Are "nervous breakdowns" still a thing?

Of course.

More people take medication nowadays. Anti-depressants will prevent most people from getting to that stage.

I think the term is archaic.

It's not a clinical diagnosis.

I have a few colleagues at my office who have taken time off for breakdowns. They call them "emotional breakdowns" now. They're still a thing.

I take antidepressants in the AM, midday and PM

[quote] The terms "mental breakdown" or "nervous breakdown" may be used by the general population to mean a mental disorder. The terms "nervous breakdown" and "mental breakdown" have not been formally defined through a medical diagnostic system such as the DSM-5 or ICD-10, and are nearly absent from scientific literature regarding mental illness. Although "nervous breakdown" is not rigorously defined, surveys of laypersons suggest that the term refers to a specific acute time-limited reactive disorder, involving symptoms such as anxiety or depression, usually precipitated by external stressors. Many health experts today refer to a nervous breakdown as a [italic]mental health crisis.[/italic]

Nowadays in Europe they are called "burnouts" and in many pleases they are insured thus not disastrous to finance and career.

70's and 80's? More like the 1950s.

No, but sick headaches are.

Celebrities claim them (sometimes referring to "exhaustion") when they get caught breaking a law or engaging in sexual misconduct.

SueEllen was always having them on “Dallas.”

r10 = the ghost of Frances Farmer

I'm reading some stuff by R. D. Laing and it's amazing to me how philosophical the field of psychiatry used to be -- refreshingly so

People still have them, but typically refer to it as “exhaustion”, or “anxiety/panic attacks”.

Ann Romano had 2 of them. The last one got her an Emmy nomination.

They are now referred to as “Panic Attacks”.

[quote]People still have them, but typically refer to it as “exhaustion”

Hear hear!

No, but “the vapuhs” are!

I thought Pirin tablets took care of nervous breakdowns?

[quote]Celebrities claim them (sometimes referring to "exhaustion")

Drugs and rehab.

Who is the hot bodybuilder in OP's photo?

Thankfully there's...

The expression isn't used a lot anymore

Audrey Hepburn in Charade.

Ah prefer the ladylike "nervous collapse."

Why is everybody looking at me?

"They'll say, 'Barbara Jean's had another COLLAPSE!'"

The term was archaic by the 70s or 80s.

My parents had a friend who was super handsome, successful and popular. He had a “nervous breakdown.” They’d speak of it with great awe—and my parents were sophisticated people.

Can’t remember many details other than he stopped working and never worked again. My parents were quite sad about it.

Guessing it was major depression and because there was no good treatment then he could never get back on his feet.

When I was hospitalized fifteen years ago the psychiatrist told my family it was a nervous breakdown. I wish he hadn't. I think that term minimizes what people are going through.

Ever since I saw Altman's "Nashville" the first, I quit have nervous breakdowns.

Now I have a collapse, just like Barabra Jean.

And I really try not to go nutzy again.

I think the medication they gave some people with mental disorders back in those days really made them like zombies. Where work was out of the question. They were just kept numb and quiet rather than being hysterical. I have had panic attacks or used to before I went on meds. I can see it being thought of as a nervous breakdown but I can also see it referring to can't get out of bed depression or paranoia.

My mother used the term about a distant relative in the late 1970s. Looking back, the relative obviously had an anxiety disorder. She was a concert violinist of some sort but I think the pressure got to her.

I'm glad it isn't used anymore. It is way too vague and implies failure or weakness.

I’ve had what amounts to a nervous breakdown a few times, most recently last summer. They’re more slow-motion depression/anxiety episodes that last fro months and get you fired and evicted and maybe sent to rehab, but then you get sick of them and pretend they aren’t happening and soldier on until your next one.

Now we call them Nervous Breakthroughs!

I like the term and use it regularly. I had one just last week!

Yves St Laurent said he'd been 'born with a nervous breakdown.' Mary!

I feel like shit today.

When I was in college, I was hospitalized a number of times and eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder. (This was around 2004.) The rumor at my college was that I'd had a "nervous breakdown," so the expression still had some cultural weight ~20 years ago.

I've always assumed that "nervous breakdowns" were the 70s version of "anxiety attack" today.

