June 2020

Many misconceptions surround the term “nervous breakdown.” While a nervous breakdown is often used to describe periods when normal functioning is disrupted by extreme stress, the term is not considered an actual medical diagnosis by licensed professional therapists.

Instead, a nervous breakdown is a colloquial phrase that describes symptoms that may represent a number of different psychiatric conditions. The critical characteristic is that these symptoms are intense and make it very difficult for the individual to function normally.

A nervous breakdown is a serious mental health issue that requires prompt, professional treatment. It is triggered by excess stress and a lack of healthy coping mechanisms to manage that stress. The amount of stress that causes a breakdown varies by individual, with some being able to cope longer than others.

The stress causing a nervous breakdown may come from any source and may build up slowly over time or occur all at once. One of the most common triggers for a nervous breakdown is work-related stress.

What is a Nervous Breakdown?

A nervous breakdown occurs when a person is no longer able to function normally, even doing small things like chores or personal hygiene. Although the condition is not an official mental health diagnosis, it can have a serious and negative impact on someone’s life. Going through a nervous breakdown, a person may not be able to work, go to school, take care of family, or do any of their usual activities.

While a nervous breakdown is temporary, it is serious and should be treated as a mental health crisis. An evaluation by a mental health professional can help determine if there is an underlying mental illness contributing to the breakdown that needs to be diagnosed and treated. The evaluation can lead to treatment, often including a short residential stay in a treatment facility followed by ongoing therapy, medication if needed, lifestyle changes, and the regular use of stress coping strategies and relaxation techniques.

Excessive Stress Causes Breakdowns

There may be any number of different factors that trigger a nervous breakdown in an individual, but generally what leads to a breakdown is a buildup of stress, pressure, and anxiety. One person might experience a slow building of stress that over months causes the eventual breakdown, while another experiences one big stressful situation that triggers a crisis.

The commonality is stress and a feeling of being pressured to keep up and to continue to function normally.

Some examples of stress and situations that may lead to a nervous breakdown include:

• Feeling pressure and stress at work, and having a lot of work responsibilities.
• Academic pressure and responsibilities.
• Family duties that become stressful and overwhelming, such as caring for an aging parent or special needs children.
• Taking on too many responsibilities.
• A divorce or loss of children in a custody trial.
• A death in the family.
• The loss of a job or some form of financial hardship
• A traumatic experience.

Poor Stress Coping Skills Lead to Breakdowns

Many people experience high levels of stress, but not everyone will have a nervous breakdown. What leads to a nervous breakdown during the experience of all that stress is an inability or poor ability to cope with and manage stress. Experiencing a lot of stress, in combination with being unable to cope with it in healthy ways, is what really causes nervous breakdowns.

It is important to remember, though, that even people who are generally good at coping with stress can reach a breaking point. It simply may take more stress for these people to have a breakdown.

Managing and coping with stress is something that everyone does, but not always in healthy ways. Some people may react to stress in negative ways, such as withdrawing from friends and family, turning to drugs or alcohol, yelling at other people, binge eating, or other unhealthy responses.

These do not help to mitigate stress or manage it, and ultimately without good, positive coping strategies, a person under a lot of stress is likely to have a breakdown.

Nervous Breakdown Risk Factors

Stress and an inability to cope with it is the general cause of having a nervous breakdown. This can be highly individualized, though, with different types and amounts of stress affecting people differently.

There are certain risk factors that make some people more vulnerable to ultimately having a nervous breakdown, including:

• Taking on a lot of responsibilities at home and elsewhere.
• Being a perfectionist and having a high-achieving personality.
• Feeling a need to be in control and struggling to give responsibilities to others.
• Having a pessimistic outlook on life, in general.
• Working long hours.
• Not sleeping enough.
• Lacking a good social support system and close relationships.
• Lacking healthy coping mechanisms or engaging in unhealthy ones.
• Having an untreated mental illness.

Making lifestyle changes is one of the most important things a person can do to recover from a nervous breakdown and to prevent a future breakdown. Making these changes involves looking at the risk factors that led up to the breakdown and finding ways to change them. For instance, a person may decide to work fewer hours, go to bed earlier, and make more time for socializing with friends and family.

Work Stress is a Common Trigger for Nervous Breakdowns

Stress caused by one’s job is a common cause, or at least a factor, in many nervous breakdowns. A nervous breakdown triggered by work stress may also be called burnout syndrome. It is characterized by exhaustion and fatigue, reduced performance at work, feeling depersonalized or detached from work, and other symptoms of nervous breakdown.

General factors that may occur in any kind of work and that contribute to burnout of a nervous breakdown include:

• Being overworked and working long hours.
• Feeling unappreciated at work.
• Doing work that is not meaningful or that is repetitive and not challenging.
• Having a poor understanding of job expectations and duties.
• Having expectations that are overly demanding.
• Lacking control over work.
• Being a poor fit for a particular job or duties.
• Having different values from the company or employer.
• Difficult relationships with co-workers.
• Harassment from a boss or other person in a position of power.

