You rarely hear about anyone having a "nervous breakdown" anymore

I think it's called an anxiety attack now.

OP, I too prefer "nervous breakdown."

Psychotherapy, legalized marijuana, xanax, melatonin, magnesium - we're talking plenty to keep the anxiety and 'nerves' under control.

Like Barbara Jean in R4, in my house we do not have "nervous breakdowns."

We have another collapse.

I think a nervous breakdown is more enduring and debilitating than an anxiety attack

It's called a "full Britney" now.

They've become so commonplace in the 2020s it's hardly worth a mention

The new term is “had an episode.”

It needs a billable DSM 5 diagnostic code, as does the "Mid-Life Crisis"

When I was growing up as a toddler in the 1950s and a kid in the 1960s, everyone who had an issue had a nervous breakdown. A "nervous collapse" was the announcement that a breakdown was occurring.

I recall three 1st cousins 1x removed, my mother's sister, her husband my father's sister, and a great aunt's husband all having nervous breakdowns. My partner's cousin's wife, a second cousin and a classmate had them.

They weren't anxiety or panic attacks. They were usually psychotic breaks. Prescription abuse, alcoholism, great stress, loss of an infant, suppression of homosexuality (one cousin had been abused by a cousin) - ultimately bipolar disorder and other disorders were diagnosed, only two had "shock treatments," and all recovered eventually.

The classmate showed up at school with lipstick covered the lower part of her face (any makeup was forbidden. One aunt threw the car door open and took off running in the dark over fences, hiding in various yards. Another aunt her Poll Parrot in her son's shoes keep telling her he was going to die. The great uncle suddenly developed a hatred of leaves and, it being fall, would bend over and pick up each fallen leaf on our lawn when they'd visit. His wife would say, just let him alone. Social aversion, mutism, and screaming jags were part of the picture for some.

It's now called "A Mental Health Crisis." I prefer" Went Batshit Crazy."

Gone Cray Cray

Nah, mostly drunks in my extended family. Self-medicating to excess.

R11, you need to write a novel using these characters. Just don't make people too suicidal after they've finished reading it.

[quote] I guess "nervous breakdown" goes by other names now.

There have been nine threads about nervous breakdowns since 2021. This is the longest and closest to yours, OP.

I've had a few...the last was about 18 years ago and my GP insisted on saying that I was "mentally exhausted"

Nervous breakdowns are depressive episodes

I remember when "stress" was referred to as "nerves".

Nothing that some smelling salts can’t solve.

You never hear about anyone having "The Vapors" anymore.

R21, you may not be a staffer for the South Carolina senatorial delegation.

Now it's boundaries being violated.

New York's Doctor's Hospital on East End Avenue specialized in celebrity patients who had nervous breakdowns and rest cures for exhaustion. Rooms were done in Williamsburg furnishings.

[quote] . Rooms were done in Williamsburg furnishings.

Hipster furnishings?

Eat a little, walk a little, (sleep a little?)

I forget the last piece of advice from a college professor who was in recovery from one back in the 80s.

Just wait - thanks for the idea! I was running low on stories to push out.

I'll make them popular again!

I have them several times a day. That's why they invented vodka martinis.

i’ll drink to that^

Nervous breakdowns have been replaced by Twitter and TikTok.

One of my parent’s friends had a “nervous breakdown” when I was a kid. They always said it in hushed, almost reverential tones. The guy was a total winner—handsome, charming, successful, admired. And then he had his “breakdown”

I think my parents and their friends feared that if it could happen to him it could happen to anyone.

I was fascinated by it and would question my parents about it but never got a clear definition. All I remember is that he either quit or lost his job and never worked again. Became completely isolated and cut off contact from everyone.

Seriously depressed? Bipolar? I STILL want to know what the hell it means.

It doesn't have a clear definition. It means (or used to) any kind of mental breakdown.

The common understanding, I think, of "nervous breakdown" in my childhood, when I myself was giving people nervous breakdowns (still a specialty of mine! Email for rates), was that it proceeded from experiencing an unrelieved succession of frustrating and severe setbacks of any sort (business, family, romance, artistic, etc.), and manifested as an frenzied inability to face/engage with the normal doings of everyday life. To get over it, one would be obliged to "get away from it all" for a considerable length of time in some placid location where peace reigned and there was nothing to remind one of the particulars which led to the nervous breakdown (lest something like the outcome of the "Slowly I Turned" skit happen).

Pirin tablets are a gift from the heavens.

Most people can't afford to disappear into a hospital for an extended period.

I would be openly hysterical if I didn't have my medication, I won't say suicidal because I'm too afraid of death.

