Can one ever be driven insane by circumstances without an underlying mental disease?

[astro]

By "insane" I mean seriously delusional and mentally unbalanced. I know movies and literature often rely on this plot device, but in real life can a person really be driven or made mentally insane by life circumstances and tragedies, without an underlying organic mental disease or defect of some sort already being present?

[susan]

Yes, by your definition. You might want to look up Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder online.

[Qadgop the Mercotan]

Yes. Extreme conflict, deprivation, and physical/emotional pain can do so. Those are also criteria for inducing PTSD.

QtM, MD

[kniz]

Children who suffer from severe abuse.

[Duderdude2]

But could this happen to anyone?

[js_africanus]

Originally posted by astro
...but in real life can a person really be driven or made mentally insane by life circumstances and tragedies, without an underlying organic mental disease or defect of some sort already being present?

You can even try it in the comfort of your own home: Go for three-hundred hours without sleep and you will be in for a wild ride!

[zoogirl]

Happened temporarily to a former boyfriend of Mr zoogirls sister. When she walked out he just lost it. He went limp on the kitchen floor in the middle of making breakfast and we had to haul him off to the hospital. He was in for about a week, as I recall.

[Zenster]

Yes, and the talking rocks that told me to say this will be visiting you quite soon.

[Kyla]

Yup. Look up Jerusalem Syndrome. Many of the people afflicted by it have no history of mental illness. (I knew a guy who acquired it, but he was manic depressive and so probably does not count.)

[Shalmanese]

Sensory deprivation?

[kambuckta]

If I recall correctly, there are two sorts of depression (depression being classified as a mental illness). One is 'reactive' which results from trauma that occurs in your life, and the other 'endogenous' which is believed to be biochemical in origin (and may bear no relationship to how 'good' your life is).

[Qadgop the Mercotan]

kambuckta, 99.9% of depressions don't make one delusional. The OP inquires about psychotic states. "Manic-depression", which frequently has a psychotic element is also a separate entity from the depressions you refer to, and is better described as "Bi-polar" anyway.

[Lumpy]

Extreme emotional trauma can produce psychotic symptoms, which is why Freudianism lasted as long as it did (in presuming that all psychosis was psychological in orgin). As to whether anyone can be "driven insane" if they're stressed enough, I don't know.

[Ranchoth]

Do "brainwashing" victims qualify as "mentally ill"?

Or what about "Genie", the girl who spent the first 13 years of her life in solitude, strapped in a chair by her abusive parents? It was never really determined if she suffered any mental retardation from birth, but after her rescue, she was never able to fully master language.

[irishgirl]

Some people will always be more susceptible, ANYONE could suffer a psychotic episode.

There are several drugs (legal, medicinal ones, eg steroids) that can produce psychosis as a side effect in some people. Nobody suggests that these people have some underlying mental disease, just that they are affected by the medicines in that way.

[jjimm]

Jerusalem Syndrome is also known as Stendhal's Syndrome, and (according to a documentary I heard last year) affects so many visitors to Florence that they've got a special ward for disoriented tourists at the local mental hospital. I experienced something similar during my first few days in Kathmandu.

[AHunter3]

Not only can it happen to "anyone" (or at least to a great many people under the right circumstances, and that would include me), there is no mechanism for determining whether or not the person to whom it happened has, or does not have, an "underlying" mental disease.

The docs don't test your blood for serum levels of schizophrenerase. All diagnoses are made on the basis of observed behavior and behavior to which the subject (or other folks) testify. Therefore the word "underlying" simply doesn't make any sense in this context. If it's "underlying" it can't be detected; if it is detectable, the "insane" symptoms are not distinguishable from something else that constitute the "disease itself".

The entire construct "mental illness", in the medical-model sense of being an actual somatic condition of the brain, a physical neuro disorder manifesting itself as the symptoms that land one a psychiatric diagnosis, is drawn from induction and (::checks forum: IMHO, assumption, i.e., in the absence of a preexisting hypothesis that mental illness existed, all the physical evidence found to date and concatenated into one research report would not tend to cause folks to conclude that any definitive phenomenon had been described there.

[Freudian Slit]

So...essentially, one can go crazy from seeing too many artifacts/paintings? That sounds incredible...Is there anything that won't make you go insane? Seirously. It seems these days that almost anything can drive you over the wall. What is it that makes one person more likely to exhibit these kinds of symptoms, while others aren't? Or do we not know that yet?

[MaryEFoo]

Originally posted by Qadgop the Mercotan
Yes. Extreme conflict, deprivation, and physical/emotional pain can do so. Those are also criteria for inducing PTSD.

