The Mother of all Mental Health Episodes
The term ‘mental breakdown’ (also called a nervous breakdown) is bandied about, and often fodder for memes and jokes. But what is a mental breakdown and what does it look like? It isn’t a clinical term or a mental health disorder. It’s a term used to describe a period of extreme mental or emotional stress resulting in an inability to function normally.
I’ve suffered from an anxiety disorder for many years. My anxiety started with a panic attack that led to social phobia and eventually evolved into health anxiety after the birth of my first child. Its manifestation has evolved in line with changes in me during different phases of my life. However, in January 2022, I suffered the mother of all episodes. I’m no expert, but I’m confident that what I experienced can be described as a mental breakdown! I guess it takes one to recognise one. It’s an experience that’s hard to put into words because words cannot adequately convey the experience.
I hadn’t been feeling well for a few months. In hindsight, there were telltale signs that a mental health episode was looming. Those stealth signs I have since learned to acknowledge and address. The worry, preoccupation, brain fog, distraction, sleeplessness, and burning skin. The familiar symptoms that creep up and take over.
However, I recall the precise moment an episode of anxiety transitioned into something far more severe. It was a Tuesday morning, and I had an online work meeting. I spent the entire meeting unable to concentrate and fighting back the tears. Afterward, I burst into tears, collapsed in a heap on the floor, and sobbed.
I spent the following week trying to hold it together enough to work. My confidence was at rock bottom. It had been deteriorating for quite some time. I felt desperately unhappy and knew deep down that I could not work. Never before had I taken time off work for my anxiety, but I knew this was different. I felt so unwell, and I wasn’t sleeping, and I mean entire nights without sleep.
Physical Symptoms
I started to experience a burning sensation in my torso. This wasn’t new to me, a common physical symptom I experienced during bad episodes of anxiety, but this time it had upped the ante! I couldn’t lie down, sit, or rest as the burning would intensify. It felt as though my internal organs were on fire, but the right side of my abdomen was where I felt it the most. This symptom is fascinating and not a single medical practitioner I have seen has understood it. I have since discovered that it is quite a common symptom of anxiety. People often describe feeling like they have sunburn, or that their extremities (head, hands, and feet) feel hot.
The burning was so extreme that entire nights were spent downstairs alone in discomfort and mental turmoil. This continued for 2 months. I resorted to using ice packs at night to ease the burning. During the days I would walk my dog for hours. It was only when I was walking that the burning sensation eased. The bottom line, I could not sit still.
Help, please!
I couldn’t convince myself that the burning was a symptom of anxiety. It had to be something else! Extraordinary how the mind can cause such powerful physical symptoms and how anxiety seizes all sense of rationality. I made an appointment to see my GP and was prescribed antidepressants and a short course of diazepam. My GP also ordered a series of blood tests.
I received a phone call 2 weeks later and was told that my blood results showed a raised tumour marker. I was referred for an urgent scan. The scan was clear and further tests confirmed that no further investigation was required.
Strangely, despite my poor mental health, I coped with the situation remarkably well. I was strong and calm.
The Physical Toll
Unfortunately, things were about to take a turn for the worse! The weekend following the scan I started to experience extreme abdominal pain. I spent nights in agony which again prevented sleep. I put it down to a stomach bug. After a few days, I noticed that the pain became worse after eating. Agonising, debilitating pain. It reached the point where I could only stomach a diet of rice, broccoli, toast, and porridge.
Over the coming weeks, the pain intensified. One weekend, after battling my way through my daughter’s birthday party, I took myself to A&E. The pain was unbearable. I even packed a bag as I was convinced I would be admitted, but I was prescribed pain relief and sent home. I made another appointment with my GP and broke down in tears over the phone. After describing how much pain I was experiencing I tried to summarise the events of the past few months. So much had happened that I no longer knew what to think or where to start. My GP suspected a problem with my gallbladder and referred me for a scan.
In the meantime, I was forced to resign from my job in academia. The work was too demanding, and I needed to eradicate one cause of stress from my life. I didn’t want it hanging over me, worrying about my return and how I would cope. It was a career I had bumbled my way into and not one I particularly enjoyed. Therefore, resigning wasn’t a difficult decision for me. However, I needed to work, so I took a job with little responsibility. It’s all I could manage.
I lived in daily pain for the following 18 months. An ultrasound scan later confirmed that there was nothing wrong with my gallbladder. I had further bloods and eventually a CT scan which were also normal. The raised tumour marker returned to a normal level.
Aftermath
As the physical pain and mental stress eased, I felt a profound sense of elation, and happiness even. I’d hit rock bottom and was climbing my way back up. It felt like a fresh start. What was I going to do next? No longer stuck in a career I didn’t enjoy and with a clean bill of health, I was free to redefine myself.
Unfortunately, that feeling didn’t last long. My mental breakdown had taken its toll and the depths I reached were too difficult to convey. I began to feel disengaged and detached from everything and everyone. I no longer looked forward to anything. I had no ambition to seek a new career path. I struggled to find meaning or purpose. I couldn’t relate.
The term Anhedonia is used to describe people who experience an inability to feel pleasure or enjoyment. It’s intricately linked to depression, but you don’t have to feel depressed to experience Anhedonia. At this point, I didn’t feel depressed or anxious, just numb.
I still very much feel the stigma around mental health. I feel compelled to share my experience, but it’s not an experience I discuss openly with people. I often find myself in a position where I need to explain the events of the past few years, largely concerning my career and what I’m doing now – I’m never honest!
3 years on
It’s now 3 years since my breakdown and I’m starting to enjoy life again. Time is a great healer. I have redefined myself but not in career terms. I’m still working on that!
I’m no longer in pain and I haven’t experienced an episode of anxiety since. I’m confident I will never reach such depths of complete desolation again, but I’m certainly not complacent. I know how irrational anxiety is and how it can creep up on you out of nowhere.
For years, decades even, I allowed my anxiety to consume me, resorting to online searches, negative thinking, and constant preoccupation. It paralysed me. I gave it far too much of my time. I surrendered to its demands. Acknowledging that I was willingly engaging with my anxiety was a crucial step. The next step was understanding how to disengage!
My breakdown helped me separate myself from my anxiety and understand that anxiety cannot exist without something to be anxious about. It taught me to recognise the stealth signs of stress and anxiety and to address them before they get out of control.
The burning skin symptom is a sure sign that my anxiety is out of control. Understanding my anxiety and its triggers helps ward off stealth escalation.
I’m utterly convinced that my mental breakdown put my entire body into shock. The raised tumour marker and abdominal pain were both caused by severe stress and anxiety.
I believe that the physical pain I experienced was both psychological and physiological. The relationship between the mind and pain is complex, but the power of the mind is remarkable, and never to be underestimated.