Work is a major contributor of stress for most people and therefore a common cause of nervous breakdowns. Many people are increasingly vulnerable. According to surveys, the average work week for U.S. workers has increased from 40 to 47 hours in recent years. Vacation time, on the other hand, is down, with American workers using fewer of their vacation days than ever before.

Not everyone who feels stress at work will ultimately have a breakdown, but there are many factors that make a breakdown likely. Changing and minimizing work stress is an important way to prevent mental health crises.

Underlying Mental Illness

Stress may be the main trigger for a nervous breakdown, but having a mental illness can make a person more vulnerable to stress and its negative consequences. In many cases of nervous breakdown, an individual has a mental illness that has gone undiagnosed and untreated. Trying to live with that mental illness along with the stresses of daily life can come together to ultimately lead to a breakdown.

There are two common mental illnesses that often underlie nervous breakdowns:

1. Anxiety Disorder. Anxiety disorders are among the most common mental illnesses. There are different types of anxiety disorders, such as generalized anxiety and social anxiety, but all are characterized by feeling worried, nervous, anxious, and stressed to an unusual degree. Someone with this condition feels anxious, often to the extreme and for extended periods of time. These negative feelings interfere with normal daily activities. Untreated and combined with a lot of stress, this can trigger a nervous breakdown.
2. Major Depression. Depression is another common mental illness and amood disorder that makes a person feel sad, hopeless, and fatigued persistently and often for weeks at a time. It is a depressed mood that cannot be easily overcome. Without getting diagnosed and treated, depression can easily be a triggering factor in a nervous breakdown and an inability to function normally.

Being evaluated, diagnosed, and then treated for any mental illness is crucial for overall good health, but in the case of a nervous breakdown it can be preventative. Many of the symptoms of these two mental illnesses mirror those of a nervous breakdown and often occur together. Anyone who experiences a nervous breakdown should be evaluated to determine if there is an underlying condition that needs to be addressed as part of ongoing treatment and recovery.

A nervous breakdown is ultimately caused by an inability to cope with large amounts of stress, but how that manifests exactly varies by individual. Work stress, mental illness, family responsibilities, and poor coping strategies are all things that can lead to a nervous breakdown and the inability to function normally.

The good news is that nervous breakdowns are treatable and manageable. With quality treatment by professional therapists and with good follow up care, lifestyle changes to reduce stress, and care for mental illnesses, full recovery is possible.

We are always here to help the people residing in McKinney, Plano, Dallas, Denton, Allen, Garland, and the surrounding communities found throughout Texas. If you believe that you are in the midst of experiencing a nervous breakdown, or you know someone who may be, please contact our certified therapist team at Foundations Counseling today.

Childhood itself is quite an anxious process. Kids are tasked with learning new skills, meeting new challenges, overcoming fears, and navigating a world that doesn’t always make sense. But sometimes these fears or stressors prove too much to handle, and the normal comforts that adults can provide don’t quite seem to be enough. In these cases, a child may have a diagnosable anxiety disorder.

Anxiety disorders are the most commonly experienced mental illnesses in the United States, and kids are no exception. Roughly one in eight children may have an anxiety disorder, but a majority of children who would qualify for a diagnosis are not getting the treatment they need.

Young people are also being exposed to the online world earlier, with social networking sites having the potential to become a negative environment for young, impressionable minds. Social media has also been linked to cyber-bullying, low self-esteem and poor body image, all of which can increase feelings of anxiety.

Children and young people can find it difficult to express their concerns and may bottle up emotions. If these feelings are not addressed they can affect mental health, leading to anxiety disorders and sudden panic attacks. Not treating anxiety leaves a child at risk of decreasing performance in school, poor social skills, and harmful behaviors like substance abuse.

Understanding the Warning Signs

Anxiety affects everyone differently. However, there are some common symptoms to look out for in your child:

• They are struggling to concentrate.
• They are having difficulties sleeping.
• Their eating habits have changed.
• They quickly become angry or irritable.
• They appear tense, fidgety or need to use the toilet often.
• They cry more than usual for no apparent reason.
• They are clingy and reluctant to leave you.
• They complain of feeling unwell or having tummy aches.

Of course, whenever you spot a change in your child’s behavior or health it’s recommended that you make an appointment with a therapist as soon as possible.

How to Help a Child Having a Panic Attack

Panic attacks are an incredibly frightening symptom of anxiety. They can last anywhere between five and 20 minutes, and have very real physical effects such as chest pain, shortness of breath, dizziness, nausea, or trembling.

