Quotes & Sayings About Nervous Breakdown

I feel unspeakably lonely. And I feel - drained. It is a blank state of mind and soul I cannot describe to you as I think it would not make any difference. Also it is a very private feeling I have - that of melting into a perpetual nervous breakdown. I am often questioning myself what I further want to do, who I further wish to be; which parts of me, exactly, are still functioning properly. No answers, darling. At all. — Anne Sexton

I was just absolutely exhausted. The media said I've been treated for a nervous breakdown. All that stuff I just took as people taking the opportunity when you're down to give you a kick. — John Hewson

Once asked what action he would recommend if a person were to feel a nervous breakdown coming on: Lock up your house, go across the railroad tracks, and find someone in need and do something for him. — Karl A. Menninger

He is a monk. On his card it says INNER PEACE CENTER. I will go there in February for a tea ceremony. Does he actually know more than I do about inner peace? If he met my relatives, would he have a nervous breakdown? What about his relatives? Do they drive him nuts? The truth is everybody gets on everybody's nerves. — Maira Kalman

When Mom had her first nervous breakdown, she said she had a vision of Christ coming to her in the living room. — Spalding Gray

I had low blood sugar, a chemical imbalance, plus the normal nervous breakdown everyone goes through from adolescence to adulthood. — Mel Brooks

But I have no idea what I did last night as - as that creature." Her voice shook. Abby was sure she was suffering a nervous breakdown. They would haul her to the insane asylum and wrap her in a nice white jacket then throw her in one of those pillow rooms - until they decided to strap her to a chair and make her sizzle as if she were a bug in a zapper. Oh my God. — Bonnie Gill

I was so devastated by my second divorce that I had a nervous breakdown. — Jane Fonda

Life is an on-going nervous breakdown culminating in death. — Sean Higgins

What are you going to have?" he asked.
"A nervous breakdown," she muttered and opened her menu.
So we'll tell the waitress to make that a double, he thought. — Jessica Bird

I had a nervous breakdown at 17 when my first love left me, and he was a typical bad boy, albeit a charismatic one, with a string of broken hearts trailing behind him. — Caroline Leavitt

I'm a very strong person, and I think that's why, actually, I find it really infuriating when I read, 'She had a nervous breakdown' or 'She's not very mentally stable, just a weak, frail little creature.' — Kate Bush

the heart of the novel. Holden in New York where he has something close to a nervous breakdown. Caulfield narrates the story to us — Jonathan Coupland

Do more than:Stop self-destructing. Save each other. Not have a nervous breakdown or six by twenty five. Decolonize our minds, our hair, our hearts. Transform into the phoenixes we were all meant to be. — Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

When you coach Russ Smith, you have a nervous breakdown on every possession. He's not from a different country. He's from a different planet. — Rick Pitino

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Albert Einstein didn't speak until he was four years old and was considered not very bright. Oprah Winfrey was demoted from a news anchor job because she was thought to be unfit for television. Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper for lacking imagination. Thomas Edison was called stupid by his teachers. The Beatles were told they didn't have a great sound and rejected by Decca Recording Studios. Dr. Suess was rejected by twenty-seven publishers. Abraham Lincoln had a long list of failures, including eight election losses and a nervous breakdown. — Tim Suttle

Let me share a famous life history with you. This was a man who failed in business at the age of twenty-one; was defeated in a legislative race at age twenty-two; failed again in business at age twenty-four; had his sweetheart die when he was age twennty-six; had a nervous breakdown at age twenty-seven; lost a congressional race at age thirty-four; lost a senatorial race at age forty-five; failed in an effort to become vice-president at age forty-seven; lost a senatorial race at age forty-nine; and was elected president of the United States at age fifty-two. This man was Abraham Lincoln. — Shiv Khera

I've got a group who can't play music, one bad comedian plus boyfriend, a nervous breakdown calling himself a magician, two coachloads of 70-year-old religious maniacs looking for a fight and a fancy-dress contest that nobody knew about. — Alan Bleasdale

What about James?"
"James? James, the guy I work with? James who takes ice cream scooping more seriously than anyone should? James who almost had a nervous breakdown when the chocolate and rainbow sprinkles accidentally got mixed together? That James?"
"He has a good work ethic. And he's cute."
"Hello, I'm not thirty. I don't want a good work ethic yet. I just want someone who can form complete sentences. — Robin Benway

A nervous breakdown waits around the corner for anyone who lets himself wallow in bitterness. Little by little, it takes over your whole being. — Mariama Ba

