Recognizing symptoms of a nervous breakdown

What is an acute stress reaction and where does it come from?

A nervous breakdown is the reaction of the body and the psyche to a stressful or even traumatic experience. This stress reaction usually occurs temporarily. However, the length of time the symptoms last can vary.

Depending on the time period, different forms can be distinguished:

• acute stress reaction: symptoms appear up to two days after the event
• acute stress disorder: symptoms last up to four weeks afterwards
• acute post-traumatic stress disorder: symptoms can last up to three months


Depression - successful forms of therapy

The diagnosis of depression is becoming more and more common in Germany. That means …

• chronic post-traumatic stress disorder: symptoms persist for more than three months after the event
• Adjustment disorder: the symptoms can last indefinitely and the affected person can no longer cope with everyday life

A nervous breakdown can be provoked by these events:

With a stress disorder there is always strong psychological stress.

• Violent crimes or acts of war
• Accident, experienced yourself or as a witness
• Loss of a loved one
• stressful private or professional situation that lasts a long time

These symptoms can occur during a nervous breakdown

• sleep disorders, Difficulty concentrating, height irritability and Scariness
• nightmares with the recurring event as a trigger, flashbacks of the situation experienced during the day
• Repression reactions: There are gaps in memory. Through repression, the psyche tries to ignore the incomprehensible as not having happened.
• Thought carousel and mental cinema: The person affected can only think almost exclusively about what they have experienced.
• This often happens in connection with this social withdrawal, isolation and isolation because the person concerned doesn't want to talk about it or believes that no one understands them.
• The Perception of the environmentt and yourself can even change to such an extent that you perceive your surroundings, your fellow human beings and yourself as strange and surreal.
• Extremes Mood swings having fits of anger, crying or laughing that is not appropriate to the situation.
• Physical symptoms, such as sweating for no reason, racing heart, trembling, nausea and dizziness. Speechlessness can even occur if the experience is so incomprehensible that it cannot be put into words. This results in a feeling of powerlessness and helplessness.

If you have a nervous breakdown, you have to act!

If you notice such symptoms in a family member or friend, it is important to seek medical attention because in extremely stressful situations the person concerned can often no longer clearly decide what to do do is. A major danger with stress disorders is that the person affected may think about suicide.

If you recognize these symptoms yourself, it makes sense to seek professional help.

As a result, there are different therapies depending on the severity, which can range from outpatient talk therapies to longer inpatient stays.
The traumatized person learns a new behavior as correct and trains out the disturbed one. In this context, it is important that the person affected learns to see this condition as an illness, which one does not have to accept but can do something about it with help. There are many different therapeutic approaches, such as hypnosis, which the treating psychotherapist develops individually with the patient.