The Day My Mind Snapped

One night I woke up and snapped. I was stressed out from work, school, social life and various other things that people go through. Evidently, I opened the door and ran to the bus stop after hearing my mom yelling. I don’t remember. I found myself running the streets, hiding from cars, and scared of everything. It’s like my mind just snapped because of all the stress. After I started running the streets my family called the cops because no one could find me. That was the first day of my experience of having a nervous breakdown. I joined the ranks of people inside of mental wards, classified as “disabled” for the rest of their lives, feeling hella emotional because they are trying to be “normal” and ending up in the psychiatric system.

 

Disorders are common in the United States and internationally. An estimated 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older about one in four adults suffer from a disgnosable mental disorder in a given year. When applied to the 2004 U.S. Census residential population estimate for ages 18 and older, this figure translates to 57.7 million people. Even though mental disorders are widespread in the population, the main burden of illness is concentrated in a much smaller proportion about 6 percent, or 1 in 17 who suffer from a serious mental illness. It is a known fact that people who have mental illness usually show it in their early twenties and to thirties. This was the age I was when I had my nervous breakdown, and people think mid life crises happen in peoples’ fifties, but mental breaks happen earlier in age.

 

A lot of stress brought me to the place of having a nervous breakdown. I thought people were after me, and I kept getting harassed from various people I ised to know. The people who were my social family literally kicked me to the curb. Of course, not one of them knew my family background and what could actually happen to me under such stress. I never thought my mental illness trigger, until this horrible experience happened. I spent my whole life bscared of ending up like my mom and her family. I always had the impression that if you have mental illness you are weak. Now I know that’s not the case.

 

There are a lot of different dynamics regarding mental illness and how it affects people. My mom’s family suffers from depression, anxiety, and other various issues I don’t even want to mention. My mom had a nervous breakdown just like her mom; mental illness is a chemical imbalance that affects your persona in all different ways. Though it runs in my family me being a young independent woman never thought that I could get the mental illness as well. I am not the first and I will not be the last person that has had a nervous breakdown. Physical disability is different from mental because it never goes away. It can get better with medicine but the rest of the journey is filled with personal suffering. I come from a disabled family and not one person knows what it feels like unless they have one themselves. I sincerely believe people who suffer from mental illness can achieve anything they want to. The only difference is you have to take medicing for the rest of your life and be assigned to a psychiatrist. I hate people who classify people with mental illness as dangerous and outraged people. Discovering mental illness is actually a blessing because usually some people have it and don’t even know it. After rehabilitation through the hospital the life of a person with mental illness will become easier. Mental illness is real and instead of throwing someone in the hospital and throwing out the key there should be programs to help and individual cope with this disease into a transition of a normal life.