If you think you have big problems - and you are looking for more big problems - you will definitely have a lot of them. Instead of giving yourself a nervous breakdown when a difficult situation arises, put the situation into proper perspective. In the event you find yourself unemployed, sure, it's a problem of sorts. But compared to the situation of a pavement dweller in India, who has to spend twelve hours a day looking for water and food just to survive for another day, your problem of being unemployed in North America is quite a privilege — Ernie J Zelinski

If you want to give the devil a nervous breakdown, just get up every day and see how much good you can do. — Joyce Meyer

Serafina was late for dinner because her emotional robots had been having a nervous breakdown. — Charlie Jane Anders

T. S. Eliot taught us you can write about your nervous breakdown, but call it 'The Wasteland' and make it big and crazy enough to hide behind. — Mary Jo Bang

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important. — Bertrand Russell

I have been to hell and back. I had a very, very bad nervous breakdown. — Andy Gibb

I'd have a nervous breakdown except that I've been through this too many times to be nervous. — Peter McWilliams

The failed deal crushed McClure, precipitating a nervous breakdown in April 1900 that propelled him to Europe to undergo the celebrated "rest-cure" devised by an American physician, S. Weir Mitchell. Prescribed for a range of nervous disorders, the rest cure required that patients remain isolated for weeks or even months at a time, forbidden to read or write, rigidly adhering to a milk-only diet. Underlying this regimen was the assumption that "raw milk is a food the body easily turns into good blood," which would restore positive energy when pumped through the body. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

Horselover Fat's nervous breakdown began the day he got the phone call from Gloria asking if he had any Nembutals. — Philip K. Dick

You know what she said? She says nobody gets a nervous breakdown just from the war and all. She says you probably were unstable like, your whole goddam life. — J.D. Salinger

There are rituals not structures for being a poet, drinking too much, taking too many drugs, being a lady chaser, having your nervous breakdown, being irresponsible about money. — Diane Wakoski

John stuart mill knew several languages, advanced math and read many great books' before he was ten years old. his father taught him. in his early twenties he had a nervous breakdown and didn't leave his bed for three years. he read poetry and at started to feel better. he was a feminist and cared about human rights. five people went to his funeral — Megan Boyle

Look" I narrowed my eyes at Mr. Gorgeous. "I'm kind of in the middle of a nervous breakdown and after that I plan on having a very festive pity party, table for one, so unless you are here to put me out of my misery I suggest you scurry on your way. — Jennifer L. Hart

Before New York, the cracks were already there, but now they began to split open and gape, and the difference between how a thing or a place or a person appears and the reality becomes alarmingly visible, garish. — Elizabeth Winder

Whenever we doubt our own ability to achieve, it is worthwile pondering the obstacles that others have overcome. To name a few ...
*Napoleon overcame his considerable handicap, his tiny stature, to lead his conquering armies across Europe.
*Abraham Lincon failed in business aged 31, lost a legislative race and 32, again failed in business at 34, had his sweetheart die when he was 35, had a nervous breakdown at 36, lost congressional races aged 43, 46 and 48, lost a senatorial race at 55, failed in his efforts to become vice president of the U.S.A aged 56 and lost a further senatorial contest at 58. At 60 years of age he was elected president of the U.S.A and is now remembered as one of the great leaders in world history.
*Winston Churchill was a poor student with a speech impediment. Not only did he win a Nobel Prize at 24, but he became one of the most inspiring speakers of recent times.
It is not where you start that counts, but where you choose to finish. — Andrew Matthews

Lincoln failed in business. He failed as a farmer. He lost running for state legislature. He had a nervous breakdown. He was rejected for a job as a land officer. When he was finally elected to the legislature, he lost the vote to be speaker. He ran for Congress and lost. He ran for and lost a U.S. Senate seat. He ran for vice president and lost. He ran for the Senate and lost again. And, when he was finally elected president, the nation he was elected to lead broke apart. But by this time, all the activities, experiences, and people he came to know in the process helped him set a direction for that country that will stand as one of America's great legacies. — Anonymous

A ten-year-old boy doesn't want a hyper-dexterous giant to choke, just as a ten-year-old girl doesn't feel good when Britney Spears has a nervous breakdown on live TV. Only an adult can feel good about someone else's failure. — Chuck Klosterman