[quote] I think that term minimizes what people are going through.

Minimizes? To me it sounds like a pretty big deal!

It's the MARY!!!!!!!! of mental ailments.

Russians in Doestoyesky had brain fever.

[quote] SueEllen was always having them on “Dallas.”

That’s why she had to go to the sanitarium.

They’re defined as a person’s first manic episode.

[quote] I've always assumed that "nervous breakdowns" were the 70s version of "anxiety attack" today.

No. Bipolar episode. The first episode.

I still call them nervous breakdowns and I have them once or twice a year. My Mom had a few of them as I recall, they weren't called that but that's what there were.

Oh hell working for the state twice many of us took mental health days.

R30 wanted to get all the goodie-sympathy coos from everyone so she wanted people to KNOW the terrible truth of her condition 15 years ago.

But it's not unusual for dementia to show up around 65 when one is talking about alcoholics. "Nervous breakdown" is a kindness.

My mother had them constantly (according to her) I tend to believe she was suffering fro panic/anxiety disorder.

I would gladly provide "comfort" and "understanding" for that sad bodybuilder in the picture.

[quote] I still call them nervous breakdowns and I have them once or twice a year.

Sorry to hear this. Do you mind sharing what they look like to an outsider? And what they feel like to you?

I like the term because it encompasses everything I need to communicate about what I experienced.

In the late 90s, after years of untreated depression and anxiety I freaking hit the wall. I just stopped functioning very much and cried most of the time while staring out into space (and smoking cigarettes).

Finally my parents intervened (I was 35 years old) and I got on an SSRI which helped a lot. I had done years of counseling and therapy and it didn't do a damned thing. I don't even drink or do drugs, so what I had was just long term depression and it eventually made me crack like an egg!!

So yes, what I experienced was a fucking NERVOUS BREAKDOWN, bitches!

If nervous breakdowns could be visualized:

Started with panic attacks. Thought I was dying. I couldn't catch my breath. My friends thought I was dying too. I felt bad for them feeling bad for me. The doctor put me on Ativan which made everything worse for some reason. It happened again, but worse about 15 years ago. I became extremely self-conscious and couldn't look anyone in the eye. I tried to fix it myself by cutting out grass, going to the gym and getting massages. I felt all clenched up inside and couldn't relax -- Nerves. Finally saw a shrink who put me on small doses of Xanax which I take to this day. It's still there, those feelings, lurking in the backgrounds but the Xanax really works.

I took myself to the hospital a few years ago because I thought I was having one. I couldn’t stop crying and hyperventilating, and I fet like my body was shutting down. It was really scary. They told me there’s no such thing as a nervous breakdown, but they admitted me under suicide watch even though I wasn’t the least bit suicidal. They apparently call it an acute anxiety attack, and released me with the name of a good therapist and a prescription for Valium in case I ever felt one coming in again. I’ve only taken the Valium twice in that time, and they do the trick (so far).

Interestingly, I've only ever had a panic attack while high on pot.

[quote] They apparently call it an acute anxiety attack,

How sweet of them to acknowledge the outfit you chose.

I prefer: In a state of complete mental shock!

What role does PTSD play in so-called "nervous breakdowns"?

I'm thinking about Blanche's fate in A Streetcar Named Desire

"Triggered."

[quote]What role does PTSD play in so-called "nervous breakdowns"?What role does PTSD play in so-called "nervous breakdowns?"

I think about that too. I had never had any experience with death, except for grandparents and a couple of dogs. When AIDS came along, we were all thrust into this new horrific reality, like practically overnight. We buried and scattered way too many of our friends. I've always been high strung and emotional. I had to grow up. I was fine for five years afterwards, I don't know. Maybe it was PTSD.

r64 I posted up-thread at r40. I experienced a traumatic event about a week or two before my first psych admit, fwiw. But I was already in a deep state of depression

[quote]I've always assumed that "nervous breakdowns" were the 70s version of "anxiety attack" today

How can so many people not even understand the difference between a nervous breakdown and a panic attack?

A panic attack is a sudden onset of panic feelings and bodily responses to panic -or anxiety. It's temporary - and over in minutes, usually.

