After a breakdown, many people will say that they don't know how they'd ever have gotten well if they didn't fall ill.
During a breakdown, we have not gone mad. We behave oddly, but deep inside, there is a search for health. If we can get through our crisis, it can dislodge us from a toxic status quo and call us to rebuild our lives more authentically.

Rebuilding our lives

A breakdown is an attempt of one part of our minds to force the other part into growth, self-understanding and self-development that we refuse to undertake. In essence, it's an attempt to jumpstart a process of getting well. 
There is then a danger to merely medicalising the breakdown and attempting to push it out the way. 
We break down because, over the years, there were messages we needed to hear but didn't pay attention to; emotional learning and communicating we didn't do until the emotional self became desperate to make itself heard.

A breakdown is a bid for health

As human beings, we're very good at keeping going. We live up to our demands and carry out demands others place on us. We keep on showing up and can do this for decades at a time.
Then, one day, much to everyone's surprise, and our own, we break. We can no longer get out of bed. We fall into depression. We don't feel like eating. We refuse to play by the normal rules we've lived by.
But breakdowns are very inconvenient to others, so there's a rush to medicalise the problem so that it can be business as usual. To do this is to misunderstand what's going on.

Breaking down

A breakdown lets us know that things have to change. 
But we find it difficult to simply listen to the emotional need in good time because the conscious mind is inherently reluctant to engage with what the breakdown eventually has to tell it. For years it refuses to listen to sadness or to the dysfunction in a relationship.

A breakdown is telling us that it must not be business as usual

Having a nervous breakdown could seem like the ultimate calamity. Far from it. Handled correctly, it can be a unique opportunity to learn - and to get properly well. For books and more from The School of Life, visit our online shop: https://goo.gl/xQbjf7 Join our mailing list: http://bit.ly/2e0TQNJ Our website has classes, articles and products to help you think and grow: https://goo.gl/UKp6aa Z3L41X FURTHER READING “One of the great problems of human beings is that we’re far too good at keeping going. We’re experts at surrendering to the demands of the external world, living up to what is expected of us and getting on with the priorities as others around us define them. We keep showing up and being an excellent boy or girl – and we can pull this magical feat off for up to decades at a time, without so much as an outward twitch or crack...” You can read more on this and other subjects on our blog, here: https://goo.gl/we9Rvx MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Visit us in person at our London HQ: https://goo.gl/P3jM5H Watch more films on SELF in our playlist: http://bit.ly/TSOLself You can submit translations and transcripts on all of our videos here: https://www.youtube.com/timedtext_cs_panel?c=UC7IcJI8PUf5Z3zKxnZvTBog&tab=2 Find out how more here: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6054623?hl=en-GB SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Z3L41X Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Gemma Green-Hope http://www.gemmagreenhope.com #TheSchoolOfLife

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Having a nervous breakdown could seem like the ultimate calamity. Far from it. Handled correctly, it can be a unique opportunity to learn - and to get properly well.
For books and more from The School of Life, visit our online shop: https://goo.gl/xQbjf7
Join our mailing list: http://bit.ly/2e0TQNJ 
Our website has classes, articles and products to help you think and grow: https://goo.gl/UKp6aa
Z3L41X

FURTHER READING

“One of the great problems of human beings is that we’re far too good at keeping going. We’re experts at surrendering to the demands of the external world, living up to what is expected of us and getting on with the priorities as others around us define them. We keep showing up and being an excellent boy or girl – and we can pull this magical feat off for up to decades at a time, without so much as an outward twitch or crack...”

You can read more on this and other subjects on our blog, here: https://goo.gl/we9Rvx

MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE

Visit us in person at our London HQ: https://goo.gl/P3jM5H

Watch more films on SELF in our playlist: 
http://bit.ly/TSOLself

You can submit translations and transcripts on all of our videos here: https://www.youtube.com/timedtext_cs_panel?c=UC7IcJI8PUf5Z3zKxnZvTBog&tab=2 
Find out how more here: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6054623?hl=en-GB 


SOCIAL MEDIA

Feel free to follow us at the links below:

Z3L41X
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/  
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CREDITS

Produced in collaboration with:
Gemma Green-Hope
http://www.gemmagreenhope.com #TheSchoolOfLife

We're interested in self-understanding, calm and emotional maturity.

We have thousands of articles about emotional life for you on our website: www.theschooloflife.com

We offer online psychotherapy: www.theschooloflife.com/therapy

We publish one film a week, on Wednesdays at 14.00hrs GMT.