Crying Young Woman. Vasily Surikov, 1879. Wikimedia Commons

“I reached my very edge. I was about to break down. I was about to break through.”

Talismanist Giebra

When I was a child, I remember my parents discussing their friend’s ‘nervous breakdown.’ This phrase was always uttered in hushed tones, with knowing, secretive, disapproving looks that belied the fact that they had absolutely no idea what the term meant.

I certainly didn’t know either, but my imagination ran wild. I asked once, and was told that it meant that the person couldn’t stop crying. I worried then, whenever I couldn’t stop crying if I had fallen over or felt a bit sad, that I was having the dreaded ‘nervous breakdown’, too.

Whatever, this ‘condition’ was something to be hidden, never talked about openly, to be ashamed and fearful of, and to whisper about behind closed doors.

• The stigmatization of mental illness : depression

This stigmatizing cultural approach to any kind of mental illness persisted well into the twenty-first century and certainly does still exist today, although it may have lessened somewhat, because of increased awareness, understanding and education.

Munch. Melancholy. Wikimedia Commons

Often, people with depression say that others around them do not recognise their symptoms and feelings as indications of a ‘real’ illness. By ‘real,’ they often mean physical.

Physical illness might appear more tangible; there may be a rash, a temperature, a visible lesion or wound. People may develop physical symptoms (somatisation) if their depression is not recognised or if they cannot allow the depression to become known, even to themselves.

The ‘wounds’ of depression are visible in the depressed person’s weepiness, inactivity, frozen expression or general misery; however these may be downplayed or ignored by others around.

Thus there have developed the expressions snap out of it, pull yourself together, stop being so miserable, you have everything to be happy about.

Many people find depression in others difficult to cope with and they may react impatiently and unsympathetically. Perhaps witnessing depression in another person unconsciously stirs something hidden or repressed inside themselves.

Such unempathic comments will pile guilt on top of the depression. The depression may then be masked.

The term ‘smiling depressive ‘ may refer to someone who is reacting to what they perceive as society’s lack of understanding, or to their own shame; the smile is a cover- up. The depressed person may appear happy and functional in daily life, but the smile hides desperation.

The smiling depressive may feel that their symptoms are weak, that ‘no-one loves a moaner’ and that talking about it will upset others. They may feel that no-one will understand or be able to cope anyway. So they smile and say ‘I’m fine,’ when they are actually feeling broken inside.

This reflects a societal attitude of negativity and rejection that is often experienced by a person who is perceived as having irreparably ‘broken down.’  

 

But can ‘breakdown’ actually herald a ‘breakthrough?’

 

 

Woman dissociating and feeling fragmented. 2016.Author: Dyversions. Wikimedia Commons

“The musician of disordered sound, the poet of decomposed language, the painter and sculptor of the fragmented visual and tactile world: they all portray the break up of the self and, through the rearrangement and reassemble of the fragments, try to create new structures that possess wholeness, perfection, new meaning.”

Heinz Kohut

Kohut’s beautiful words remind us that breaking down, or ‘breaking up,’ can be part of an intensely creative period, a time for reassessment, ‘rearrangement’ and a re-forming of the disparate parts of the self. This is such a hopeful, therapeutic and constructive way of thinking, unlike the popular view of ‘the break up of the self,’ or of psychological ‘breakdown,’ which may suggest an irreversible, almost psychotic state.

The phrase ‘breaking down’ can sound destructive, hopeless and frightening. It can also conjure up images of being weak and of being unable to hold the self together. 

Dr Tim Cantopher, in his helpful book Depression:The Curse of the Strong, underlines the fact that depression does not happen to weak people. He refers to the increase of stress in our society, which he feels is the commonest cause of clinical depression, and he emphasizes the fact that ‘depression is not a form of madness.’

“This illness nearly always happens to one type of person. He or she is strong, reliable, diligent, with a strong conscience and a sense of responsibility, but is also sensitive, easily hurt by criticism and has a self-esteem which, while it may look robust on the outside, is in fact quite vulnerable and easily dented. This is the person to whom you would turn in times of need, and they would never let you down.”

Georges de La Tour – Magdalen of Night Light. Wikimedia Commons

“We are all broken. That’s how the light gets in.” 

Ernest Hemingway

“Your breakdown wasn’t a failure—
it was a breaking open.
You weren’t falling apart,
you were shedding the version of you
that could no longer hold the magnitude
of who you are growing into.”

Sean DeLaney, When Life Begins to Whisper: A Journey Beyond Answers

Van Gogh. Sorrowing Old Man.Wikimedia Commons

“Sometimes, breaking down is the bravest thing you can do.”

Vironika Tugaleva

When someone goes through a difficult time psychologically, when they appear emotionally ‘dead,’ lacking energy for a period, then it may be that they are experiencing a kind of dormancy. This can be a time for them to take stock, experiencing, perhaps, some numbness emotionally, some grief and pain, needing time and space, and perhaps some psychotherapy to recover.

This can look as if there is total collapse; however, it can be that, like a garden in winter, life beneath the ‘soil’ is being prepared, restructured, and reformed into something productive and growthful for the future. When emotions have been long repressed, when there is a feeling of being overwhelmed by daily life and work, sometimes, there is a need to go inwards and to focus on one’s internal world, the roots of one’s life issues.

This is akin to the theme of the book Wintering by Katherine May, which is about regarding the difficult times in one’s life as a time to rest, taking things slowly, allowing a kind of ‘decline.’ This can ultimately lead to feelings of rebirth, transformation and renewal. This is quite different from the popular notion of a ‘breakdown,’ implying a grave state that is devoid of hope and any possibility of growth and recovery.

Spring is the ultimate symbol of rebirth and renewal. It symbolises so much for so many people, and is generally welcomed with joy, especially after a cold, hard winter. The quotation above urges us to learn from nature, from the earth. Then we may have hope, hope that sometimes, out of deadness and sorrow, out of a ‘breaking-down,’ can occur a breakthrough, an emergence of new life, fresh insights, increased understanding and joy.

Primavera – Sandro Botticelli. 1482. Wikioo.

“Perhaps the earth can teach us, as when everything seems dead and later proves to be alive.”

Pablo Neruda

© Linda Berman