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Title: The Underlying Cause of Nervous Breakdowns Author: Margaret Paul, Ph.D. E-mail: mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com Copyright: © 2004 by Margaret Paul URL: http://www.innerbonding.com Word Count: 744 Category: Self Improvement, Emotional Healing
The Underlying Cause of Nervous Breakdowns By Margaret Paul, Ph.D.
Life can offer us many challenges having to do with loss. When we are faced with relationship loss, financial loss, loss of health, loss of limb, loss of regard, or loss of love, we can feel overwhelmingly anxious, depressed and stressed. When anxiety, depression and stress get too big, we may have a nervous breakdown – that is, we become incapable of functioning in our everyday life and incapable of coping with our daily challenges.
What causes one person to have a nervous breakdown while another, with equally difficult or even more difficult challenges, is able to stay functioning and even optimistic?
Imagine a seven year old child trying to cope with a big loss in his or her life, like loss of a parent. What enables seven year old to handle this loss? A seven year old can handle loss only when there is a loving adult helping him or her with loss. When there is no loving adult helping with loss, child may handle loss by shutting down. The shutting down may lead to a loss of functioning, such as doing poorly in school.
However, when child does not feel alone with loss – when there is love sustaining child from an adult source – this child will be able to cope with feelings of loss. The same is true for us as adults. We all have a very hard time with loss when we feel alone with it, but we can manage it when we are not alone.
However, we cannot always rely on others to be here for us in times of loss, stress and overwhelm. Those people who have family and friends to always turn to for emotional and financial support during times of loss are fortunate indeed. But there are many people who are not so fortunate. Without others to turn to, we need to be able to turn to a reliable inner source of love to make it through and not feel alone. This reliable source needs to be our own inner spiritually connected loving Adult self. Those people who are able to manage loss without losing functioning are those people who do not feel alone inside because they have developed a strong loving Adult self.
