A nervous breakdown, also known as an emotional or mental breakdown, is a term used to describe a period of extreme mental distress. It can manifest with anxiety, depression, unstable moods, and dysfunctional thoughts and behaviors. A nervous breakdown occurs when someone is unable to cope with excessive stress. Even though it’s a common response to high stress, a nervous breakdown can feel quite debilitating. It often leads people to question who they are and whether their personality has been altered.
What causes a nervous breakdown?
There are a few key factors that can lead someone to experience a nervous breakdown:
- Prolonged exposure to stress – High levels of mental, emotional or physical stress over an extended time can drain coping resources.
- Trauma or crisis event – A traumatic experience or crisis situation can overwhelm someone’s ability to cope adaptively.
- Mental health conditions – Many mental health conditions like depression, anxiety disorders, PTSD, and bipolar disorder can increase susceptibility to a nervous breakdown.
- Poor self-care – Lack of proper rest, nutrition, social connection, and stress management weakens resilience.
- Personality traits – Perfectionistic tendencies, people-pleasing, and difficulty asking for help can lead to breakdown.
- Biology – Genetics and brain chemistry differences can predispose some people.
Essentially, when someone’s ability to adapt to stress becomes completely overwhelmed, the risk of having a nervous breakdown rises. Oftentimes, it’s caused by a combination of high stress and biological and personality factors that deplete coping resources over time.
Signs and symptoms
Some common signs and symptoms of a nervous breakdown include:
- Feelings of extreme stress, anxiety, sadness, anger, or irritability
- Having panic attacks
- Lacking motivation, feeling paralyzed or numb
- Feeling disoriented and unable to focus or concentrate
- Having racing, obsessive thoughts
- Crying excessively or uncontrollably
- Withdrawing socially from others
- Neglecting self-care and daily responsibilities
- Outbursts or destructive behavior
- Expressing suicidal thoughts
- Experiencing drastic changes in sleep, appetite, or weight
- Increased use of alcohol or drugs to cope
- Feeling exhausted, fatigued, or weak
The specific symptoms can vary considerably based on the individual and circumstances. But marked changes in mood, behavior, thoughts and physical health are common signs of a nervous breakdown.
Can it change your personality?
A nervous breakdown involves intense stress that can feel emotionally and psychologically destabilizing. It’s normal to feel afterward like you don’t know yourself anymore. But can the experience result in an actual personality change?
In many cases, the extreme distress alters your relationship with yourself in profound ways. But core aspects of personality typically remain unchanged. Here are some potential effects on personality:
- Temporary behavioral changes – You may act uncharacteristically during the breakdown itself. Impulsive, reckless behaviors can occur in this volatile state.
- Altered self-perception – How you see yourself, your strengths, and weaknesses may shift significantly.
- Identity confusion – You may feel unsure of who you are, what matters to you, and where you are headed in life.
- Greater self-awareness – Understanding your limits better can motivate self-protective changes.
- Increased emotionality – Difficulty regulating emotions can cause you to seem more sensitive and anxious.
- More apprehension – Becoming cautious about stressors due to fear of “snapping” again.
- Shift in priorities – Questioning superficial priorities to focus more on needs like health, purpose and relationships.
In essence, a breakdown can trigger deep changes in how you see yourself and substantial personal growth. But your innate personality likely remains fundamentally the same.
Understanding personality
To better understand this, it helps to take a closer look at what comprises personality. There are a few key aspects:
- Traits – General patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. They involve tendencies like introversion, anxiousness, moodiness, optimism, diligence, and sensitivity.
- Motives – Recurring needs, desires, and strivings. Examples include needs for intimacy, status, meaning, predictability, and self-expression.
- Attitudes and beliefs – Opinions you hold about yourself, others, and the world.
- Habits – Automatic behaviors you regularly enact.
These core personality components develop over a lifetime and tend to be quite stable. They involve deeply ingrained patterns that are resistant to quick changes. So while a breakdown can alter your relationship to yourself, it rarely fundamentally transforms your personality.
Potential changes
With this said, here are some potential personality shifts that could occur:
- Becoming more in touch with needs and feelings. Bottled up emotions may start to be expressed.
- Less concern about pleasing others. Increased willingness to set boundaries and say no.
- Rethinking rigid motivations like perfectionism. Adopting a more self-compassionate attitude.
- Letting go of limiting self-beliefs formed in childhood.
- Recognizing core needs that have been neglected, like connection or meaning.
- Feeling driven to align life choices with authentic desires.
While these represent meaningful personal changes, the core traits, motives and tendencies that form your personality still remain. It’s the way they get expressed that transforms. You simply learn to relate to yourself differently.
Recovering from a breakdown
If you’ve experienced a breakdown, focus first on restoring emotional and physical stability with professional support. With increased self-understanding, you can then initiate changes to better meet your needs.
Professional help
Seeking help is vital, as the extreme stress can create health risks. The following support aids recovery:
- Psychotherapy – Counseling helps process the experience, build coping strategies and address any underlying mental health issues. Cognitive behavioral therapy is often very beneficial.
- Psychiatry – If anxiety, depression or other symptoms persist, medication may help normalize mood and thinking.
- Support groups – Connecting with others who’ve gone through similar struggles reduces isolation and provides perspective.
Lifestyle changes
Making the following lifestyle changes can help stabilize mood and manage stress:
- Getting regular exercise and spending time outdoors.
- Eating a nutritious, protein-rich diet.
- Cutting back on alcohol, caffeine and drug use.
- Getting enough sleep and taking relaxation breaks.
- Engaging in calming practices like yoga, deep breathing and mindfulness.
- Making time for social connection and fun activities.
Psychological work
Therapy facilitates important psychological work like:
- Processing traumatic memories and emotions.
- Identifying dysfunctional thinking patterns.
- Developing self-compassion and self-acceptance.
- Setting healthy boundaries.
- Building life skills like communication, emotional regulation and problem-solving.
- Exploring core needs and values.
- Practicing mindfulness and living in the present moment.
This personal work helps integrate the breakdown experience in healing ways that support growth.
When to seek help
It’s important to seek professional mental health treatment if you experience:
- Inability to work, care for yourself or function
- Suicidal or violent thoughts
- Seeing, hearing or believing things that others can’t
- Extreme, unrelenting fear or anxiety
- Feeling out of control or behaving recklessly
Don’t wait to get help. Support is essential to regain emotional equilibrium and prevent complications.
Takeaways
- While extremely stressful, a nervous breakdown itself doesn’t fundamentally alter your core personality.
- It can profoundly impact your self-image, emotional landscape and life priorities.
- With professional support and self-work, the experience can be integrated in healthy ways.
- Lifestyle changes help stabilize mood and well-being after a breakdown.
- Therapy facilitates important psychological work to process the experience and build coping resources.
Rather than damaging your personality, a breakdown can strengthen it by helping rediscover and reconnect with your authentic self in deep and compassionate ways.