Mental Breakdowns

[SleepyDayzzz]

I don't know if many INTPs have them...Which is why I'm posting this.
Unlike a lot of people whose mental breakdowns consist of crying, being angry, or venting in general, I find myself laughing like a madman until I become exhausted and then sit down for a bit and contemplate life. Sometimes I'll even start talking to myself (more than usual) and it's almost like I'm going crazy, that or I begin yelling at myself about really random things that bother me, while pacing at high speeds. Worst case scenario is when I lock myself in my room and pull everything apart and put it back together completely differently. Of course, I can almost always stop myself before it gets out of hand.
Anyways...What are your mental breakdowns like? Or how do you handle them? Do you have them?

Tell me about it.

 

[Yellow]

I've had only 2-3 in my life. Only one as an adult, but it was similar. I was driving alone at about 70 mph at the time, so it mostly just involved yelling. I have mini meltdowns from time to time with the manic laughing, screaming, panic, and generally insane urges, but they remain on the inside, like a second self going wild while the rest of me takes care of business.

If I could go as far as yours, I probably would, but I've rarely had the luxury. Pushing the meltdown aside probably isn't healthy, but sometimes you just don't have time to indulge. You know?

 

[DrGregoryHouse]

My brothers like to joke that the Hulk is always on the verge of being let loose.

One time I...well...probably shouldn't share this publicly on the net...oh and then there was this other time...

In all seriousness, if an INTP is reading this thread and is in the throes of a mental breakdown (common to INTPs) click on the link in my signature and follow the advice (written by an INTP for INTPs) esp in chapter 7.

 

[Urakro]

Anyways...What are your mental breakdowns like? Or how do you handle them? Do you have them?

Tell me about it.

I've had one. It progressively got worse over the coarse of a week and a half before I went and checked myself into a hospital. The more I reflect on it, it sounds more like a manic episode.

I won't get into detail of all the thoughts during that week as they were all typical of a manic psychotic state. During the time, I wasn't eating or sleeping, and had absolutely no need for either.

Moments before going into the hospital, my brain got caught in a frightening loop that kept playing over and over beyond my control, faster and faster. Hardly being figurative, it was exactly like a short-circuit and the connections were glowing red with the added amperage and resistance. I was holding my head with both hands, doubled on the ground just wishing it would stop.

When it did, it stopped ferociously abrupt, and I was slammed with an eerie silence. I wanted to think but my mind coldly didn't respond. The psyche went dead. I liken that experience to a blue screen of death.

"A fatal error has occurred. All processes are being terminated"

Really freaked out, I rushed to the hospital with a deep understanding that I was going to die.

 

[Lot]

(I may edit in the morning after I sleep)

I maybe going through/getting out of one, currently. I have good and bad days, bit mostly good recently. It started around 23. I had a lot of delusions about the people I lived with, and about people in my church, which I found out were half true, I just didn't have any evidence. Good old christian cults and their amazing ability to manipulate through shame.

Along with the delusions, came sever anxiety and a constant sense of guilt. I eventually dropped out of all my music classes because of my paranoia and insecurity. My instructors were really upset about that. I just couldn't write anymore and playing lost purpose after that. The next semester I dropped out of school. I couldn't take the pressure. This is when my thoughts of suicide became more serious.

My symptoms got better when I moved out of the place I was staying, to live with a friend that wasn't associated with the church. But his marriage issues turned into his wife trying to commit suicide over an abortion she had, her manipulative mother moved in to "help out". That then retriggered what I was able to suppress with booze and frequent masturbation. The mother's manipulative nature, and the nature of living with depressed, "crazy" people, put my paranoia back on red alert. It's more clear now, what was imagined and what wasn't.

Moved back in with my parent's, couldn't stand that they didn't agree with my "chruch" and convictions, so I moved in with the one friend from before. Him and his wife were more put together, than they were. Children on the way tend to do that. I stayed with them till a little after their kid was born. Then another cult member had bought a house near my work. He was kool at first. Gradually, became more creepy. He had like this plan to make his home like a family unit, but with young men from the church. He was the "head of the house", and being older, he was there to guide us or some shit. Our very mental friend living with us, that smoked synthetic cannabinoids all day, was too much for me. (It's like crazy people attract other crazy people) That lasted 3 months before I noped out and finally got my own apartment.