The bar staff and croupiers all wore black with the same green triangle logo emblazoned on their shirts, and contact lenses which made their eyes shine an eerie, vibrant green. The bar optics glowed with the same green light, the intensity of which was linked to the music. As the bartender walked away to fetch the drinks, a breakdown in the techno track commenced and the bottles began to palpitate. The bartender's eyes glowed with a hallucinatory felinity that made Mangle feel nervous. — R.D. Ronald

If you say you've had a nervous breakdown or things aren't right mentally, people run away from you. They think you're from 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest,' you know. — Frank Bruno

I'm having a nervous breakdown, she thought with relief. I'm about to lose my mind, and that's just as well, because this cannot possibly be fixed. It is simply not fixable. — Liane Moriarty

Everybody faces obstacles. And I looked to people who had been through many to succeed in life. Abraham Lincoln, born to a poor family, faced defeat through most of his life. Lost eight elections, failed two businesses, had a nervous breakdown, and still became president. — Dave Winfield

I'm doing good. I've had a slight nervous breakdown in the '60s. I got through that. And I got through the '70s. And I was in a doctor's program during the '80s and then I met Melinda and we've been together ever since. I've got a happy life. — Brian Wilson

The boarding-school experience in Paris was very hard, I didn't put up with it very well. I was sick all the time, or in any case frail, on the edge of a nervous breakdown. — Jacques Derrida

My mother was very ill when I was 18. She had a brain operation and then a nervous breakdown. It's very strange when you see your parents, who have always been your pillars of strength, suddenly become vulnerable. You don't know whether to be angry that they are not strong or devastated. — Emilia Fox

I believe what I call common sense gun reform. Plus, a revolution in mental health, making sure that if people are having a nervous breakdown, or are suicidal, or homicidal, they get the care they need when they need it. I think the vast majority of the American people can support and agenda composed of those features. — Bernie Sanders

Medically speaking, there is no such thing as a nervous breakdown. Which is very annoying to discover when you're right in the middle of one. — Marian Keyes

Hasn't everyone taken a nervous breakdown at some point? Maybe I suffered a nervous breakthrough. I don't know what to
think. It echoes inside your skull. — Kirkland Ciccone

When I was thirteen, I had a nervous breakdown, and I was put into this grown-up mental hospital with all these 50-, 60-year-old men and women. This big, Victorian mental house. There were like five boys in there, all my age, looked after by this woman who was 22 or 23. And it was like "Empire of the Sun" meets "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"-type of arrangement where you've got this young boy overcoming and becoming heroic in the face of this awful place. — Duncan Roy

Most of you guys can't see the potential in a nervous breakdown. A real collapse. There's more chance of finding yourself in a major depression than there is in a bottle Prozac. — Keith Ablow

A baseball game is simply a nervous breakdown divided into nine innings. — Earl Wilson

I wonder if anyone feels as though they're the same person they seem to remember. It would make them have a nervous breakdown. It probably wouldn't even make sense. I don't know if this is enough. I don't know what anybody else has told you. — David Foster Wallace

He felt as if he were under an intolerable physical strain, as if his body were likely at any moment to fly to pieces. Other strange physical symptoms came to trouble him. An unpleasant odour lingered in his nostrils, as if he could literally smell the sulphur of the pit; and he had from time to time the curious illusion that his flesh was turning black. He had to look continually at his hands to be sure that it was not so. Nightmares troubled him, waking and sleeping - and one bad dream conjured up another, running from box to box to release its fellows. The world around him seemed to have become equally mad and hateful. The newspapers were full of stories of grotesque violence and unnatural crimes. He knew neither how to go on nor what to do to bring these horrors to an end. — Iris Murdoch

There is an argument for believing that the entire process of writing a piece of fiction is simply a thinly-controlled and highly-internalised nervous breakdown designed, with a bit of luck, to produce something worthwhile at the end. — David Hewson

I've had boyfriends before, and frankly, each one was a disappointment.
There was nothing horribly wrong with these boys. It was my fault. I'm kind of a snob when it comes to guys.
So far, the biggest problem with the boys I've dated is that they weren't too smart. And eventually I ended up hating myself for being with them. It scared me, trying to pretend I was something I wasn't. I could see how easily it could be done, and it made me realize that was what most of the other girls were doing as well - pretending. If you were a girl, you could start pretending in high school and go on pretending your whole life, until, I suppose, you imploded and had a nervous breakdown, which is something that's happened to a few of the mothers around here. All of a sudden, one day something snaps and they don't get out of bed for three years. — Candace Bushnell

If I had a nervous breakdown every time something awful happened in the world, I'd be crazier than a shithouse rat. — John Green