A nervous breakdown is a long period of mental or emotional stress - think about Natalie Wood's breakdown in Splendor in the Grass after months of trying to cope with a teenage relationship, sexual repression, intense feelings of love, societal pressure, school - all piling up. She ends up flipping out and getting sent to a sanitarium for mental illness.

Get the difference?

Mama wash alwaysh in the throesh of a nervoush breakdown but she made it sho much fun, it wash shwell! Jazz Handsh!

When I was growing up, the term always seemed mysterious and somehow glamorous, and scary. I was afraid I'd have one but didn't know precisely what it was.

Some people think in pictures, other people think in words, but -- as r66 recognizes -- DLers think in classic American cinema.

You make me feel like a shell shocked veteran.

One day I was up and around, no more or less unhappy than usual, not conscious that for years I had been building up to what happened. The next I was lying in bed in my hotel room, my hands shaking helplessly, in violent nausea, weeping hysterically from causes I did not know, unable for a long while to move.

My FB feed is full of it on a daily basis. On Twitter people have them but too self deluded to realize it.

I've had them several times over my life. It's a breakdown in that you give up on everything and don't care about anything. You just shut out everything or run away. Who cares about your job, your rent, or those who care about you and maybe could help? You stay in bed with a huge black cloud over you and your terrified of the world. You feel fragile and weak.

^exactly. I had one when I was about 15, stopped going to school, had panic & anxiety, felt like the world was going to end, so why bother? I was agoraphobic for a while too. I eventually got better, went back to school, & have never felt like this again. It was the darkest period of my life & I always associate the year 1985 with really bad things.

I used to drive down Crescent Heights every day to work. One day, I turned left but there was no street there. I was on Ativan because I told the doctor I was nervous. The car bounced off the curb, both front tires flat. The next thing I remember is waking up in bed. For a period of months I felt like I was sleepwalking through a dream. Extreme self-consciousness, aware people looked at me as odd. Slowly came back to myself.

So far in my lifetime, I've only had one anxiety attack. Horrible. It was over in minutes, but I felt it building.

r74 was just trying to avoid the Noid

We'll soon find out when Jussie has his.

That's called "malingering" r78

[quote]The term was archaic by the 70s or 80s.

Maybe so, but people still used it. I remember when I was about 13 years old, some distant relative came to visit passing through on some road trip. The wife was odd. I cant exactly describe it, but even as a young kid I asked my mother at the time "what's wrong with that woman" (ha, ha, yeah, gay gene popping out). Anyways, my mother acknowledged that there was just something off about her. A few months later, my dad got a phone call and was told that she had suddenly passed away. She had a "nervous breakdown" put a plastic bag over her head and committed suicide.

I still to this day have no idea what clinical issue she had, it was way more than just depression.

An anxiety attack and nervous breakdown (people still use the term) are two very different things. I can't believe on a gay site people confuse the two.

I have had 3 nervous breakdowns where I was hospitalized. You go into shock. A state of becoming completely non functioning where as stated you could lose everything. My last one lasted 5 weeks in a psychiatric hospital and I did indeed lose everything and depend entirely on the kindness of strangers and the federal government. I hate it but in reality we really have very few choices in life.

Had at least one. But it's not all pretend

Suspected I was being watched in my own house.

After showering and fully dressing myself, I realized I couldn't leave my bedroom. Not even to the kitchen.

Years later, after one of my 2 therapists tried to convince me all I needed was "to go out to a nice dinner...." I finally saw the investigation file.

A cop who gut busted for stalking me.

Saw the emails written by the cop who was staked in his squad car around the corner of my house.

That stalking — except in the investigation file they called it "surveillance/snooping" — went on for years.

The stalker was punished. A slap on the wrist.

Sometimes, my nervous-neuroses trigger again.

At least I have the investigation files and all the witness recordings to know that it wasn't all in my head.

Gaslighting in the cyber age — with badges, guns and security clearance.

My father was made redundant after 45 years with the same company and his father died in the same week. My father had a full scale mental breakdown, was hospitalised and with therapy and meds made a full recovery. He was fine within a year and stopped the meds and has never looked back and you'd never know he ever had a mental health problem. These things can happen to anyone. I'd call it a mental breakdown not a nervous breakdown.

