What to do After a Mental Breakdown
Mental breakdowns, nervous breakdowns, or simply breakdowns, are scary mental health issues that leave people feeling hopeless. After a mental breakdown, the most important things you can do are:
- Find support
- Seek treatment
- Make lifestyle changes
- Learn new healthy coping skills
Breakdowns can feel like the end of the world, but you can bounce back.
What it Means to Have a Mental Breakdown
Mental breakdowns are similar to panic attacks, but less acute. They can stretch over a period of time, and feel like a loss of control—over your emotions and your thoughts. They usually happen when specific life stressors cause overwhelming anxiety over a long period of time. You may have held your composure for a long time, but eventually, you lost the energy.
During a mental breakdown, you’ll experience intense levels of:
- Anxiety
- Stress
- Fear
They can include physical symptoms such as:
- Insomnia
- Extreme fatigue
- Hallucinations
- Digestive issues
A mental breakdown is a mental health crisis that brings daily living to a halt. It’s common to feel unable to do anything during a breakdown. They’re scary, but they’re not uncommon.
Related Article: Mental Health Relapses
What Causes Mental Breakdowns
Nervous breakdowns occur when the stress of life becomes too much to cope with. Stress can only build for so long. If not dealt with properly, built-up stress will eventually come crashing out.
The source of this stress can come from a single source or a build-up of several things. These include:
- Job or financial stress
- Experiencing mental illness
- Lose of a loved one
- Taking on more responsibility
- Burnout
Everyone is capable of experiencing a mental breakdown. How you cope with stress plays a big part in whether or not you’ll experience one. Coping skills and healthy habits can help you avoid them, but sometimes stress can become too much.
Apart from stress, a mental breakdown can be indicative of an underlying mental health issue.
What Happens Before a Mental Breakdown
Nervous breakdowns can seem to come out of nowhere, but there are warning signs you can look out for.
- Brain fog
- Begin having difficulty with stress
- Feeling isolated or apathetic
- Losing control of responsibilities
- Low moods including depression or anxiety
- Returning to old habits
Before a mental breakdown, it’s common to feel high levels of stress begin to well up over you. If you start to feel this, stop what you’re doing and take some time for yourself.
How Long Mental Breakdowns Usually Last
There’s no way to know for certain how long mental breakdowns will last. If you ever find yourself experiencing a mental breakdown, call your healthcare provider.
If you don’t have a health care provider, call SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) to get information about the resources available to you. If you’re having thoughts of harming yourself call 988 to reach the suicide and crisis lifeline.
Here’s What To Do After You’ve Had a Mental Breakdown
Nervous breakdowns are scary, and it’s hard to know what to do after experiencing one. Here are a few things you can do to help with recovery:
- Reach out to your support system
- Get evaluated by a professional
- Create a plan for dealing with stress
- Start therapy
- Seek residential treatment
- Change your lifestyle
All of these steps can not only help you recover, but they can also help prevent another breakdown and teach you what to do if it does happen.
Reach Out To Existing Support
If you’ve gone through treatment or are attending therapy, you should have a current support group you can reach out to.
Contact them and talk with them about how you’re doing and what has happened. Check-in with your therapist and explain what happened. They may want to readjust your treatment plan or change their approach to your care.
Get Evaluated
It's a good idea to get checked up by a doctor or psychiatrist after a mental breakdown. Connect with a healthcare professional to get evaluated. They may help you find an underlying issue, or they can give you resources or referrals that can help you along your journey.
Create a Plan
With the help of a healthcare professional, you can build a plan that will help you address any underlying issues and teach you coping skills and healthy habits that will help you avoid breakdowns in the future.
This will also include what to look out for and who to call if you begin to feel a breakdown coming.
Your plan should also include the next steps regarding treatment options. Treatment options after a mental health crisis range from group therapy to residential treatment. Your care provider should be able to guide you to which treatment option is best for you.
Attend Therapy
The goal of therapy after a breakdown is to address any underlying issues, teach new coping skills, and give guidance about lifestyle changes. As part of your treatment plan, you may be encouraged to attend therapy.
Related Article: What to Expect From Therapy
Some therapies, like skill-focused group therapy, focus on building positive coping mechanisms. Some of the therapy options after a mental breakdown include:
These different therapies teach you how to recover, and how to prepare for future hardships.
Other therapies are more mindfulness-focused, aimed at teaching you how to come back to your emotional baseline:
Similar to other therapies, these mindfulness-focused modalities also give you tools for preventing a nervous breakdown in the future.
Related Article: Mindfulness Breathing Exercises
Look Into Residential Treatment
Depending on the severity of your breakdown, you may want to consider staying at a residential treatment facility for a time. Your health provider can give you recommendations or you can call local facilities to get an opinion on your situation.
Residential treatment gives you space to focus on your mental well-being. You’ll be given a treatment plan that is tailored to your needs and preferences. During your time at residential treatment, you’ll engage in different forms of therapy including individual and group. You’ll learn new coping skills that will help you deal with difficult situations when they arrive.
If you aren’t a good candidate for residential treatment, there are other outpatient options.
Sequoia Behavioral Health offers three levels of care:
Each program is designed to give you holistic treatment that will address the core of your problems. If you’re interested in learning more, schedule a call and find out how we can help.
Change Your Lifestyle
Depending on your situation you may need to change some habits and behaviors.
A nervous breakdown can help you see that something needs to change. If your job was a major source of stress, it might be a good time to start looking for a new one. Maybe you took on too many responsibilities for yourself and others. You may need to learn how to say no and take care of yourself.
Other lifestyle changes to consider after a mental breakdown include:
- Eating healthy
- Taking care of your sleep hygiene
- Eliminating caffeine
- Stop smoking or using other substances
- Reaching out to loved ones for support
- Daily relaxation techniques like meditation
Building these habits into your life will help you keep a healthy lifestyle and avoid nervous breakdowns in the future.
Finding Support
After a nervous breakdown, you need support. A major part of this will include social support. You should take time out of your daily schedule to focus on cultivating relationships with friends or family.
This is easier for some people than others. Not everyone has a preexisting support system they can call on when things get tough. That’s one reason group therapy is a great option after a mental breakdown.
When to Talk With a Care Provider
If you’ve experienced a mental health crisis it’s always a good idea to talk with your care provider. It’s recommended that you begin to seek help after 2 weeks of persistent stress that debilitates your daily life. However, keeping your provider updated on how you’re feeling is a good idea. They can keep an eye on you and give you instructions on what to do if things become worse
If you’re experiencing extreme symptoms and are considering hurting yourself, call 988 to reach the suicide and crisis lifeline. Or you can call the SAMHSA crisis line at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) to receive guidance on referrals and what to do next.
Finding Support at Sequoia Behavioral Health
We’ve made the admissions process as easy as possible. You can get started by scheduling a phone call or providing your insurance information. We’ll verify your insurance for you and we’ll call you if there is any information you don’t understand.
Once you arrive we’ll develop a treatment plan for you that addresses the root of your mental health problem. Get the holistic treatment you need and start feeling better by giving us a call.