Recovery from a Mental Breakdown: A Journey to Renew, Rebuild, and Reclaim
Life is rough no matter where you are in life. A mental breakdown can happen anytime when you are stressed and overwhelmed. Your car can break down. You injured yourself. Your debt is not going any lower. Your rent increased. Anything can happen that causes one to have a mental breakdown.
Sometimes, you become so stressed and anxious that you dread everything. Everyday stress or anxiety about important things in life is normal and essential to growth. The debilitating block of your mental and physical faculties makes you utterly unproductive, doing the most harm.
Around 26% of adults experience a mental breakdown at some point in their life. If you are going through this dark phase, you are not alone.
What are Some Causes of Mental Breakdown?
When you cannot balance your work and responsibilities due to stress or a loss, among other things, you start to have a mental breakdown. Some things that can cause that are stress, workload, major life events, financial problems, relationship issues, trauma, lack of support, and more. Everyone’s breakdown is different.
How to Recover from Mental Breakdown?
If you notice symptoms or signs of mental breakdown, immediately talk to a family or friend and call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. You might be at the breaking point. Anything that tips you over isn’t good if others aren’t aware.
Meanwhile, remember that this feeling or phase won’t last forever, even if you are overwhelmed. Things will get better over time.
1. Accept That You Are Having a Breakdown
Knowing that you are in a rut and specific issues exacerbate them is the first step to cure. Most of the time, we are either scared to accept or feel shame even to acknowledge our predicament.
There is no shame in realizing and admitting you are going through depression. No matter what happens, never feel ashamed or afraid to accept others what is wrong.
2. Ask for Help
Never feel ashamed or weak when asking for help. Though you should try your best to manage things by yourself, if nothing seems to help, seek assistance from others. Learn from their experience, consider their advice, and move on. It won’t be wrong to mention that recovery from a mental breakdown is almost impossible without the assistance and support of family, friends, and medical professionals.
It is also vital to understand that asking for help doesn’t make you look weak and shows you are ready to escape any mess.
3. Set Priorities
We break down when we can’t control or alleviate the stress from responsibilities or toxicity. It would be best if you prioritized how you feel relaxed or without any stress as part of your daily routine.
If you have been stressed at work for a while now and can’t switch, add a healthy and entertaining activity to your daily routine. You will feel relaxed and can take on the stress the next day. In time, that stress won’t be an issue anymore as you will be stronger. With less stress, you will have a clear mind to designate some time to find the better option in your life and your work.
4. Find a Quiet Place to Meditate
It would be best if you had sensory deprivation to collect your thoughts and go towards inner peace because, in these situations, we cannot focus. Anything that breaks the focus in day-to-day activities upsets us and our rhythm. This upsetting leads to chaos and frustration.
If you cannot find a quiet place, walk in the park, turn off the lights, and lie down only to think if you can’t meditate. Meditation requires focus, and changing location or movement can calm us down.
5. Read About the Experiences of Others
You are not alone. Thousands are going through the same thing, and most have come out strong. Those who care about what they went through and others who might be going through the same situation share their experiences. They also share what helped them recover and become a contributing member of society.
Read how they did it and if the same applies to you or something you can also work on. Talk to them and others to share your experience, which will help reduce stress.
6. Indulge in Self-care
Self-care is one of the most crucial things you can do to better cope with a mental breakdown. Give yourself time, take care of your physical and physiological health, learn to manage stress, balance out your different sectors of life, and evaluate your spiritual needs. Things you can do is drawing things, journaling, hanging out with your friends, or reading. All these can prove helpful in boosting the recovery process.
7. Exercise Well
Exercising can also help you pave through all the mess life has spread around and take crucial steps toward leading a happy and contented life. Primarily, you will feel relaxed and get to enjoy better sleep. Most psychiatrists call exercise a natural anti-depressant, so why not try it?
8. Go for Specialized Therapy
Attending therapy and discussing your issues might help in many cases, but one size doesn’t fit all. Learning the underlying problem causing the breakdown through treatment can be significant sometimes. But going to a therapist expert in trauma, abuse, or even psychological issues can help you pinpoint pain points and work through them.
9. Read More About Your Causes
It always helps if you have more knowledge about your issues. Each problem has a different solution. So, if you have taken a therapist’s help and know where to go from there, invest as much as you can in researching. Even the most complex mental illnesses can be catered to if you know what you are doing.
Take Steps Toward a Happy Life!
The things bogging you down are either out of your control or beyond repair. They will remain that way until you exit the depression and anxiety phase. To do that, you need to start taking care of yourself. Take a break, go out of town, attend a concert, get a massage, etc.
If you can do any of these, you will uplift your life and spirit.