I had a breakdown when i was 17 when i came out at a christian school in a rural area and everyone in my life rejected me. I remember being in the bath and not being able to stop shaking and not being able to sleep because of the anxiety or function because of the depression. Somethingin my brain snapped when I couldn't take anymore. This is what I'd call a nervous breakdown if i had to describe it. Meds and therapy for years helped me get over it.

[quote] Anyways

Oh, dear!

Now days it’s referred to as a spazz attack.

You son of.a bitch. I don’t feel good today.

The Nervous Set

In New York when celebs would have a "nervous breakdown," they'd check into Doctors' Hospital on East End Avenue. Rooms with Williamsburg-style furnishings.

Bipolar Question. Is starting a conversation and continuing to talk without taking a breath for minutes, a sign of Bipolar? If so, my neighbor has the condition.

[quote]I used to drive down Crescent Heights every day to work. One day, I turned left but there was no street there. I was on Ativan because I told the doctor I was nervous. The car bounced off the curb, both front tires flat.

When I was reading this, I got confused because it seemed like you turned left from Crescent Heights onto Ativan.

R90 It's a sign of being a screaming bore

Now called Panic Attacks

R93 NO

I had a meltdown a few minutes ago. I’m better now.

R90 I think so. I got a series of phone calls from a friend I’ve known for 30yrs but hadn’t talked to in a few years. Hey ver the course of about 5-6 hours’ worth of talk, 98% of which he talked exclusively, I learned 0 about where he’s living, what he did for work, his hobbies, which of our mutual friends he’s still in touch with, etc. but I learned tons about super volcanoes, financial scams, philosophy, internet shaming, participation trophies, etc. Any time that I would try to direct the convo to something relevant, he’d mishear what I’d said, & go off on another breathless tangent.

My first thought was, wow, he must’ve become bipolar in the few years we’d lost touch, as he was nothing like this before & was a very good listener.

When the horror was in office my panic attacks were so intense that it felt like my heart was going to jump from my chest and go racing down the hall and out the door. I could literally picture me living long enough to see it, like people who are beheaded being able to think and see for a few seconds after they lose their head. I honestly am surprised that I didn't have a stroke or cardiac arrest. It is much scarier when you are old enough to fear that. Of course no one gaf because I am poor, do they just gave me a script for Buspirone. Pbbbt. Does nothing. My former neurologist had me on 3 mg a day. He retired. 😞😭 I loved that man. He even attended my mother's funeral. He never allowed me to be in pain or suffer on any way. Now they dgaf how much you suffer if you are poor. The only medication I have is weed and it doesn't help chronic pain.

R97: 3mg Xanax.

Such a scary thing, esp when it's the beginning of something else. I have a gay nephew who was so outgoing, handsome and warm. He worked as a personal trainer in his father's gym. I hadn't seen him in a couple of years but he recently flipped out, cut off communication, got in his car and drove across country from Upstate NY to San Diego in three days, like he was running from something. The family rallied and flew out to try and find him. When they did, he ran from them. They could not convince him to come home. He was homeless out there and struggling. He eventually did get back home a few months ago, not to ask for help though. It sounds like schizophrenia according to people the family has consulted. He knows he needs to be on medication but will not consider it and has not even had a diagnosis. It's a heartbreaking story, as anyone who has dealt with something like this knows. The way it comes on at an early age, typically late teens, early 20s.

Sad story, r99. I hope he's doing better

I had one in college without even knowing it after a beloved family member passed away. When I'd hear that phrase, I'd think of crazed mental patients clawing at their faces and pulling at their hair in a white, padded room somewhere. In reality, my mental breakdown amounted to me not leaving my dorm for days except for food, being disinterested in school work, not making any sense and rambling when I'd try to get my feelings out, and watching a lot of TV. It lasted for a few months on and off. It was horrible, but also oddly numb at the same time. I don't remember big bouts of crying very often. It was like a complete disinterest in everything like I had very little to live for.

I'd always had a tinge of anxiety, but my first true panic attack game in my late 20's where I was standing in line at the grocery store and suddenly thought I couldn't breathe and swallow. There was no reason for me to feel this way at the time and it terrified me. I still have some Xanax for whenever I feel a bad one coming on and they do help a lot. I couldn't imagine taking them every day. They make you a bit numb, too.

