Checking on your Work Colleague might just save his/her life

A ‘slow-motion breakdown’ is not a clinical term, but refers to the notion of a mental breakdown happening gradually over time. Most ‘breakdowns’ would happen gradually, most likely after a series of life events which exacerbate mental distress. There are only certain psychological disorders which would result in rapid onset of a breakdown.

A breakdown often occurs when a series of events over a period of time culminate in a significant decline in your social, psychological and emotional functioning.

There isn’t a set time for anyone to experience a mental breakdown, everyone is unique. It could be triggered from something that happened as a child and develops over a life time, or it could be something that happens as an adult and over a matter of months or years, if you don’t look after your mental health, it can slowly be chipped away leading to a gradual breakdown.

We have a notion in society that unless you’re having a mega breakdown that nothing is wrong, but we are normalizing the low hum of everyday chaos with wine, social media reliance, gossip, blame, being busy and even work. ‘The drive to numb the feelings through these everyday addictions is the warning sign that there is something afoot.

Most of us are used to just saying, “I’m fine”, when actually there is work to be done and ways to improve our emotional and physical health.

One day you’re working hard, coping with the stressors of life, the next you find yourself sobbing uncontrollably in the office, or completely unable to get out of bed or dress yourself. But mental breakdowns are not always these dramatic, rapid events where your world instantaneously falls down around you.

Sometimes breakdowns creep up on you, incrementally, for weeks, months or years – it can be hard to even notice it is happening and incredibly difficult to dig yourself out once it starts.