Overload
Nervous breakdown
Category: Illness or disabilities
Type
Involuntary
Introduction and description
What is a nervous breakdown? It is not a breakdown of nerves, although the nerves certainly feel overloaded. Nor is it a breakdown of the nervous system, so the name is a misnomer.
In reality it is the breakdown of a person’s ability to reason or learn on a semi permanent basis based on some chemical or emotional shock. And it can produce some quite extraordinary spiritual experiences.
A nervous breakdown is thus a by product of shock, of psychological trauma, of war, of humiliation, of rape and believe it or not even of childbirth. It is the final outcome of other events, the end result of a long chain of cause and effect. Whereas some people are able to recover from the high levels of emotion and balance themselves back onto an even keel, there are some who are unable to, the emotion stays high, the reason stays blocked, the learning function gives up completely and it is all this which results in the loss of the person’s reason and learning ability on a semi permanent basis.
“Although "nervous breakdown" does not necessarily have a rigorous or static definition, surveys of laypersons suggest that the term refers to a specific acute time-limited reactive disorder, involving symptoms such as anxiety or depression, usually precipitated by external stressors. Specific cases are sometimes described as a "breakdown" only after a person becomes unable to function in day-to-day life” [Wikipedia].
Background
At one time the effect could be permanent, with no medications, people were occasionally incarcerated in mental institutions for the rest of their lives, my husband’s father’s mother had this happen to her. My husband’s father never saw his mother again after she gave birth to him and his twin sister. He was told she had died giving birth to them. And I suppose in a way she had. Lost forever in a different world.
My husband’s father had a nervous breakdown when my husband’s mother died. So grief triggered the reaction. And my husband’s sister also had a nervous breakdown on the birth of her second son. So there could be a genetic link.
I had a nervous breakdown after the death of both my parents within 11 months of one another, followed by the near death of a person I loved. It wasn’t helped by the collapse of my pension fund and having to execute the wills of both parents whilst fulfilling work commitments, or having to find a home for my mother for the 11 months she was alive or ….. . overload. My head gave up.
How it works
You will need to be able to reference the Model of spiritual experience whilst you read the following. This has a definition of the terms I use. For a generic description of this activity in context see How spiritual experience works.
Grief, pain, anger and other sorts of emotional trauma or extreme emotion, don’t still the senses, they flood the senses. Extremely high levels of emotion, have the effect of reducing or even eliminating the input from the 5 senses and the nervous system. It is a form of sensory overload.
Extremely high emotion defeats any form of rational thinking.
The function of the will is highly influenced by emotion.
This is to be expected.
If, for example, we are experiencing pain, it stands to reason that the Will will try to find an action that will avoid the pain. But if no course of action is available, if nothing can be done, the Will very often gives up.
During a nervous breakdown, the learning and memory recall functions may be working overtime to attempt to solve the strain, but often this achieves nothing, especially if no solution is forthcoming. Objectives and obligations may also be causing overload, too many of both either streaming in or being self imposed.
At a certain point, all this overloading of functions takes its toll, Reason ceases to operate and the composer takes over.
If the causes of the overload remain, the state of openness to spiritual input remains. A nervous breakdown is a person being permanently in touch with the spiritual world, although they are unable to rationalise the experience.
Observations
My father-in-law saw stars, and said the world got quicker and quicker. He saw people who weren’t there and angels who came to comfort him. I gained for a short time, the gift of prophecy – silly pointless prophecy, but I could tell when text messages were about to arrive and knew when people had got off planes – that sort of thing.
People with more talent than me were able to do bigger better things.