Children may not be as capable of articulating their feelings as adults, so it can be hard to know if they need help. Below are some tips about how you can help your child if you suspect they are having a panic attack:

1. Remain in control. Remember, a child in the midst of a panic attack has lost their sense of control, which in itself is frightening and overwhelming.
2. Stay calm and mindful while using a firm but gentle tone of voice to communicate that you are present and there for them and that you understand how anxious they feel.
3. Use age-appropriate words to describe anxiousness, such as “nervous” or “scared.” By doing this you will communicate a sense of safety, confidence, and containment for the child who is in the middle of an emotional storm.
4. Ensure the child feels increasingly safe. Use soothing words. Use their name. Say things like, “I know you don’t feel okay but you will be okay,” “I will help you get through this and it will end soon,” and “Take some deep breaths.”
5. Remind them that panic attacks always end and that they will get through them. This can offer hope. However, try not to give excessive reassurance. You want your child to find their own coping strategies.
6. Pay attention to the physical symptoms of panic attacks. Convey to the child that the fast heartbeat, dizziness or shaking will pass in a few minutes. Tell them these are signs of their fear, not of illness.
7. Give them time to calm down. Don’t rush the child. They will need time to help them regain their sense of self and composure.

Finally, always remember that if you can remain calm during their emotional storm they will regain their resilience and the attack will pass more quickly.

If you are struggling with your mental health due to your child’s panic attacks and need to talk, or if you are worried about your child, always seek out professional support sooner rather than later.

Types of Childhood Anxiety Disorders

There are many types of anxiety disorders, but here are the disorders most common anxiety disorders experienced by children.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

If your child experiences excessive anxiety or worry that results in fatigue, irritability, muscle tension, difficulty concentrating, or sleep disturbances, then they may receive a diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder. This worry may be about school performance, friendships, family relationships, or other activities or concerns.

Separation Anxiety Disorder

Some separation anxiety is developmentally appropriate, especially for children between 1-3 years old. But for older children, if they have excessive fear or anxiety about being separated from caregivers, then they may qualify for a diagnosis of separation anxiety disorder.

Children with the disorder may frequently worry about parents dying or becoming separated from them. They may refuse to go out or go to school, have nightmares about separation, or experience physical symptoms like headaches or nausea due to this anxiety.

Selective Mutism

Children with selective mutism may refuse to speak in certain social situations, even though they are very talkative at home or wherever they feel comfortable. They may refuse to speak at school and withdraw from others or avoid eye contact. Children around the age of 5 are most commonly diagnosed with this disorder.

Specific Phobia

Some children may exhibit fear or anxiety about a specific object or situation. If this fear lasts a long time and is out of proportion to the actual danger posed, this fear may be classified as a phobia. Children will cry, freeze up, or cling to an adult when their fear is present. Children can have phobias that include but are not limited to insects, animals, storms, needles, loud sounds, and enclosed spaces. 

Panic Disorder

Children who experience recurring panic attacks and worry about having more may have panic disorder. A child having a panic attack may complain of symptoms that can include shortness of breath, chest pain, sensation of choking, nausea, dizziness, chill or heat sensations, fear of “going crazy,” and fear of dying.

Social Anxiety Disorder

If your child has an intense fear of having to participate in class or interaction with their peers, then they may have social anxiety disorder. Children may exhibit this fear through throwing tantrums, crying, clinging to adults, freezing up, or refusing to speak. They may also attempt to avoid social situations that provoke this fear.

Kids ad Parents Learning to Cope with Anxiety

Never hesitate to consult with licensed professionals about your child’s anxiety, as they can guide you towards the right resources and conduct a proper assessment. Children with anxiety disorders are typically treated with talk therapy, medication, or a combination of the two.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy can help a child test out what thoughts they have are realistic or unrealistic. Play therapy may work best for young children to work through anxieties.

Parents often can feel helpless when they see their child experiencing intense fear or worry. There may be a temptation to simply remove the child from all situations that prompt this anxiety or to over accommodate for their child’s fear.

These actions only make a child more sensitive to these environments. Parents can validate the child’s feelings but also model calmness and confidence that their child is going to be okay and can master scary situations like school or meeting new people. Also, because children are most anxious leading up to a challenging situation, it’s important for parents not to ask too many questions about the anxiety.

Remember, as a parent, it’s not your goal to eliminate all anxiety from your child’s life. Your job is to help your child learn to manage anxiety effectively so that they can deal with life’s challenges long into adulthood.

Anxiety is inevitable in life, but no child should have to feel stuck with it. What steps can you take today to help your child learn to manage anxiety successfully?

We are always here to help families residing in McKinney, Plano, Dallas, Denton, Allen, Garland, and the surrounding communities throughout Texas. If your child is experiencing panic attacks or anxiety, please contact our therapist team today at Foundations Counseling.