Barry and I were in the middle of building a house, and I was in the midst of having a nervous breakdown, because that's what you do when you build a house. — Cynthia Weil

Prince Albert, or Bertie, as he was known in the family (his full names were Albert Frederick Arthur George), had been raised by nurses and tutors. His mother had played so little part in his upbringing that only after his nurse had suffered a nervous breakdown did she discover that the woman had not had a day off in over three years. — Theo Aronson

Even when I took the drugs I realized that this just wasn't fun anymore. The drugs had become a part of my routine. Something to wake me up. Something to help me sleep. Something to calm my nerves. There was a time when I was able to wake up, go to sleep, and have fun without a pill or a line to help me function. These days it felt like I might have a nervous breakdown if I didn't have them. — Cherie Currie

You can't rest in the shade of a human, not even a roly-poly one; and isn't it refreshing that trees can undergo periodic change without having a nervous breakdown over it? — Tom Robbins

I found out that I couldn't have a nervous breakdown. I tried a couple of times, but it just didn't work out. My mind, my body wouldn't let me. — Tom Smothers

When tears come, I breathe deeply and rest. I know I am swimming in a hallowed stream where many have gone before. I am not alone, crazy, or having a nervous breakdown . . . My heart is at work. My soul is awake. — Mary Margaret Funk

I was certainly open for something being on the edge of a nervous breakdown, perplexed by my own sexuality. I was gay. — Lionel Blue

The biggest trouble with success is that its formula is just about the same as that for a nervous breakdown. — John Holmes

As a nation the people of this lovely island called Britain, are at the point where even one honest politician could give us a collective and conceptual nervous breakdown. — Steve Merrick

The first thing you should know about me is when I was three years old my mother left me and my father. And that was traumatic obviously for my father - he suffered a nervous breakdown at that time in his life. — Robert Carlyle

Girls think they're only allowed to wear dresses on formal occasions, but I like a woman who says, you know, I'm going over to see a boy who is having a nervous breakdown, a boy whose connection to the sense of sight itself is tenuous, and gosh dang it, I am going to wear a dress for him. — John Green

I'm a neurotic Jew who doesn't want loans. I can't even carry a balance on my credit card without having a nervous breakdown. — Duff Goldman

I think Julianne Moore is very, very good. I've worked with her. We did Surviving Picasso. I remember one scene we did together. She had to have a nervous, a mental, breakdown in this one scene.I didn't have many lines. I just had to make sure I knew I came in on cue all right. And I was just watching her walking though the rehearsal. I thought I know what she's doing, "This is going to be terrific." So they said, "Are you ready" and she said, "Yeah," "Ok, roll the camera." And all in one take. — Anthony Hopkins

It's unthinkable not to love -you'd have a severe nervous breakdown. Or you'd have to be Philip Larkin. — Lawrence Durrell

I was born with a nervous breakdown. — Yves Saint-Laurent

Come on, there's no one there. You want coffee?" Tess asked.
"Yeah, sure, why not? I'm only on the brink of a nervous breakdown. I don't imagine why caffeine wouldn't help this situation. — Frankie Rose

she'd had a nervous breakdown. Johnny and Jimmy enjoyed the trappings — Adam Higginbotham

A bad liver is to a Frenchman what a nervous breakdown is to an American. Everyone has had one and everyone wants to talk about it. — Art Buchwald

And finally, count your blessings. You got through college. You didn't commit suicide, O.D., or have a nervous breakdown, and let's remember the ones who did. It's time to get busy. It's your turn to cause trouble. — John Waters

The girls in California were probably prettier in a standard sense than the New York girls
blonder and in better health, I guess; but I still preferred the way the girls in New York looked
stranger and more neurotic (a girl always looked more beautiful and fragile when she was about to have a nervous breakdown). — Andy Warhol

Not many people sleep with other men and when the other man leaves have a nervous breakdown. — Andrew Sullivan

Sometimes travelling really intensely for a long time is like having a continuous nervous breakdown. — Glen Hansard

One stifling summer afternoon last August, in the attic of a tiny stone house in Pennsylvania, I made a most interesting discovery: the shortest, cheapest method of inducing a nervous breakdown ever perfected. In this technique ... , the subject is placed in a sharply sloping attic heated to 340 F and given a mothproof closet known as the Jiffy-Cloz to assemble. — S.J Perelman

Coaching in the NBA is not easy. It's like a nervous breakdown with a paycheck. — Pat Williams