QtM, MD

If these conditions in some way come into your life, is there anything you can do that would increase your resistance to delusions or mental imbalance?

[jjimm]

Originally posted by Zoggie
So...essentially, one can go crazy from seeing too many artifacts/paintings?

Basing it on my experience, I'd say it's something similar to agoraphobia, and it's more generally caused by sensory overload (cultural, spiritual, or artistic - depending on one's own personality).

[MaryEFoo]

IMHO the Stendahl's/Jerusalem syndrome might not be so bad to deal with, if you realize what might be happening.

Say you're in Florence, realizing you are walking where Michaelangelo walked with his friends, looking at these marvellous paintings and sculptures you have heard of and studied all your lift, being elevated by the sublime, then distressed by damage that has occurred, opening your mind to absorb the marvels you are viewing one after the other, finding out about more and more pieces you hadn't known about, seeing the architecture and fine interior finish and details of the buildings, feeling compelled to experience every possible masterpiece before your schedule takes you away, your excitement driving your body and mind from one to the next...

If you were aware of the possibility (as we Dopers are now), and began to realize you were getting overstimulated, you could go back to your hotel room with a book of crossword puzzles, or watch some mass-market TV for a spell. And no coffee.

...On preview, jjimm's beat me to it.

[Zenster]

Originally posted by Zoggie
So...essentially, one can go crazy from seeing too many artifacts/paintings? That sounds incredible...Is there anything that won't make you go insane? Seirously. It seems these days that almost anything can drive you over the wall. What is it that makes one person more likely to exhibit these kinds of symptoms, while others aren't? Or do we not know that yet?

I too find this almost unbelievable.

What proportion of these glassy eyed yahoos are simply witless morons who are dumbfounded at encountering a substantial metropolis so entirely devoted to art? This sounds like just another case of labeling marginal behavior so as to make it sound more impressive. Witness, "Oppositional Defiant Disorder." Now there's a symtomology for bullies all dressed up in a nice politically sensitive scientific sounding name. Who comes up with this drivel?

[Dr_Paprika]

C'mon, don't you guys read H.P. Lovecraft?

[Qadgop the Mercotan]

Originally posted by MaryEFoo
If these conditions in some way come into your life, is there anything you can do that would increase your resistance to delusions or mental imbalance?

Supportive human contact would be my first recommendation. Lots of it.

[AHunter3]

Yeah, I think Qadgop is right on target -- I wouldn't characterize the phenomenon as "there are these experiences that will drive anyone mad, I mean if you're exposed to them you're droolin', dude". The experiences tend to be of the type that rattle the picture of the universe that you carry along with you, and which you use moment-to-moment to make sense of your ongoing experiences. But that's rattle, not douse with gasoline and torch. Given someone to listen and give feedback, you're most likely going to be able to cope with some rearrangements in your world-view and go on with your life, continuing to be able to make sense of self and world, even if the changes make a difference in your overall conclusions and priorities and whatnot. The worst is when you are driven to think like (wait for it) crazy, to dwell on the vivid new experiences and insights and revelations and draw new conclusions based on them, and yet newer ones based on those, without anyone to run your thoughts by and obtain confirmation or critical feedback from.

That's generally how it drives you nuts, in fact. You make one left turn in your thought process and you're off the road without realizing it, and if there's no one in the back seat to mention this, you can build very quickly and with great intensity on conclusions that wouldn't really stand up to some pokes and counterproposals, and when you are weaving new understandings in your head this way you invest a lot of emotional commitment into them, so there's a sneaky hypnotic lure towards being less willing to suspend belief in these new untested unconventional understandings and reconsider them afresh than you might feel towards being willing to suspend belief about something "we all know".

Add in some personal trauma and pain and loss to the scenario in which you're doing all this intense reevaluation to really get your emotional self scraped raw and extra-sensitive and that and a bit of isolation can sure get you there in a hurry unless you've got the rare mixture of being able to be insensely dead serious about yourself and your ideas one minute and still capable of being amused at your shortcomings and able to laugh at the silly-ass stuff that you mistakenly embraced in the next moment.

[jjimm]

Originally posted by Zenster
I too find this almost unbelievable.

What proportion of these glassy eyed yahoos are simply witless morons who are dumbfounded at encountering a substantial metropolis so entirely devoted to art? This sounds like just another case of labeling marginal behavior so as to make it sound more impressive.