Laffin.

About ten years ago, I had some episodes that really scared me. I was completely detached from reality. Nothing triggered them. On one occasion, I was grocery shopping with a friend. And all of a sudden, I felt high as a kite. Or stuck in a dream state. Nothing felt real, at all. It happened a few other times, and it frightened me each time, because I couldn't get out of it. I couldn't account for these episodes -- they would finally go away after a few hours. In the years since, every once in a while, I feel one coming on, but it's never again escalated into a full-blown episode. My greatest fear now is that it'll happen when I'm teaching.

R59 weed is notorious for causing paranoia in a lot of its users. The panic starts to build from there.

There is something about nervous breakdowns, much like long-term psychiatric hospitalizations, that seems dated.

My worst panic attacks have been on pot. I'll just be talking to a friend and suddenly run out of room, needing to be alone. I'll put on something warm and fuzzy I liked when I was a kid and try to wait the paranoia spell out.

They're about to be!

[quote]Now called Panic Attacks

Uh, no. Totally different.

A panic attack comes and goes. A "nervous breakdown" that they used to say people had was like a one time event that totally destroyed them, like off to the loony bin, as in they just randomly put a plastic bag over their head in the super market and tired to kill themselves. Odd shit like that. Think Britney Spears shaving her head in public as a random spontaneous act.

Are sick headaches still a thing? Asking for a friend.

All I know is Fibromyalgia is real, REAL!!!!!

I’ve always considered something like this as a breakdown.

Well I've had eighteen at last count.

Oh no, here comes my nineteenth!

Is it what we now call major depression? The kind of depression in which you cease to function? Staying in bed. Not eating. Ignoring friends and family.

No it's not major depression. See R108 for an explanation. Depression is a slow burn kind of thing, continuous and unrelenting. A Nervous Breakdown is a sudden act that usually shocks the people around them. Key word "NERVOUS".

You don’t hear about people having TENSION headaches anymore- that was mentioned on some commercial in the 1970’s for pain relief .

It's always been a problematic term.

From the glossary of Principles of Dynamic Psychiatry (1946):

[quote]nerves, nervous, nervous breakdown, nervous spells, etc: Lay euphemisms used vaguely to describe almost any behavior disorder. These terms should never be used, other than in quotes from the patient, in psychiatric description or diagnosis.

I am currently on the verge of a nervous breakdown!

What's wrong r117?

My sister's in-laws in Italy called it "break nervous". Her mother-in-law was on Lithium.

R118 my 20 year relationship is over and i am still looking for fulltime work. Plus I'm horny.

Gen Z took it to a whole new level.

How so, r121?

R122, They turned nervous breakdowns into a permanent lifestyle.

They don't happen anymore because no one I know can afford to have one.

R3 Ar-archaic?

[quote]Are "nervous breakdowns" still a thing?

They are for me. 😕

Yes, but now we are collectively having one as a society.

19th Nervous Breakdown - The Rolling Stones, 1966

Cancer is a 20th Century thing. Those that claim to have it today are mimicking behavior from another time like starlets on the red carpet at the Oscars.

I think that mental illness is (mostly) organic/biological in its origins. But I also think the ways certain mental illnesses manifest -- especially depression and anxiety -- are largely dependent on society's expectations of how mental illness looks. And these expectations shift over time.

Ever since OP posted this, I've been paying attention to how the term "nervous breakdown" was used in popular discourse. (As r116 notes, it was never a clinical term.)

It seems "nervous breakdown" generally referred to a physical manifestation of a mental illness. That's the difference, I think. While we still have somatoform disorders and the idea of "psychosomatic illness," those concepts used to be central to what it meant to be mentally ill. I'm not sure this is the case anymore. Perhaps this represents a cultural shift: mental illness is much less taboo in the way it was 50 or 60 or 70 years ago and so people (unconsciously) no longer have to channel mental distress into physical ailments.

In any event, I think this is a fascinating question.

This is a cultural studies dissertation waiting to be written

panic attack ≠ nervous breakdown

[quote] the idea of "psychosomatic illness,"

If you’re against this, would that make you an anti-psychosometic?

Cause I don’t want to be seen as one of those.