That's where I was able to have the freedom to be myself. Yell at my self in the mirror. Whip myself with a belt. Cry in my bed. Act like a fool with my cat. Have the freedom to finally get the nerve to leave the cult. Have the private space so I could finally get to second base. I eventually discovered weed and found a reason to wake up. Then I lost my place after the transmission in my car broke. Oh life

My issues are the product of my temperament, mixed with my religious upbringing, and then enhancing it by joining a cultural bubble that reinforced my neurotic religious guilt and inexperienced idealism. I have lots of little things and insecurities to still work through. I'm moving back in with my parents again to save money and pay off debt. I shall see how my mental state holds up there, this time.


As far as your OP goes. I experience those behaviors as well. More one the angery side, though. They act like anxiety attacks, just expressed in a different way, or adult temper tantrums. So I treat them like that. I have gotten way better with these after using psychedelics. A few intense trips can show you a lot about the way you think. It's the safer alternative to Tony Robbins.

I also sedate myself with pot. CBD, is so good for my anxiety, and over all mood. Not to say THC making me stoned doesn't play a role. It makes it easier to just let my ruminations, and negative thoughts, go.

When I hold on to my anger I have to actively choose not to break things and throw/hit stuff to deal with it. It's still there as a reaction, but I now know I have the option to deal with it better ways. I don't have to bottle my emotions, then shake the bottle till it explodes. I think talking to/yelling at yourself can be very healthy, but you need to actively listen to your words. Just saying hurtful things to yourself, is more likely to reinforce those views. But you need to say them to get them out there. I started to see lots of entitlement, and delusions.

 

[Haim]

I always control myself,but the closest thing of me physically expressing frustration is kicking the wall of a post guard(during a guard duty) for about 3 hours,midway someone saw me doing that through a camera and I just kept on hitting the wall even after knowing that(he phoned).

 

[Jennywocky]

I'm not really sure what counts as a breakdown.

I use to have an occasional flip-out in my relationships back in my 20's and early 30's, but don't really have that anymore. (Typical crazy 15-second Fe outburst.) I typically do not let things build that far nowadays.

On occasion, I'll have a minute-long crying jag that alleviates a lot of stress, and then I'm done. It's almost a physical thing, although it provides some emotional catharsis.

I'm too risk-managing to really do crazy shit, although sometimes I've felt like just going on the highway and accelerating as fast as the car could go. I just know that's likely to get my killed. But there's something to be said about that, or throwing yourself at the wall a few times, or picking up rocks throwing them out into the woods as far as you can (which I've done). Or smashing shit you won't need later. Cathartic. It's like venting the nuclear reactor before the heat gets too high.

Normally I distract myself from stress by getting lost in movies, books, writing, or playing music.

 

[nanook]

One day after school i decided i wouldn't have any more of this pointless slavery. I never made an effort towards external achievements again. Bad choice, probably. But it wasn't really a choice. I just couldn't go on. The part of me that believed that i could find my way into the society of grown ass achievers simply died that day. Today they look at me in disgust and say: You aren't even trying, you are already dead inside.

It's possible that this unfortunate death of mine was diet related.
I had just lost 30kg eating between 800 and 1300kcal for months.

 

[TheManBeyond]

Right now i'm feeling really extrange, it is similar to what yellow said, basically i feel i'm really angry and frustrated and sad but everything is inside all the time, i manage to work it by going out with people, but i'm paranoid of them all the time, no one likes me really, it's so frustrating cuz you see people outside talking about the most normal things and smiling about them but if i do, it's complitely different, they react like in a meh way, you are not like us, we dislike you. Don't get me wrong, this is not all people, it happens more than not tho.
The other day i went out at night with a group of italians and some germans and polish, i bought weed with the italians but was drunk and didn't care that much about it, when i try to smoke it they already had finish with it all, like fucking starving vultures, i only could taste it for a few times. But this wasn't the problem, i want to make it clear.
Considering that people smoking it were like 10 and only 3 of us put some money i felt kinda of upset. So i started bashing against them saying things like: "fucking lier, stop bullshit", "don't move from here or i'll kill you" (1 hour before i was sincerily hugging this guy), "valentino rossi is a fucking retarded asshole with no moral code" imagine this in a social context, from that point of the night on italians were staring at me in a weird way, but they were not really looking at me at the eyes anymore, hard to explain.
I didn't get pissed off because of the weed or their lack of concern about me (it was sad but i can handle that and understand it partially), it was because how fake they were with me when they knew they smoke all the weed, like oooh Manuel you are so cool and shit, with that grin on their faces. I felt i wanted to explode at that moment.
Then i wasn't sure if i'm just highly paranoid or something else.
This still bothering me cuz i feel used, everytime, i'm tired of this shit, people confuses kindness and humbleness with innocence.
At this point i don't know if i am the problem or it is them. And also feel bad cuz besides that incident they were cool people and i liked them. I'm tired of honestly liking people but never getting the opposite.