I admit it does sound odd, but I am one of these "glassy eyed yahoos" of whom you speak, and I can attest that it's real. The fact that a) there's an observable, repeated phenomenon, and b) someone gave it a name nearly 200 years ago after observing it, does kinda hint at its existence. From the link I gave above, it was first described in 1817 by Stendhal:

"I was in a sort of ecstasy, from the idea of being in Florence, close to the great men whose tombs I had seen. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty ... I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations ... Everything spoke so vividly to my soul. Ah, if I could only forget. I had palpitations of the heart, what in Berlin they call 'nerves.' Life was drained from me. I walked with the fear of falling.''

And then

160 years later, in the late 1970s, Dr. Graziella Magherini, at the time the chief of psychiatry at Florence's Santa Maria Nuova Hospital, noticed that many of the tourists who visited Florence were overcome with anything from temporary panic attacks to bouts of outright madness that lasted several days.

If you really want to experience it, or something like it, fly to Calcutta and go for a walk.

[blueangel199166]

Originally Posted by MaryEFoo

If these conditions in some way come into your life, is there anything you can do that would increase your resistance to delusions or mental imbalance?

I have a quote I have on a few places on the internet that I firmly belive in.

Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

One thing that would totally bother one person that you may laugh at, may not bother the next person, but the things you have problems with will make someone else laugh. Thats why we are all our own persons.

Can someone be driven insane, my beliefs are yes totally as I was close to going over the edge, to close in fact driven there.
But I do agree that other things happen first to let you be vulerable to happening, like depression or other happenings, Im not an authuority on this just an every day person who was almost driven there.
And I was once an am now a optimist my glass is half full not half empty, but durning that period, my glass was totally empty I felt.

