In THE NEW YORK TIMES today, Benedict Carey surveys all the terms applied to that state of being when the center cannot hold. They range from "nervous breakdown" to "burnout."
But they lack the self-conscious wordsmithing of those narcissistic types like Hamlet who take that road increasingly traveled. Despite the stigma they might still carry, those little or big departures from the life-as-usual tend to interest us sensitive types to no end. With a touch of grandiosity I refer to my two clinical depressions as "the soul breaking through." No longer could I hold down who I was with careerism, ideology, and even writing.
The less sensitive label the experience as malpractice - and sue. In some kind of psychoanalysis for five years, three times a week - which would make any normal person crack up - an acquaintance launched a long and complicated lawsuit. She had taped every session so that was plenty of material to sort though and find psychiatric misdeeds. Probably, though, the biggest piece of evidence was right out there. During that therapy she had gained so much weight that she could no longer climb the stairs at home. Her bed was brought down to the living room. Many nights she would stay up, eat M&Ms peanut variety, and listen to those five years of tapes.
Then there are the religious. A family member referred to the time after her mother died and she was unable to leave the house and her books on death [we fetched those for her] as the devil getting to her. But learn from it she did. When her husband died she held at bay the devil by always being out of the house and not wondering a fig about death.
Taking a break from life seems the sane thing to do. Also, I have never known anyone, including myself, who didn't emerge with a deeper sense of who they were and what or who could do it that self. Maybe it's an inefficient way to learn but learn we do.
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