understand where the question came from.

Is this to imply that "nervous breakdown" is a quaint term from the days when martini implied gin, not vodka? Or the more gracious days when people reguarly drank martinis? Or what?

― The Brocade Fire (kate), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 07:32 (twenty years ago)

My sister has had a couple (breakdowns not martinis), oh they exist all right. Probably the most upsetting time of my life, so far.

― Ste (Fuzzy), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 07:34 (twenty years ago)

Is this to imply that "nervous breakdown" is a quaint term from the days when martini implied gin, not vodka? Or the more gracious days when people reguarly drank martinis? Or what?

Yes.

― M. V. (M.V.), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 08:19 (twenty years ago)

Well, more Bond pictures, then, please.

― The Brocade Fire (kate), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 08:50 (twenty years ago)

I've just started reading [i]The Noonday Demon[/i] by Andrew Solomon, which chronicles his depression and the breakdowns he had (as well as various other people's stories of their own depressive illnesses). It's been quite an eye-opener, to read things from the perspective of someone who has gone through such an awful time - seeing it through their eyes, if you will.

I bought it because I have a good friend who has relapsed into depression again, and someone thought he might find this book useful. I thought I ought to read it first, before sending it to him, but I am now worried : the description of the author's breakdowns are so graphic and so near-suicidal, that I think it may do my friend more harm than good to read it (even if the book does end on a more positive note). I don't want to exacerbate his misery, or plant more negative thoughts into his mind at a time when he is clearly fragile. Not sure what I should do. Has anyone else read this book?

I'd be very grateful for some thoughts and advice, pls.

― C J (C J), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 10:31 (twenty years ago)

I haven't read that particularly book, but I do have to say that during my worst depressive periods and even hospitalisations, I actually found other, just as graphic, descriptions of mental illness (The Bell Jar, Girl Interrupted spring to mind) strangely comforting. The idea that other people had gone through what I was going through made me feel less alone and scared and isolated.

But one size does not fit all, and I am not familiar with that book.

― The Brocade Fire (kate), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 10:40 (twenty years ago)

I'm still only a few chapters in to this book, but Solomon is describing the ways in which he had contemplated killing himself when he was at his lowest point. I suppose I'm just scared my friend is going to think "oh, that's a good idea..."

― C J (C J), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 10:49 (twenty years ago)

I suspect that these thoughts will already have flickered across your friend's mind, CJ - perhaps it'd be reassuring to read that others feel the same way but then make something of what I'm assuming is a recovery?

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 11:43 (twenty years ago)

I have heard (from people suffering from depression) that it's a very good book, CJ. And I think kate's right that the feeling of not being alone is what sticks with you beyond anything else

An alternative book is Sunbathing in the Rain by Gwyneth Lewis (subtitled 'a cheerful book about depression'), which I really liked. And Dorothy Rowe's 'The Way out of your prison' one is still great too.

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 12:37 (twenty years ago)

Thanks Archel (and Kate and Mark).

I'm concerned that being a well-meaning amateur rather than a trained professional means that I might say or do the wrong thing, whereas all I really want to do is to try and help. I just want my friend to be well again.

― C J (C J), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 12:41 (twenty years ago)

CJ: What to do when someone you love is depressed
Don't know how much it applies to the friend situation though.

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 13:34 (twenty years ago)

MIND website also very good.

'Nervous breakdown' is also a term used to explain to little kids why their grandmother is/was crazy - at least in my house. It's in keeping with my mother's form of euphemisation, which is to give a simple, broad term and leave it up to us to find out more.

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 14:05 (twenty years ago)

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