A Mental breakdown is defined as a time-limited breakdown that manifests in a stressful situation in which a person is temporarily unable to function normally in day-to-day life. It’s commonly understood to occur when life’s demands become physically and emotionally overwhelming.
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It wasn’t until I was smack dab in the middle of my twenties that I began to experience anxiety. Sure from time to time I would get nervous before an important event, test or sad at death or random things like anybody else. But I would experience it briefly then it would pass.
As a kid I would hear adults talk about “the real world” and say things like “when reality hits you” but me in my sarcastic mind always thought “what do you mean? What kind of world am I living in then? A fake one”. But the Quarter Life Crisis crept behind me and swallowed me whole.
I was stressed, lost, over ambitious, scared, too busy, and angry.
You see nobody ever talks to you about the stress when you feel like you aren’t doing enough.
Nobody ever tells you how it feels to go to a job everyday and do the same things day after day, year after year and get bored. Nobody ever tells you that company potlucks and once a month “Girls night in’s” become what you look forward to. Nobody ever explains the indescribable feelings you get when you are crunching 40+ hours a week , stuck reminiscing about wild college nights . The times where you tested your body to its limits just by simply staying up all day after a hangover.
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Now you can barely stay up past 10 pm and if you get less than 6 hours of sleep your grumpy.
I got so bored and anxious and depressed that I started doing things I knew I would never do. I was sabotaging myself to stay interested in life.
Which landed me into bigger situations with adult consequences. I was so bored, underwhelmed , wound up, and busy that I had a quarter life break down. The last few years of your twenties you begin to develop a higher level of discernment. People, events and situations will begin to look and feel different. For me this meant clearing away a lot of “stuff” that I loved. This hurt, and I was really lonely at first.
It is like your whole life people tell you what you should do next. Get a degree, get married, buy a house, have children and in that order. I had to get really honest with myself and ask do I really want these things?
When you realize you are living a life someone hundred’s of years ago made up it throws you for a loop. Like stepping out of the matrix, realizing you have the power to do anything, and conquer it because it is YOUR life. This realization forces you to search for who you are and what you really want.
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I called out of being an adult.
I took a mental health leave (found out real adults take it all the time it is called FMLA, learn it!). In that time I gathered the broken parts of Jamya that I ignored. That took me being really humble, humility saves you. I had to admit to myself and others that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, where I wanted to go or how I would get there.
I couldn’t be a role model in those moments and the only friend I could be was to myself. After you break down after the tears, the hurt and confusion you will find peace.
The keys to your future lie in what you do everyday. Are you the stylist of your crew or the counselor. Do you mix the best drinks or cook the best dishes. Are you a student of love and love to give advice? The bridge to your happiness is in the break down. There is an ancient saying that says “you have to have destruction in order to have creation”.
Allow yourself to be weak so that you can get to the other side of your strength.
Signed,
AnUrbanGirl
An Urban Girl Blogs 