 

[Minuend]

@TheManBeyond sounds like you have a bit difficulty interpreting behavior in a way that makes you unable to separate the good guys from the bad. Some might perceive you as a bit socially naive and take advantage of that. Thus you might tend to attract people who have little to no qualms using you for their own advantage and then you get a lot of bad experiences with people.

Wait, I have written something like this to you before? I got a weird deja vu.

 

[TheManBeyond]

btw 1 gram of weed were 13 euros (i've been told it's quite expensive. center of athens), i only put 3 € the other 2 guys paid 5 € each so i wasn't ripped that hardly.
yeah minuend, it's pretty much the sum of deja vu experiences that leads me to rage.

 

[DrGregoryHouse]

I don't know if many INTPs have them...Which is why I'm posting this.
Unlike a lot of people whose mental breakdowns consist of crying, being angry, or venting in general, I find myself laughing like a madman until I become exhausted and then sit down for a bit and contemplate life. Sometimes I'll even start talking to myself (more than usual) and it's almost like I'm going crazy, that or I begin yelling at myself about really random things that bother me, while pacing at high speeds. Worst case scenario is when I lock myself in my room and pull everything apart and put it back together completely differently. Of course, I can almost always stop myself before it gets out of hand.
Anyways...What are your mental breakdowns like? Or how do you handle them? Do you have them?

Tell me about it.

I landed in the mental hospital once for about 10 days once. Mentally worked myself into exhaustion and hadn't been sleeping enough hours for about 6 months.

Was hearing noises (whispering but not necessarily distinguishable words) and seeing movements that weren't happening.

I felt like my mind was completely out of control. Because the problems I was trying to solve were impossible problems -truly given the variables- I was doomed to fail but I was determined to keep trying. It was so beyond miserable before, during and after this experience.

Got out of the mental hospital after about 10 days and decided to make some major changes in my life. The kind of changes which changed the variables I had been trying to solve problems with in such a way that my problems actually have viable solutions. Things have been getting better and better ever since.

It was a pure mental breakdown experience similar to what Urakro so aptly articulates in his posting earlier:

"I've had one. It progressively got worse over the coarse of a week and a half before I went and checked myself into a hospital....

...I won't get into detail of all the thoughts during that week as they were all typical of a manic psychotic state. During the time, I wasn't eating or sleeping, and had absolutely no need for either.

Moments before going into the hospital, my brain got caught in a frightening loop that kept playing over and over beyond my control, faster and faster. Hardly being figurative, it was exactly like a short-circuit and the connections were glowing red with the added amperage and resistance. I was holding my head with both hands, doubled on the ground just wishing it would stop.***

When it did, it stopped ferociously abrupt, and I was slammed with an eerie silence. I wanted to think but my mind coldly didn't respond. The psyche went dead. I liken that experience to a blue screen of death.

"A fatal error has occurred. All processes are being terminated"

***my physical reaction was I was pacing relentlessly almost at a run and/or lying in a fetal position in bed staring into space wishing my existence would simply end somehow.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Just the usual. Had anxiety and depression for god knows how long. Perhaps even 7 years. Then one day I ended up painting pictures on the wall and trying to draw a picture on the wall with a kiwi fruit. I dont remember what else I did, but apparently I took a bath in cold water and coffee which seemed like a great idea at the time. All happend in one day and was diagnosed with psychosis. Paranoid schizophrenia.

 

[QuickTwist]

Hi,

I've had a few. They are not fun. My first one was when I was about 6. basically, what happened there is that I was trying to express that I saw something cool to my Dad (forgot what it was) and he said I was lying and didn't bother to check before physically punishing me. He tried to make it up to me by saying he was sorry, but I could tell he wasn't sincere.

Currently the relationship I have with my father consists of commenting on the weather. He also asks how I'm doing, which I always reply with "good" or "fine" and that's about it.

Mu trust and validation as a person with interests died that day and I've been trying to cope ever since.

I also am diagnosed with a mental illness which only occurs in .3% of the population.