Mine started when my marriage started to fall apart with slight depression, though still living in the house with him due to family an most friends living off in different states, my job I didnt want to lose, my child an an over abundance of bills my ex had made, along with a house, and he was so well liked an upstand great christain man who would do almost anything for anyone, and take poor people things in other states to help then that he would find out about. I was just a back ground picture.
He started off with little thing having my child hide things on me, when I knew I had put them one place he would have her put them somewhere else, he made a game of it with her as she latter told me.
Then it progressed to doing things in the middle of the night when I was sleeping. We had no doors on any rooms.Some I will not mention on here as it makes me sick to think of, but I can say he one thing that he did was to while I was sleeping he would sneak around in the dark come hiss in my ear an make growling noises which I did wake but laid there trying to decide what to do next, I knew no one would believe me so I tried to make a video tape of this happening, the sound went out on the recorder an the room stayed to dark to be able to see what he was doing, I kept trying to lighten it up with nite lites an little lamps but it didnt help still couldnt see, so I went an bought a can of mace an put it under my pillow so if he did it again, I was going to mace him, I would hide it before I went to work, then bring it back out at nite,then one day I forgot, that nite I looked an couldnt find it so looking under my pillow there it was, but guess what he had found it an had emptied it outside. It was at that point I knew I had to confront him along with a tape recorder in my pocket, I asked him why he said he hated me so much, I told him I wanted a divorce, a little while later he said he wanted some money, I said I didnt have any that it was all in the bank to pay for bills, bills he had made that he shouldnt have, but he would make more bills trying to get out from under the first ones an it just kept going an going. It was at that point he grabed me around the neck threw me on the ground an started chokin me, my 10 year old called 911 an he went to jail, we eventually lost the house and everything else he filed bankrupsty. Me an my child then moved to an apt. my child hospitalized for 2 weeks. an i was left paying all the deductibles an copays. because they cant get his check as he is self employedd.
He took her everother week end, she would come home saying how I went to friends an got drunk an sleeping with all these guys, how I was not spending child sport on her right, he told her i was just supose to let her spend it not help with food or shelter, well then i started staying home constantly so he wouldnt have nothing to say but that didnt stop him, she went for one more week end when she come back he told her i had all kinds of men over when she was going, an at this point i was starting to go deeper into depression, she stopped going to his house, but it didnt help much by than I was getting into bad shape, I knew he thought he was sneaky an was watching the house, he started to stalk me leaving messages calling making excuses to drop stuff off for her, i was told a restraining order would cost 500 I didnt have it,
he broke into my house when my child was there she woke with him standing over her, i called the sheriff, the sheriff said call lawyer, they really didnt want to do anything as our divorce was not final yet, i called lawyer he said call him an tell him next time he will be arrested, so i did this a month or so later I found things missing from my home, but no proof,
I was working in like a trance like state, I dont know how I did it.
I did decide at one point that I needed to try to do something to help my self get out of this trace like state, everything seems to be like in a fog or haze, I stayed dazed, except for work an a friend dragging me to the grocery store once in awhile, did i do any thing but stay on the internet where i felt safe , I procrastinated at just about everything i did, letting bills slide even when I paid most online, taking a bath, getting deeper an deeper in debt slipping deeper an deeper within my self, people had seen him driving by but they wouldnt do anything about it, then at christmas 2005 i did let him take her for the day, he had her call an ask if i could come to dinner, i said no, so he had her call saying if i didnt come that meant i didnt love her, so i thought ok maybe hes over it an i can show her we can be friends or that i want to try to be, but before i could get there he text me could he unwrap my present when i got there an that i was his present i didnt write back but when i got there, i told ok that was it it had to stop an stop now, I ate an left, I know he knew then that i meant it, thats when he started acting meaner an saying worse things to her so she didnt go anymore, i knew he was still watching my house but i couldnt prove it. in nov 2006 someone put battrie acid in my gas tank of my van, it did extensive damage to my fuel system, i did have insurance but i still had deductibles an had to have car to get to work so had to rent, i was totally freaking over all these new bills, having to spend money on things i didnt have money for was sending me deeper almost having panic attacks due to it, me an police knew it was him or his druggie girl friend, they are still investagating, but sure they will never know forsure, I was orderd to let him see her by the court, which he told her it was probly one of my many boy friends that did it, when in fact i didnt have any i stayed at home most the time except work.
my van broke down several times afterward due to what had happened the first time with the acid, i run credit cards up trying to fix, then guy who fixed said he couldnt quarentee that if would ever run right, so here i am with car that who knows what will happen, i was at the point of being kicked out of my appartment, couldnt even defend myself in divorce court on the virge of suside hated myself an my ex, i decided i needed help an went to the dr i was so bad dr wanted me to go into hospital for some testing i just was freaking, he set it up an told me where to go, as i was driving over there i started freaking out on how much money this was going to cost deductable wise an how much i already owed so i drove around it about 3 times an decided i was in the process of trying to move an freaking cause i didnt have the money to pay for it so i just went home,i knew i needed help bad so when a friend suggested i move in with her father who was alone an sometimes needed help remembering medication, I decided here was my chance we could possibly help each other out, I would be renting out a room from him an helping him with a few things but on the other hand he would be helping me just by not being alone but i knew i would have to make an effort to try to bring myself back even living with him, after i moved in my van broke down again, i had locked gas cap so i knew that couldnt be it an locked doors all the time, credit so bad had went to several places trying to find someone to get a loan so i could get rid of the van an get different car, even my own bank on a car of just 1000.00 wouldnt give me a loan, an i had never bounced a check even, from car place to car place looking, finally found one but had to pay outragious interest, an they had to come get my van as trade in because i couldnt even drive it there, the place they went threw that gave me the loan, later on the next week sent letter saying they couldnt do it, but was sending it to another to try lol, i was like omg are they comming for it. it took about 3 finance place till one finally did it.
i was told my child couldnt come here because this guy was my lover(which he was not, hes just an all around nice 73 year old guy trying to help me an in return has some company,hes never tried anything) an they tried to put it in some new court papers, so i had to use credit card again or never see my child to go back to court, but this hasnt effected me like the other times, im dealing with it alot better an starting to see the fog an haze lift, Its far from over but I am making progress, making myself get out more even if its just to eat, My one friend that believed me was the essential part of where i am today i believe, not only did she believe me but at one time she had been there so she truely believed me i could feel it, i make more of an effort to go places with my friend now when she asks instead of trying to find an excuse not to which is very easy to do, no one truely knows what its like untill you have hit rock bottom. In jan 2007 even i received a card from my ex even that said good bye in several different languages on the front then in side he wrote in big letters GOOD BYE and signed his name, yes i called an told police about it an they put it on record.
Maybe one of the hardest parts about it was knowing I had loved this man at one time so much, an knew and felt that he felt the same way at one time, we were married almost 27 years.

Oh an one thing we did find out for sure yes he was watching the house, he had good answer for why just of course happened by,lol ya right, he also admitted in court to some of the things he had done in the nite partially, but not the whole truth, but at that point i was almost gone, me or my laywer did nothing to protect me from other things that went on in that hearing.

But now im fighting back, its never to late, an new laywer an better outlook and less of a haze, a friend who knew what it was like an wanted to help and her father and for a child that i know needs me most of all.

My friend was probly the most help, then making myself tell myselt, I had to get help, I was letting my ex do exactly what he wanted to do all along what he set out to do, READ SOME of the self help on the internet even, If someone is driving you crazy decide your not going to let them win, Like the song says, I will go down with this ship I wont put my hands up in surrender. and remember your not the only one out there going threw this, theres millions of people everyday alot worse off than you, find them on the internet read about them, you will start to feel blessed once again. and remember when dealing with people to; ♥Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle♥

[Frank]

Closing zombie thread.