Triggers For A Nervous Breakdown

Grief

Grief refers to an individual's response to loss. Everyone grieves in different ways, and there's no one-size-fits-all approach. But if individuals don't have a support system and healthy coping mechanisms when grieving, they might be at a heightened risk of a nervous breakdown. This is especially true if the person or thing they're grieving was an integral part of their life. Grief isn't always about death or about losing another person. Some individuals might go through a grieving process after losing a job, ending a relationship, moving out of an old home, or being diagnosed with a chronic illness or disability. It's also common for individuals to experience grief after realizing they won't be able to fulfill a dream, losing their feeling of safety following a traumatic event, retiring, losing a pet, or experiencing a miscarriage. Some might experience feelings of loss over situations others have no emotional problem with. It's important not to rush the grieving process or stifle it, as individuals will only be able to heal once they have processed what they're feeling.

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Traumatic Experience

A traumatic experience can lead to a nervous breakdown, especially if it causes heightened stress responses and a feeling of being unsafe. Traumatic experiences are often linked to grief, stress, anxiety, and burnout. Most individuals will experience at least one traumatic event in their life. While war and combat are two of the most commonly understood traumatic events, there are much more mundane-seeming experiences that can cause harm. Trauma is used to refer to an event that causes psychological, emotional, physical, or spiritual harm. When individuals experience trauma, they might feel frightened, anxious, or threatened. Some who experience trauma struggle to process their feelings and may repress their memories or experience deep denial about how badly the event affected them. If individuals do undergo a traumatic experience, it's important to have a support network and to get in touch with mental health resources to help cope. Some common traumas include the death of a family member, painful divorces, physical injuries, natural disasters, illnesses, combat and war, terrorism, moving to new locations, being abandoned by a parent, witnessing death, being abused, or being incarcerated.

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