I would imagine a nervous breakdown looks different depending on lifestyle. If you have 2 jobs and will starve to death if you don’t show up to work, your nervous breakdown is going to look very different than someone who might have the opportunity to stay in bed all day.

Yes, OP. Having one now.

What's wrong r136?

Poverty, untreated chronic pain and anxiety, no medical treatment for MS, Osteoporosis, depression, losing democracy, too poor and disabled to escape, the last 5 years of republican abuse, death of my family, facing homelessness, no transportation because I couldn't afford to maintain or replace my vehicle. Anger, much, much anger that Americans are basically being murdered by having genocide by medical neglect committed on them. If you aren't poor you have no way of knowing that this is Russia now. How fucked up is it that I cant even get a prescription of pain meds to off myself with? I'm too fatigued and weak to even try to score heroin or I would. Most people have no idea how people are suffering now because it hasn't reached them yet. But it will, I'm very sad to say. I'm tired. More tired than I thought it was possible to be. Feelings of doom and hopelessness because it is hopeless. That is just reality now for many of us.

I really sorry to hear how much you are suffering, r138. I know it's not much, but I hope that things improve for you.

I think today's term "burnout" most closely resembles what used to be called "a nervous breakdown".

R139 Thank you for your kindness. The chronic pain will start triggering your body to release adrenaline for the fight or flight mode to occur. It is a special kind of hell. That causes anxiety and panic attacks. Untreated chronic pain will cause insanity. There are valid reasons why people will resort to street drugs when nothing is made available to them. You will eventually do anything to get relief because it never goes away. Chronic pain suffers are the least likely patients to abuse pain medication. We do not feel euphoria from them. The medication just makes life bearable, it never completely eases the pain. If my pain level is 7 oxycodone reduces it to about 4. Just enough to be able to perform activities of daily living. No one should be made to suffer unnecessary, but here we all are. Thank you for being here. It helped me a great deal today.

I think I had a nervous breakdown leading up to covid. It was a weird manic feeling of not being in control of my emotions, laughing, crying, I was all over the place. I felt exhausted too. Life had just become too heavy. I felt like someone who was dead tired just after they take an adderall. I felt dead inside but completely wired and awake.

R142- We have been traumatized, tormented. Our world thrown into chaos, uncertainty, fear, violence, anger, hatred, hopelessness, dread. We are literally the walking wounded. That is not an exaggeration. We all are effected differently and react differently depending on our coping ability and living situation and mental & physical health.

R142- Sorry, I had to pay my neighbors son for mowing our lawn. How are you feeling now? Are you still experiencing this?

No, I took the necessary measures r144 to make sure I never felt anything ever again. Thanks for the concern. BTW your neighbor's son requests that you stop insisting on placing the payment directly into his gym shorts pocket and trying to make change.

I’ve had a few episodes of major depressive disorder (complicated by other factors) when I was totally fucking nuts (I’m a chronic case when not on meds). I was absolutely fucking insane, like I was (self) destructive, impulsive, literally catatonic at times, self-harming, and did things to those caring for me that I barely remember, but cringed at hearing about after the fact. I imploded my life when I was in that state.

Thankfully, half-decent drugs exist now - only, where I live, good luck finding a psychiatrist or anyone with the experience and training to know how to prescribe them. It’s all up to GPs now. (Canadian health care is free, which is GREAT, but it leaves a lot to be desired.)

What I experienced and put others through would undoubtedly have been called “nervous breakdowns” in the past. Even with medications and therapy, I was never quite the same after.

[quote]We all are effected differently and react differently

True. For example, some of us completely forget basic spelling.

We just live in one now

r141 how are you doing?

I just heard on some TV show last night (I think it was izombie) They use the term major depressive episode now instead of nervous breakdown.

That's because we've all gone mad. Who can tell the difference anymore?

They call them Major Depressive Episodes now.

I think the hallmark of the nervous breakdown was the inability to function in day-to-day life

Also, they were more of a thing in the days of long-term psychiatric hospitalizations. I'm sure that also played a role

Part of the problem is that, because it wasn't a clinical diagnosis, there was no real consensus in the psychiatric community about what "nervous breakdown" meant.

