If your partner is breaking down at work

Dear Bloggers,

It has been awhile as last year didn't finish that good for all of us. That is also the only reason that I haven't been very active on writing on my blog. I apologize and hope that I will find a little more time to share my stories. Today I will write about the hassle that my spouse has with her direct manager. Who turned all of a sudden a nice working environment into a hell gate. It all started approx. A half a year ago as it was time for the annual assessment. She somehow was not doing it right according to her manager and she needed to write a coachingsplanning for that. So I helped her out with making the planning. But her boss then does nothing with this planning and put it aside. It was probably too much work for him.

 

For many weeks she has skirted, danced, boggled and boogied around it and kinda explained why it happened but never really gone into much “depth” as in: what happened, how it happened, how it felt. So I got bored, I have a few hours, am tired of talking to my wife and that is why I am gonna blabber here for a while. As my wife is sleeping as she is tired and feels very empty. Our conclusion is a work burnout or even a “nervous breakdown”?
You could also call it an emotional breakdown or perhaps a mental breakdown, but in essence a “breakdown” has occurred when someone becomes unable to deal with normal day-to-day life.

It can be ignited following a particular trauma, a series of events, or can even happen randomly and out of the blue with no precipitating identifiable cause.
“Nervous breakdown” isn’t even a medical term because a breakdown is far more easily accepted than bipolar, depression or anxiety; it is stigma at work!
A breakdown generally occurs when your circuits become overloaded. Your brain, heart, soul, emotions whatever you are under so much stress that they short circuit, and then shut off, and then you can’t find a nice clean unbroken fuse to mend them.

A manager who brings you down so much that he was discussing with her to quit her job which set in motion a chain of events which would cause her to lose her income, her best friends and all of this happening whilst she was suffering from a new kind of medication for her lungs. As her asthma is becoming a pretty serious physical illness which could have killed her if there would have been no intervention.

I think any one or two of those things could have the power to trigger a breakdown, but to have so many stressful emotional events hitting you when you are already physically, mentally and emotionally devastated from your asthma and a boss that's on your neck. Will get you into a breakdown doesn’t surprise me.

Let me try to explain to you what happened.
The day my spouse realised something was seriously wrong was the Tuesday she spent working with a coachingsperson that gave her the last emotional hit and then she snapped. She totally lost it and was on an obvious level for several hours before sitting down with her boss. Who was telling her that she did not belong here as she was worse than a new trainee it was like she was stinged with a flaming stick. Now I had wanted to phone someone at this point, I knew something was brewing and I was worried as this will not be a happy ending. 
 

She spent the next day glued to the bed, unable to move, she came out of bed as she had to get the kids to school and she evaded the actual events which had happened the day before. I thought that by reading and over thinking them I would be able to forget them. I would be able to make her forget about this nasty thoughts. She was browsing on her mobile phone all day to find a solution for all her problems. I told her it is better really to speak to someone. 


On the Wednesday she crawled to the job again, on the Friday I saw her totally crashing and I played the psychologist again, on the Saturday she fled into painting the walls.
After that week the specific days have become blurry, everything is just a mess in her mind. I know I know that she fought herself I know she has tried to rebuild her life, I know I played the occasional psychologist, I know I tried to do anything and everything that I could to fight what was happening to her and help her to get our lives back to something that we were able to enjoy.

Her decision making capacity was shot to fuck, her conversational ability had gone; (and yes she normally talks a …..lot.) anxiety, depression, were showing itself more and more The fact she had overcome all of this only a few months before contributed to the continuation of her depressive episode with her lungs!

I don’t think anyone can truly understand what having a breakdown feels like unless they have experienced one. Like depression and burn out “breakdown” is an overused word and does not in any way fully describe the pain and torment your mind is constantly under. You literally cannot function on a normal day-to-day level; your body is besieged with physical pain and your mind is engulfed with the sort of emotional pain I would never wish on anyone.

Relationships and Friendships following a breakdown…
One of the hardest things she had to deal with was being told repeatedly that who she thought were her friends were not really her friends (an example of being isolated by her abuser) and wouldn’t be there for her. Thus she was unable to talk to them about what she was going through as she was afraid of pushing them away which was inevitably going to happen anyway and so had to fight her breakdown alone.
 
After a breakdown your self confidence and self worth will be virtually non-existent, thus your ability to retain friendships and relationships will be put under further strain. As you are not thinking clearly your actions may cause harm to those people you care about, even if it is inadvertent, so you may need to apologise for anything which happened during the breakdown and work on rebuilding those friendships.
Although you will need to work out whether the problem was caused by you, or by them, if it was their problem they will need to find a way to deal with it as you should not have to accept responsibility.

At this moment she can’t sit here and talk about friendship really, At the moment she doesn’t have any, and as she is still fighting her breakdown. I cannot give profound advice on healing rifts and repairing damage.
I will say however that, like everyone, a show of kindness and love can help someone who has suffered from a breakdown. We all want to feel loved, we all need kindness, to help us get by.

Can you overcome a nervous breakdown?
The breakdown my wife experienced earlier was absolutely the most painful, distressing, chaotic and fear inducing period of her life. She literally just couldn't think straight in any way, her brain shut down and wasn’t functioning on any level. It was a constant daily fight to get through each conversation, each hour, each day. And that is pretty exhausting.

The road to recovery following a nervous breakdown is hard work, it could take you anywhere from 6 months to 3 years to fully recover. It can be done however, it’s not going to be easy, pretending it isn’t there won’t help but just cause longer term problems, it’s going to be painful, destructive and the hardest fight of your life.
But it can be done, never lose hope of that.

As City to city sings: The road ahead is empty
It's paved, with miles of the unknown
Whatever seems to be your destination
Take life the way it comes, take life the way it is

The Old Sailor,