I've read a couple of things that I was sort of close to having a nervous breakdown. But I don't think I was. I was very, very tired. It was a really difficult time. — Kate Bush

It is perhaps fortunate that Sylvia was oblivious to the commotion behind the scenes. Apparently, Henry O. Teltscher had written a letter to Betsy Talbot Blackwell, warning her that one of her guest editors was on the brink of a nervous breakdown. — Elizabeth Winder

That's the spirit! Make it chicken broth or nothing. That's putting the old foot down. If she's determined to have a nervous breakdown, the least we can do is see that she doesn't have it in peace. — J.D. Salinger

Come on. Let's go and sit down. I need to have a beer and a nervous
breakdown."
"Talk first, then breakdown. I want answers, not drool."
"You used to love my drool."
"Ha. You funny. — Marjorie M. Liu

Dear Isabelle, Alec is about to have a nervous breakdown. If you do not immediately desist planing my wedding to your brother, I will come back to Manhattan and blow up the Institute. I will turn Church into a man-eating beast who will rampage through the streets of Manhattan, stepping on mundanes. And I will make you fat. Love, Magnus — Cassandra Clare

I think loss isolates a person. Everybody is far too nervous to ask you how you feel, in case you have a breakdown in front of them. It's much easier not to say anything and hope the pain goes away quickly and quietly. — Victoria Connelly

A quick glance at the American left reveals a movement in the midst of a nervous breakdown, displaying behavior that goes beyond inconsistency into the realm of bipolar moods and multiple personality disorders. — Michael Medved

With a suit, even if you're having a nervous breakdown, you still look like you're in charge. — Paul Feig

As you and I march across the decades of time, we are going to meet a lot of unpleasant situations that are so. They cannot be otherwise. We have our choice. We can either accept them as inevitable and adjust ourselves to them, or we can ruin our lives with rebellion and maybe end up with a nervous breakdown. — Dale Carnegie

I don't get into these petty things, Kentucky-Louisville. To me, it's nonsense ... There will be people at Kentucky that will have a nervous breakdown if they lose to us ... They've got to put the fences up on bridges. There will be people consumed by Louisville. — Rick Pitino

There are so many rules about play writing. I'd have a nervous breakdown if I followed them. — Terrence McNally

I'm f**king pathetic when it comes to being an entertainer. People come because they want to see me have a nervous breakdown. — Mark Linkous

The last thing we need is yet another makeup company. Even I have a nervous breakdown when I go through the department store makeup floor. — Lauren Hutton

In the 1880s, a weedy Easterner named Owen Wister had something like a nervous breakdown. Wyoming, with its wide-open spaces and healthy pursuits, was prescribed as a cure. Wister was immediately smitten by the taciturn cowboys and the rules imposed upon them by the cattle barons. — Clive Sinclair

Women's struggle for equality worldwide is about more than equality between men and women. Our struggle is about reversing the trends of social, economic, political, and ecological crisis - a global nervous breakdown! Our struggle is about creating sustainable lives and attainable dreams. — Bella Abzug

Neil should let it go, but he needed to understand. "Why not?" "Because you're too stupid to tell me no," Andrew said. "And you don't want me to tell you yes?" "This isn't yes. This is a nervous breakdown. I know the difference even if you don't." Andrew dug his thumb into his lower lip like he could erase the weight of Neil's mouth and fixed his stare on the horizon. "I won't be like them. I won't let you let me be." Neil opened his mouth, closed it, and tried again. "The next time one of them says you're soulless I might have to fight them." "Ninety-two percent," Andrew said, "going on ninety-three." It — Nora Sakavic

Mahmoud, sir. No, Doctor Mahmoud is not well. A - a slight nervous breakdown, sir. Van Tromp reflected that being dead drunk was the moral equivalent thereof. — Robert A. Heinlein

How do you know? How best to ensure his nervous breakdown?" I ask.
"Keep going," Christian says. "Just go on as if nothing has happened. We all hate that. — Suzanne Finnamore

The very use of the term "mental illness" (rather than, say, "neurosis", "insanity", "nervous breakdown", or other euphemisms) can be seen as an effort to move certain kinds of psychological distress into the biomedical realm. — Carl Elliott

I'm taking one thing at a time. With the children and launching my solo career it would drive me to a nervous breakdown if I tried to organise a wedding on top of that. — Natasha Hamilton

When you're a first time director, you're often considered what's called a "deadly attachment" in the eyes of financiers, because they're trusting you with a lot of money to bring something home, to get great performances, to not have a nervous breakdown in the process. — John Krokidas