Related observations
Healing observations
- Bingen, Hildegard of - Oats 022682
- Crown Court Case worker - and the agony of amalgam fillings 012316
- Culpepper's Complete Herbal on Butterbur 021411
- Dr William Sargant – On the use of making love and drumming in curing neuroses 024391
- Esdaile, James - Treats a convict afflicted with double hydrocele 006392
- Gurdjieff - Described by Fritz Peters 010721
- Holderlin, Johann - Once Gods walked 015362
- Khristophorous Gallowglaich - Rebirth 016769
- Mrs Grieve on Peonies 019426
- Mrs Grieve on Skullcaps 017484
- Mudang spiritual experiences – The healing of Dr Chongho Kim by Sutra chanters 027198
- Music therapy – Case history of Josie 027396
- Overwhelmingly Majestic Nature of Life Ecstasy by wombat17s 020279
- Sensory deprivation and sleep as a cure for illness 011882
- The Healing Power of Sleep 026790
- Vignoli, Tito - The healing power of music 003684
- Wesley, John - Sermon 89 - extract on the benefits of sleep 024655
Hallucination
- Am I possessed? 005047
- Khristophorous Gallowglaich - Time stood still 016770
- Lamb, Charles - Letter to Coleridge 001928
- Nervous breakdown caused by grief 000363
- Nervous breakdown caused by hospital stay 000362
- Pound, Ezra - Cantos I 015284
- Pound, Ezra - Cantos II 015285
- Ruskin, John - False visions 001912
- The premonitory hallucination of her brother’s demise – a ghost with prostrate and collapsed body measuring only half its size, and with paralyzed and dragging legs unable to support its shaky and emaciated body 028023
- Wilson, Brian - Breakaway 004154
- Woolf, Virginia - Letter - Inner voices 006182
Wisdom, Inspiration, Divine love & Bliss
- Angell, Dr Marcia - The Illusions of psychiatry 012262
- Bow, Clara - IT 006124
- Cible d’amour 000132
- Cowper, William - 'Tis a sight to engage me, if anything can 001808
- Cowper, William - God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform 001802
- Cowper, William - Lines written during a period of insanity 011982
- Cowper, William - Shortlived as foliage is the race of man 001801
- Cowper, William - The Castaway - Obscurest night involved the sky 001806
- Cowper, William - The Lily and the Rose 011981
- Cowper, William - The Task - Tell me ye shining hosts 001805
- Cowper, William - The Winter Morning Walk - The soul that sees him or receives sublimed 001804
- Cowper, William - Yardley Oak - Who lived when thou wast such 001807
- Gurney, Ivor - Behind the Line 013128
- Gurney, Ivor - De profundis 013125
- Gurney, Ivor - First Time In 013127
- Gurney, Ivor - Severn Meadows 013122
- Gurney, Ivor - Sleep 013123
- Gurney, Ivor - Strange Hells 013126
- Gurney, Ivor - The Silent One 013130
- Gurney, Ivor - To His Love 013124
- Gurney, Ivor and Edward Thomas - Snow 013129
- Gurney, Ivor and Wilfrid Gibson - All Night under the Moon 013132
- Gurney, Ivor and Yeats, W B - Down by the Salley Gardens 013131
- Holderlin, Johann - Bread and wine 015374
- Holderlin, Johann - From in lovely blue 015365
- Holderlin, Johann - Half of life, HÄLFTE DES LEBENS 015372
- Holderlin, Johann - Looking outward 015366
- Holderlin, Johann - Mnemosyne 015376
- Holderlin, Johann - Neckar 015363
- Holderlin, Johann - Once Gods walked 015362
- Holderlin, Johann - Patmos 015375
- Holderlin, Johann - Remembrance 015380
- Holderlin, Johann - The Ister 015364
- Holderlin, Johann - The journey 015371
- Holderlin, Johann and Brahms - Hyperion's song of destiny 015373
- Keeping busy 004703
- Masefield, John - A Creed 001623
- Masefield, John - A White Night 001886
- Masefield, John - I was folk's contrary son 001626
- Masefield, John - It’s a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds’ cries 001474
- Masefield, John - Shakespeare and spiritual life 003504
- Masefield, John - Shakespeare and spiritual life 003510
- Masefield, John - Shakespeare and spiritual life 003509
- Masefield, John - Shakespeare and spiritual life 003508
- Masefield, John - Shakespeare and spiritual life 003507
