People Explain Which Things Can Really Break Someone Mentally

Those Closest

Toxic families leave people broken for a long time.

Umbraldisappointment

Lost Zzzzssss....

Lack of sleep.... seriously it's one of the most effective torture tactics out there.

jsmiff573

You beat me to it. You're 100% correct. It's more effective than physical torture.

Add to that screwing with the victim's sense of time. Keep him in a room with the lights on all the time. Serve him breakfast at, say, 8:00 a.m., then lunch at 11:00 and dinner at midnight.

Breakfast the next day at, say, 10:00 a.m. Keep doing stuff like this, making it impossible to tell how much time has passed. Let him fall asleep for a few minutes, then wake him with by pouring cold water on him.

Within just a few days he'll have sleeplessness-induced psychosis. He'll believe anything. "Remember" whatever you tell him. Confess to anything.

DancesWithTrout

Lost Faith

Seeing someone whom you had complete faith in, just switch on you and actively try to hurt you. Yeah it makes you question every little interaction with them.

incrediblerealitydis

Had this happen to me recently. Did not see it coming. My body and mind just shut down for a while. The sense of betrayal hurts more than the thing they did.

Scribberlings

And then over time you'll start noticing from remembering that time that those little interactions you had actually had sinister meanings behind them.

Horrible realizations however I feel it helps the healing process, knowing and understanding they were never a good person and there's nothing to change from it but learn, grow and live your life.

nahiaintdoingthat

9 to 5

Not being able to leave a crappy job with a toxic environment because people depend on you.

notyouravgredditer

Alone

Loneliness. I suffered a mental breakdown because of that in 2017, and still didn't recover completely. It has made my depression worse and it has affected my life deeply.

tliamatt

I get it. I really do. With being separated,empty nest,now lockdown, I totally understand. I also had a few breakdowns. Have you tried any Vitamin B12 and magnesium sulfate supplements?

These will speed up your recovery. Studies show that those who are really depressed and anxious often are lacking in magnesium sulfate, and B complex vitamins. I tried it, and it really helps. As for the loneliness, keep coming to the online platforms, you will find that there are other people who are battling it too. My heart goes out to you. Heres hoping things look up for you real soon. 💛

Platinumsurprise

Weapons

Emotional abuse. The abuser slowly learns to turn their partner's best traits into their weapons. They use and twist the love, compassion, patience and forgiveness they receive and fuel it with fear. Many victims need years to make sense of their story and trust themselves again.

Allegutennamenweg

Nothing can be off....

Perfectionism.

Pentacostal-Haircut

If you mean failure when you're a perfectionist, then this has happened to me. Nothing causes me to have a mental break except for when I fail at something that I check all the boxes to be perfect at.

guitarplex

The Public Evils

Working customer service.

SoundedDoughnut

My son is in customer service and tells me some of the terrible things people say to him every day. He tries hard not to let it brake him but after three years of it I'm afraid it's taking a toll on him.

Agreeable-Scratch424

Honesty Matters

Lack of trust.

When it's impossible to believe anyone, everyone becomes an enemy.

McMetas

To add: when you create a system where everyone is afraid of everyone else, anyone can be cracked to collaborate with the state (just threaten their family or livelihood)... it changes the whole populace... and if you are all alone in this... it can totally break you.

whatisherenow

A great quote I heard a while back went along the lines of "I'm not mad that you lied to me, I'm mad that I can't trust you anymore."

I feel that this is very similar to what you're saying. I've had a few close friends lie to me about some potentially serious matters and now it pains me to know that level of trust and confidence is gone.

Mustafa_19

Deep Breaths....

Stress.

weiyichi

Dude this should be higher up.

I really don't think people understand how bad this is. I have a host of problems because of a few months of chronic stress, things that seem like a real disease. I now even make more mistakes while speaking and am super spaced out a lot. Stay away from hyper stress. And most of all, don't stress about being stressed.

Scarlaire

the emptiness

Loss.

Lots of people just break when they lose their spouse, kids, friends or family. Either to death, or taken away by authorities.

greffedufois

I've always wondered how hard it must be for a parent to lose a kid. Basically your entire life's purpose ripped away unlike a child who knows that their parents will die and be gone someday and they will have to live through it. But most parents don't think they will have to live through their own children's death.

Father_Mooose

Being Still

Doing nothing for too long.

Maybe some people can handle it. But I remember many years ago I was not going to school or working for about 6 months and just about lost my mind.

BlazerFan86

Goliath

Bullying. (that's underrated, isn't it?)

Lee_errado

Damn right. If you're a decent person you just think the bully needs to see what a good person you really are and it will stop, so you try hard to change their mind about you. When the bullying then continues, you can really start to believe there is something defective about you.

Scribberlings

I was Wrong

Realizing that one has misplaced his trust in someone.

Even if trust was misplaced not because the other person was ill-intentioned, but just incompetent.

Points multiplied by the amount of trust one used to have.

Ferrara2020

Please Don't

The threat of being tortured.

Experts say more information is given up while anticipating torture than actually during it.

Scrappy_Larue

bad education

School.

shinyglassycanon123

In high school, you learn a subject over the course of a year. In college, that is condensed down into one semester. It's just a lot of information in a shorter period of time so you have to really stay on top of studying or you will quickly fall behind.

nago7650

A Time to Heal

My sibling works in a psyche ward. The answer: a lot of things. Like any part of your body your mind can break as well. Be it financial stress, drugs, even being kicked out of a band. What's surprising to most people is how common it is. The good news is it's also very common that, like a broken bone, it just needs a bit of time to heal. The vast majority of her patients are only in for a week or two before they have gone through their healing process, and are ready to move on in their life.

Wilthywonka

Career Moves

Being in an awful workplace where you are bullied, harassed and discriminated against will do it. It makes it even worse if your disability means you'll struggle to find elsewhere and you need a job to feed, cloth and put a roof over your child's head.

CyrilNiff

Life

For me is was a wave of tragic deaths.

My miscarriage

My mom's death due to alcohol induced organ failure

My step grandfather's death, who I just discovered was my biological grandfather

I was a wreck. I had always had depression but this was just bad.

My anxiety and stress was so through the roof that I put on 40 lbs and was starting to have major problems with my vision. I thought I had torn a retina, when it was actually just a great amount more pressure in my eye. And my cycles were so out of whack that my Dr thought I might be starting early menopause (which does runs in my family, and I will have to deal with eventually, but I'm not even 30 yet).

Anyway I'm all better now. In fact I'm happier/more content than I've been my whole life.

Reddit

Living Single

Dating can. You have enough people treat you like crap or refuse to give you a chance because of a trait you have that is totally out of your control, it makes you give up and just accept you will be alone forever.

Cannabilistichokie