The end of the world as you know it. Life comes crashing down about you. Nothing can be seen beyond the confusion, the maelstrom of emotion and loss, and pain of unknowing. The tortured self, the loss of identity, you're just a drone who went awol. They'll be kind when they put you down.

...What I'm having right now. No, seriously. Within the past... let's see... three weeks,

• I've been pregnant (Well, okay, I technically knew that for a month or so, but who's counting?)


• My boyfriend at the time went from Nice Guy to Asshole in about three minutes flat, and damn near insisted I get an abortion, OR ELSE.


• I got the abortion on Halloween, and now feel absolutely guilty as all sin.


• Found out a couple of days after that, that the man I've been in love with (Love, hah, what the hell), and sleeping with for the past ten months has had a girlfriend the whole time.


• Found out today that said guy and girlfriend are going to get married. Two days from now.

If I said I didn't care, I would be lying through my teeth. Nothing can be done, but the feeling of someone trampling on your heart like that, especially after something as emotional as an abortion (well, at least in my case, maybe I'm just making a big deal out of nothing), especially in such a short time, leaves me entirely out of breath, and entirely in the mood to go drive my car off a cliff. No, I'm not gonna do it, I'm not that drastic, but my persona is VERY FUCKING FRAGILE, and I've just been smashed to a thousand pieces. All I can do is sit here and hypervenilate. What's next? Is my father going to die? My sister? Am I going to find out I have some strange fatal disease? I mean, what the hell? Come on, World, I'm at my absolute fucking lowest point, let's see what else we can throw my way. Give me your best fucking shot.

And people tell me that I'm the strongest person that they know. People tell me over and over how impressed they are with my attitude on life. You call this strength? All I can do now is sit here, gasping for breath, running to the bathroom to puke, and sobbing out every single liquid inside me. I'm making a fucking big deal, I know that, but... jesus, this is killing me. I don't know how much more I can take here. I'm easily bruised, I'm easily hurt, and I'm not as strong as people like to think I am.

Go ahead, you two. Go on.

I'm happy for you, really.

A nervous breakdown has been called many things in the past. In the Middle Ages it was called melancholia. In the early 1900s, it was known as neurasthenia. From the 1930s to about 1970, it was known as a nervous breakdown.

A nervous breakdown is not a real mental disease, or condition. It really just means that a person has been forced to the point where they can no longer function in daily life. The closest true mental condition that can be associated with a nervous breakdown is extreme depression. They may also seem like panic attacks, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder or acute stress disorder.

Unfortunately, more than 1/3 of all Americans feel at some point they are on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Since a mental breakdown is so closely related to depression, a good idea might be to treated as so, using medication and psychiatric counseling.

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Sources

http://howstuffworks.lycos.com/question653.htm

http://my.webmd.com/content/dmk/dmk_article_1458605