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/lit/ - Literature

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20516739 No.20516739 [Reply] [Original]

Have you ever experienced a "mental breakdown"?

I'm looking for books on the subject if possible, or examples of authors who have experience such a thing. Although I have always been a very sober and controlled person, I am worried that I am on the verge of something like a breakdown. It's not a pleasant feeling.

>> No.20516760

>>20516739
>I'm looking for books on the subject if possible
Have you tried google?

>> No.20516763

>>20516760
>jewgle

>> No.20516772

>>20516739
Yeah, a couple times. Every time it was a matter of too much stress, no way to escape the stressor, and eventually the emotional part of the brain takes over in a fight or flight response. The first time I fell to the ground screaming, the second time I was able to stay more in control on the surface but was screaming inside, and then over the last few years I've endured chronic stress that led to severe burnout and now my tolerance for stressors is extremely low and I can barely work (thankfully I'm now retired).

What's wrong, OP?

>> No.20516824

The Bell Jar

>> No.20516825

>>20516739
>Have you ever experienced a "mental breakdown"?
Yes, I became incredibly depressed a few years ago when I was reading from the blindpill chart, going here everyday, believing all the /pol/ conspiracies and when Covid hit.
I became a socialist, then a neoreactionary and finally a nihilist.
I had to abandon the last one because it literally made me physically sick, I caught a cold that didn’t heal for a week because all those negative thoughts were crippling my immune system.
I got out of that hole thanks to a combination of love and support from my family, therapy, going to a nutritionist and changing my diet, getting regular exercise and reading The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Adults.
Now I unironically believe in Progress again, we are living during our generation’s darkest hour but there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
I’m slowly but surely working to beat my bad habits, I’m now fully conscious that I was suffering from an overstimulated amygdala.
Fear truly is the mind killer, now I’m working to gain courage and lose the fear that has been ruling my life and preventing me from taking action.
My ancestors went through much worse things and survived, so will I.

>> No.20516927

>>20516739
Yes. Full psychotic break to the point "I" was no longer there. My body was ranting and raving. Religuous idiots would have called it possession if they would have seen it. I watched myself losing my shit in wide eyed animalistic madness from a distance then reconnected when the mania subsided.

>> No.20516940

>>20516739
nigga i am the mental breakdown

>> No.20516975

Sherwood Anderson

>> No.20516993
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20516993

>>20516739
Yes, several.
This is similar to what I experienced. He came out of it and then became a doctor.

>> No.20517020

>>20516825
>My ancestors went through much worse things and survived, so will I.
But we are the first generation which has lost all its civic narratives and sense of meaning. How do you overcome that? Not trying to blackpill, I just need help too brother.

>> No.20517027

>>20516927
>I watched myself losing my shit in wide eyed animalistic madness from a distance then reconnected when the mania subsided.
Very terrifying to think this can happen. What caused this episode?

>> No.20517037

I did yeah. No books for it unfortunately though.

>> No.20517038 [DELETED] 
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20517038

Most of these. Call of the Crocodile to be specific. Ignore the memesters about these books. They’re honestly pretty good for psychological horror

>> No.20517074

>>20516739
Artaud maybe
Celine
Hölderlin
Nietzsche
Strindberg
Woyzeck by Büchner
Kleist
Revelations
Plato

>> No.20517080

>>20517074
Also

Dostoevsky
Wittgenstein

>> No.20517283

>>20517038
I sincerely hope you posted that image in jest holy shit hahahhah

>> No.20517287

>>20516772
>thankfully I'm not retired

>> No.20517983

>>20517038
I hope you trannies all die

>> No.20518272

>>20516739
No, and try google.

>> No.20519133

>>20516772
What were the consequences of those events / breakdowns?

>> No.20519673

>>20517027
burnt tendies

>> No.20519702

>>20516739
Yes, multiple times and haven't fully recovered even after decades. The first one was horrifying I put hole in walls, broke mirrors and every glass object I could find. My father had to call the cops because I was still going after an hour. They came in with guns pointed at me, cuffed me, and brought me to the looney bin. The second one I went catatonic in public after randomly attacking somebody I didn't know. Back to the looney bin. Had another less severe one a decade ago. It felt like my body was killing me. The muscle tension. My jaw hurt. My ears hurt like an ear infection. I'd get sudden urges to just hit or kick things like dumbbells. Back to the looney bin. I've been in the looney bin quite a few times. They say I have bipolar disoder. I can't work because of whatever the fuck I have. I personally think it's more than bipolar disorder. It's a lifetime of stress and anxiety. PTSD probably gave me bipolar disorder as a co-morbid condition. Shit sucks.

>> No.20520407

I once became obsessed that I had diabetes and stopped eating anything but raw vegetables and drinking water.

I remember calculating the odds of three false negative blood tests in a row and realising that even if everyone on Earth took three there was something like a 1 in a million chance that it would be seen. But my anxiety still thought: so there’s still a chance your foot is going to rot off and you’ll go blind. And do
R other rational part of me knew I had lost it, and I was trying so hard to focus on that part, but if just be back in the fear and I wouldn’t even remember it starting back up.

Later this led to me seeing a therapist who was a guy but kind of camp and I thought: fuck what if opening up to him makes me gay? So then that fear of being turned gay lasted years. It would ebb and flow and it would seem almost absurd when I was healthy, but it just felt like this massive unresolvable question mark and the answer could make me lose my wife, the only good thing in my life. But then the uncertainty was so torturous I would rather just know do I could kill myself.

These were the worst two.

Anyway turns out they were both Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and taking meds and doing the right kind of therapy and I’ve basically been “fixed” for three years.

>> No.20520433
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20520433

This. Call of the Crocodile, to be specific.

>> No.20520486

>>20516739
Yep. I won't get into the details, but after seeing all the product of all my efforts going down the drain (and not because of my actions) I lost it and started smashing every object I could find around my house. This lasted for like a couple of hours, so by the time I had calmed my place looked like a battlefield.

As for books , I don't know anything specific but some time ago I read "The Divided Self" by Laing and the part where he talks about what he calls "ontological insecurity" (or uncertainty, I read a translation so I'm not sure what terms he uses in the original) describes a state of mind that was very similar to what I was going through in that moment.