But for sure I would have encountered a straight jacket at least once in the old days maybe even a lobotomy. Go me.

The youngsters currently use the term "crash out".

Whatever happened to “village idiot”? I like this term.

I have nervous breakdowns on a weekly basis. I should really find a psychiatrist and get a nice Xanax or Klonopin prescription.

R37 Us nervous breakdown people are not generally idiots.

Anxiety and depression are disorders of overthinking, so the idiots lucked out

R40 Haha go fuck yourself

R40 PS If you have no anxiety you're self absorbed and have zero connection to the world. Hope that helps!

R40 ?

I have both depression and anxiety

Sorry, that was directed to R42

Sometimes it was a midlife crisis

I take Anacin to relieve my nervous tension headaches.

Mother, Please!

R40 - interestingly, depression and anxiety issues are frequently the result of early attachment disturbances and resulting emotional regulation issues; one frequent way that people prone to these problems emotionally regulate is through overthinking, so you have it exactly backwards

R11 What a story! Everything but the bloodhounds nipping at your rear end.

if a person is working, a nervous breakdown is now called a burnout.

My mom would sometimes mention when her mother (my grandmother) had a nervous breakdown and left home for a while. Mom didn't seem clear on the details, but thought maybe it had to do with her grandfather's drinking. Years later, I came across a letter in my grandmother's belongings from her husband, who was begging her to come home and he promised he would change. He must've changed because they stayed married for another 50 years.

The only true cure for the nervous breakdown is a tuberculosis sanatorium in the Swiss Alps

But this is not covered under your policy, liebchen

Ask Gen Z what they call it nowadays. They're fucking experts on the subject.

[quote]I take Anacin to relieve my nervous tension headaches.

That was my Mom's go-to headache reliever. They still make it!!

He had a shit-fit!

Wow! Shit-fit. Whew! Glad I wasn’t there.

It was in decline in 1988, contributing to the effectiveness of the film title.

At one time, I received a diagnosis which was very serious, and I didn't sleep for several days running. By the end of that, I was hallucinating and really not able to function. I left work, and took sominex or the equivalent. That's an awful sleep medication, and leaves a person groggy and out of it for a day after waking up, but at least I could function the next day. That's the closest I've ever come to a nervous breakdown because I'm a person who exists mostly on an even keel emotionally/psychologically. My entire family is very stoic, and we ascribe that to my mom's genes. She's the most emotionally stable person I've ever known..

And here I am, still slightly alive, 35 years later.

[quote]R6 I think a nervous breakdown is more enduring and debilitating than an anxiety attack

Yes - to me it implies the person’s life has broken down in a way, too. The person is non functional. Or, functional and yet delusional.

It’s not a state you get over with a good night’s sleep - it usually requires hospitalization.

It's like that.

It's when you reach the end of the line and there's no way out and you still have decades ahead of you in expected lifespan

I’m sure there’s songs written about it…

Mary Hartman's nervous breakdown on live TV (I think she was receiving a consumer award or something) was something. It was a wacky show but Louise Lasser was really poignant in that episode. I may have to did those DVDs out and give it a rewatch.

Didn't Poor Debbie Reynolds have one?

Thank you, Xanax

[quote] Eat a little, walk a little

R26 I read this to the tune of “Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little” from “The Music Man.” I think I’m having a DL nervous breakdown!

[quote] I take Anacin to relieve my nervous tension headaches.

R46 Mother PLEASE I’d rather do it myself!!

U rarely hear anyone sneeze anymore. Covid stopped us sneezing in public.

My uncle in the Navy had a couple of nervous breakdowns, though I think in addiction to being an alcoholic & (undiagnosed) bi-polar, he also had PTSD from his time in the Vietnam War. They kept him around for a long time and allowed him to leave when he was finally eligible for retirement. As crazy & unpredictable as he was, in retrospective I'm kind of amazed by how they kept him in their ranks (he died not long after leaving the military because he needed the structure) and treated him with compassion (if keeping him away from the important stuff)

I do always feel that I am on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

Unless it involves a sanitorium in Switzerland it's not a real nervous breakdown.

"Tess is back in the looney bin."

I think some of us went through this is another thread but a nervous breakdown is a period of depression, stress, or anxiety, where someone basically can't function. It has no relation to an anxiety attack. An anxiety attack is of relatively short duration and is about having anxiety, a racing heart, feeling out of control, nausea, and racing thoughts, and similar symptoms.

Someone having an anxiety attack is not having a nervous breakdown--and vice-versa,

[quote] Mary Hartman's nervous breakdown on live TV

Wanda Maximoff also had a nervous breakdown on TV that was very poignant.