I don't think it quite referred to a major depressive episode, though. It was more a feeling of being utterly overwhelmed in one's life and lacking adequate coping skills -- which may or may not be related to depression.

r81 thinks all gays are cra-cra.

If you've never had one, take a strong edible and you'll have one in no time. For about 3-4 hours, everything becomes a really dark version of "This is Your Life." You doubt every choice you've ever made, who you surround yourself with, your dreams, your future, childhood, family, etc.

Believe it or not, you feel much better the next day. It's like an exorcism of the soul.

I think breakdowns are nature's way of telling us to slow down and remember what we're grateful for and what really brings us happiness.

Back in the 60s, I had 19 of them.

It’s nature’s way of telling perfectionists to lighten the fuck up.

Leave the dishes in the sink!

Get a “B” in that class!

You’ll live.

[quote]I think today's term "burnout" most closely resembles what used to be called "a nervous breakdown".

NOPE. Not even close. You sound like Gen Z. Burnout is when you quit your job that you hate without a plan. A Nervous Breakdown used to be reserved for very extreme behavior with an underlying tone of some mental illness going on that was not previously discussed. For example, someone who commits suicide after some traumatic event that was not suffering from depression.

I had an aunt who had what they called at the time a nervous breakdown. One of her 2 children died when their car got stuck in the mud returning home. They took the kids out told they to stand on the side while they tried to pull the truck out. It was still raining, the embankment gave away, one of the kids fell into the river and not found for 2 days. 6 months later she had a break down when she want missing for 3 days and was found wandering in the desert without her wallet, keys or a phone. Left the other kid at home with the father, no note, nothing. She's been nutty ever since. Randomly does odd things like that but not suicidal.

How many years ago r159?

Apparently nervous breakdowns are still a thing. The "Oh, Dear!" frau has them constantly.

More than 20 years ago R159, She's still alive and has grand kids now. One of which died of an overdose about 3 months ago. She's had a hard life. I don't think she ever really got counseling. If I recall, her husband left her after that disparaging act about 6 months later. Anyways, that's what they called it, they all said she had a nervous breakdown. Kind of understandably considering the loss.

I read somewhere that most couples who lose a child end up getting a divorce. Most seem "broken" for the rest of their lives after that. Very few pull through and continue to be happy and healthy.

Mr T.S. Eliot managed to turn his insomnia/nervous breakdown into memorable poetry

[quote] My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.

[quote] TS Eliot's The Waste Land remains one of the finest reflections on mental illness ever written

[quote]Anyways

SMH.

This book looks interesting:

[quote]About one American in five receives a diagnosis of major depression over the course of a lifetime. That's despite the fact that many such patients have no mood disorder; they're not sad, but suffer from anxiety, fatigue, insomnia, or a tendency to obsess about the whole business. "There is a term for what they have," writes Edward Shorter, "and it's a good old-fashioned term that has gone out of use. They have nerves." In How Everyone Became Depressed, Edward Shorter, a distinguished professor of psychiatry and the history of medicine argues for a return to the old fashioned concept of nervous illness. These are, he writes, diseases of the entire body, not the mind, and as was recognized as early as the 1600s. Shorter traces the evolution of the concept of "nerves" and the "nervous breakdown" in western medical thought. He points to a great paradigm shift in the first third of the twentieth century, driven especially by Freud, that transferred behavioral disorders from neurology to psychiatry, spotlighting the mind, not the body. The catch-all term "depression" now applies to virtually everything, "a jumble of non-disease entities, created by political infighting within psychiatry, by competitive struggles in the pharmaceutical industry, and by the whimsy of the regulators." Depression is a real and very serious illness, he argues; it should not be diagnosed so promiscuously, and certainly not without regard to the rest of the body. Meloncholia, he writes, "the quintessence of the nervous breakdown, reaches deep into the endocrine system, which governs the thyroid and adrenal glands among other organs." In a learned yet provocative challenge to psychiatry, Shorter argues that the continuing misuse of "depression" represents nothing less than "the failure of the scientific imagination."

Yes, the "Oh, dear" queen has one whenever she discovers a grammar or spelling mistake. She's single, of course.

There is no one single "Oh, dear" poster.

R169 - True. They are legion.