- Masefield, John - Shakespeare and spiritual life 003506
- Masefield, John - Shakespeare and spiritual life 003505
- Masefield, John - Sonnets and Poems XII 001472
- Masefield, John - Sonnets and Poems XXXII 001022
- Masefield, John - The Story of a Round-House - Sonnet 001624
- Masefield, John - The Widow in the Bye Street 004509
- Nietzshe Poem 000292
- Ogden, John - Plays Hitch 006130
- Ogdon, John - In Leningrad (Live, 29 11 1963) 012074
- Overwhelmingly Majestic Nature of Life Ecstasy by wombat17s 020279
- O’Keeffe, Georgia - Horns and flower 003117
- O’Keeffe, Georgia - From the Faraway nearby 1937 003305
- O’Keeffe, Georgia - Oriental Poppies 1928 003304
- Pauli, Wolfgang - In search of Merlin 019659
- Peake, Mervyn - Bleak House, Mr Guppy 011990
- Peake, Mervyn - Gormenghast sketches 011984
- Peake, Mervyn - Gormenghast trilogy illustrations 011992
- Peake, Mervyn - I, while the gods laugh, the world's vortex am 004531
- Peake, Mervyn - If trees gushed blood 003261
- Peake, Mervyn - Illustration for Alice in Wonderland 011983
- Peake, Mervyn - Illustrations for Alice in Wonderland 000988
- Peake, Mervyn - Illustrations for Treasure Island 011988
- Peake, Mervyn - Love's House 001056
- Peake, Mervyn - The Ancient Mariner 011989
- Peake, Mervyn - The Hunting of the Snark 011987
- Peake, Mervyn - The Walrus and the Carpenter 011986
- Peake, Mervyn - The White Rabbit 011985
- Peake, Mervyn - The Wings 000141 000141
- Peake, Mervyn - To All things solid as to All Things Flat 004530
- Peake, Mervyn - Tweedledum and Tweedledee 011991
- Pirsig, Robert M - An interview with 011993
- Pirsig, Robert M - quotes 000439
- Porphyry - On the Soul of Plotinus 000371
- Previn, Dory - Angels and Devils 007257
- Previn, Dory - Mythical Kings and Iguanas 007256
- Riemann, Bernhard - On Inspiration and inner speech 014983
- Riemann, Bernhard - On Riemann geometry 000021
- Snow thoughts 004914
- Take me to Luxembourg 000293
- Voices 004723
- Watson, Sir William - A star look'd down from heaven and loved a flower 000810
- Watson, Sir William - Epigram - Brook, from whose bridge the wandering idler peers 006416
- Watson, Sir William - Epigram - Enough of mournful melodies 015550
- Watson, Sir William - Epigram - In mid whirl of the dance of Time ye start 000359
- Watson, Sir William - Epigram - Lives there whom pain hath evermore pass'd by 006417
- Watson, Sir William - Epigram - Love, like a bird, hath perch'd upon a spray 003341
- Watson, Sir William - Epigram - The children romp within the graveyard's pale 006415
- Watson, Sir William - Epigram - The gods man makes he breaks; proclaims them each 007183
- Watson, Sir William - Epigram - To keep in sight Perfection, and adore 000742
- Watson, Sir William - Lachrymae Musarum - What needs his laurel our ephemeral tears 001461
- Watson, Sir William - So let the songsmith proffer his rhyme-gift 006418
- Watson, Sir William - The Prince’s Quest - Then said the greybeard captain, hardly heard 000980
- Watson, Sir William - Youth! ere thou be flown away 005922
- Wilson, Brian - Breakaway 004154
- Wilson, Brian - Good Vibrations 001597
- Wilson, Brian - Pet Sounds 004155
Out of time
- Khristophorous Gallowglaich - Overloaded into hell 016768
- Khristophorous Gallowglaich - Rebirth 016769
- Khristophorous Gallowglaich - Time stood still 016770
- Russell, Jason 000358
In time
- Am I possessed? 005047
- Esdaile, James - Treats a convict afflicted with double hydrocele 006392
- Gurdjieff - Described by Fritz Peters 010721
- Lamb, Charles - Letter to Coleridge 001928
- Mudang spiritual experiences – The healing of Dr Chongho Kim by Sutra chanters 027198
- Nervous breakdown caused by hospital stay 000362
- Peake, Mervyn - The Wings 000141 000141
- Pound, Ezra - Cantos I 015284
- Pound, Ezra - Cantos II 015285
- Ruskin, John - False visions 001912
- Tyrrell, G N M - Trance-Personalities – On telepathy [by the living but ill] as an explanation for trance communication 026726