My mom had a "nervous breakdown" during my first year of college.

I had moved to NYC and left her alone with my knuckle dragging father and brother.

Turns out it was menopause related and the two of them were clueless. And awful.

Long story short, she wisely abandoned ship and checked into the Koala Inn next to the mall and hid out for a week.

She told me years later, it remained a mystery to my dad and brother and she took that to her grave.

"Your mothers' nervous breakdown" still translates to "The time you were an even bigger asshole than usual" for me.

Celebrity Nervous Exhaustion = Drug/Alcohol Dependence Requiring Dry-Out Course

About 75% of cases, ar least, wouldn't you say?

I think it's good that people are openly willing to talk about mental health issues in a way they weren't when I was younger (my aforementioned bonkers uncle was a source of amusement to the kids & embarrassment to my mom & aunts), but I also think it's blurred the lines between truly mentally ill/suffering people and people who are anxious, overindulge or just can't cope in a way that's not always helpful.

Daddy’s problems of late have me in the throes of a nervous breakdown! I’ve taken to my fainting couch while my manservant fans me!

I used to long for a nervous breakdown as a child. Being sent to a nice quiet place sounded like heaven.

ONe of my older co-workertold me that her father (a small-town Midwestern druggist) had a nervous breakdown in the 1950s, and the doctor's prescription was to go somewhere peaceful and quiet and not work for six months. So he and his wife left the kids behind with relatives and went to Cambria CA and rented a cottage by the ocean for six months.

When I heard that I almost wished I could have had a nervous breakdown in the 50s.

[quote] I take Anacin to relieve my nervous tension headaches.

The world belongs to the fighters! Fight pain and win!

Calgon, take me away!!!

I knew a girl who had a nervous breakdown.

And then she....

... made a complete recovery!

Now it’s a “psychotic break.”

In my home town, we call this having a come-apart.

It was classier in old Agatha Christie novels where it was referred to as "une crise de nerfs."

This song has me working on a 20th.

[quote] The world belongs to the fighters! Fight pain and win! — Patricia Neal

R80 Disclosure: Do not take Anacin as a blood thinner to prevent strokes!

Everyone is “neurodivergent” these days and in a constant state of nervous breakdown.

Stephen it's just my nerves. My sister isn't doing too well (what does she have a hangover). I'll save you a piece of the birthday cake.

It's what Natalie Wood had in Splendor in the Grass.

Spend the day with me…

[quote]It's now called "A Mental Health Crisis."

I work in a 'behavioral health facility' (once known as a 'psychiatric hospital') and you are exactly right. We still have some items (pens, magnets, coffee mugs, tees) around the office that says "Smith Psychiatric Hospital", which we can not use. They spent a lot of money rebranding it to 'Smith Behavioral Health Facility' in the past 25 years or so.

Electroshock therapy can help you snap back from them.

Try it.

One doesn’t hear about “Multiple Personalities” anymore either.

All a fad or scam.

I miss good old female hysteria as defined by Sigmund Freud.

Didn’t know that “hysteria” comes from the Greek hystera (uterus)?

I nervous breakdown last longer than an anxiety attack and is more than depression. It's when you can no longer accept or live in the structure of your life, and you have to change it, one way or another. It's measured in months, not minutes or hours.

I only get hysterical when my gentleman callers come round R96.

People don't have coniption fits anymore either.

Whatever happened to ulcers?

Tagamet.

But what about that DL mainstay, GRAND MAUL SEIZURES?!

[quote]People don't have coniption fits anymore either.

We most certainly DO!

[quote] Didn't know that "hysteria" comes from the Greek hystera (uterus)

R96 Ah, that also explains why removal of the uterus is called a hysterectomy.

[quote] It's when you can no longer accept or live in the structure of your life, and you have to change it, one way or another.

R97 Based on that definition, Ellen and Rosie have undergone nervous breakdowns.

Go fuck yourself R95

[italic]You hold your water, young lady!

The Nervous Nellie Breakdown is not only my go-to social anxiety disorder but also my favorite line dance

Off topic, but Los Angeles County has more people than all but 10 states. It's the most populous county in the US. (But it's not consolidated. There are over 80 cities within the county.)

[quote]R97] Based on that definition, Ellen and Rosie have undergone nervous breakdowns.

They probably did. Rosie's case my actually be more severe than a nervous breakdown, which is to be [italic]temporarily[/italic] off your rocker.

R109 That certainly is off topic!

Could we get a groundswell of support for bringing back the term ‘Melancholia’? It’s so much more elegant.