# Can a person just "go crazy"?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-person-just-go-crazy/423581
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 22, 2007, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-person-just-go-crazy/423581 "2007-10-22T17:05:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Phantom\_Dennis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phantom_Dennis)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2007, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-person-just-go-crazy/423581/1 "2007-10-22T17:05:57Z")
It’s a cliche in horror novels that a character can witness something so horrible that he will lose his sanity. Can this really happen? I know that people with a biological predisposition for something like schizophrenia can be pushed over the edge by stressful events, but what about a healthy person?
---
### Author:  [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2007, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-person-just-go-crazy/423581/2 "2007-10-22T17:20:30Z")
[Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-traumatic_stress_disorder) is very real and would fit your criteria. Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder usually develop over time in a person’s late teens to early 20’s and shouldn’t be caused by a single traumatic event although that certainly wouldn’t help anything.
---
### Author:  [@Phantom\_Dennis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phantom_Dennis)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2007, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-person-just-go-crazy/423581/3 "2007-10-22T18:36:21Z")
I guess PTSD is not exactly what I had in mind. It seems that people who suffer from this disorder have severe emotional problems, but most would not consider them “crazy” in the colloquial sense. I.e., they aren’t talking to walls or running in circles or claiming to be Jesus.
---
### Author:  [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2007, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-person-just-go-crazy/423581/4 "2007-10-22T18:53:20Z")
You’d likely only see this if the character in your fiction was ALREADY a little bit off.
A disturbing event can CERTAINLY help someone who is emotionally disturbed, but coping with their illness go into a state where their grasp on reality fails.
---
### Author:  [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2007, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-person-just-go-crazy/423581/5 "2007-10-22T18:57:27Z")
Well then you need to define what you mean by crazy.
The kind of horrible event you describe in your OP would be of a magnitude that would seriously compromise someone’s sense of reality–maybe more gore/agony/cruelty/noise/teror than they thought was possible: the gaze of Cthulu–with a lasting adverse effect. Surely some folks would be more predisposed to being reduced to a drooling shell of a person than others, maybe because of an underlying issue. So…wha choo mean by crazy?
An “otherwise healthy person” is dificult to identify given the large number of borderline nutjobs out there who unknowingly put on a pretty good show of normal.
---
### Author:  [@Phantom\_Dennis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phantom_Dennis)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2007, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-person-just-go-crazy/423581/6 "2007-10-22T19:17:32Z")
I guess my definition of “crazy” involves delusions, halucinations, disorganized thinking, or loss of contact with the real world. So I suppose a person with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, or severe bipolar disorder would fit the bill. (Note: I realize this term can be derogatory and I’d try not to use it to refer to a person with one of these illnesses).
---
### Author:  [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2007, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-person-just-go-crazy/423581/7 "2007-10-22T19:31:49Z")
[QUOTE=Phantom Dennis]
I guess my definition of “crazy” involves delusions, halucinations, disorganized thinking, or loss of contact with the real world.
[/QUOTE]
Have you ever closely known someone with PTSD? It can get pretty and cause some version of all the problems you list. Flashbacks are fairly common and a break from reality can also occur. I knew someone with PTSD that would wake up in the middle of the night and believe that he was in Vietnam with associated screaming and everything. He couldn’t be approached by anyone when he was in that state because he was violent and dangerous.
---
### Author:  [@Mr.Duality](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Duality)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2007, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-person-just-go-crazy/423581/8 "2007-10-22T21:33:05Z")
Ever wonder where the phrase “run amok” came from?
> **[Running amok](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runs_amok)**
>
> Amok syndrome is an aggressive dissociative behavioral pattern derived from Indonesia and Malaysia that led to the English phrase, running amok. The word derives from the Malay word amuk, traditionally meaning "an episode of sudden mass assault against people or objects, usually by a single individual, following a period of brooding, which has traditionally been regarded as occurring especially in Malaysian culture but is now increasingly viewed as psychopathological behavior". The sy The term am...
My 2 cents worth: An extremely hard life and hopelessnes can lead to such a thing.
---
### Author:  [@antechinus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antechinus)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2007, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-person-just-go-crazy/423581/9 "2007-10-22T23:08:02Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Duality]
Ever wonder where the phrase “run amok” came from?
> **[Amok syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runs_amok)**
>
> Amok syndrome is an aggressive dissociative behavioral pattern derived from the Malay world which led to the English phrase running amok. The word derives from the Malay word amuk, traditionally meaning "rushing in a frenzy" or "attacking furiously". Amok syndrome presents as an episode of sudden mass assault against people or objects following a period of brooding. It has traditionally been regarded as specifically occurring in Malay culture, but is now increasingly viewed as more gener The term...
My 2 cents worth: An extremely hard life and hopelessnes can lead to such a thing.
[/QUOTE]
Aside: There is a museum in Darwin that has a macabre device called an ‘amok catcher’ on display. This is a device made out of bamboo and wood which is essentially a long pole with a lyre shaped bow mounted at one end of the pole to the middle of the bow. The bow would fit around the amok persons neck to pin him to the ground. Here’s, the grisly bit: a sharp spiked rod is pushed down the centre of the pole into the back of the amok’s neck, thus rendering them non-amok.
---
### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2007, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-person-just-go-crazy/423581/10 "2007-10-23T00:11:32Z")
[QUOTE=Phantom Dennis]
I guess my definition of “crazy” involves delusions, halucinations, disorganized thinking, or loss of contact with the real world. So I suppose a person with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, or severe bipolar disorder would fit the bill. (Note: I realize this term can be derogatory and I’d try not to use it to refer to a person with one of these illnesses).
[/QUOTE]
I would say yes. I experienced two bad panic attacks in my life, and they involved intense delusions, disorganized thinking, paranoia, and dissociation (the feeling of being outside of myself looking at me as a character in a dream or something.) I don’t otherwise have any known psychological problems.
---
### Author:  [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2007, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-person-just-go-crazy/423581/11 "2007-10-23T01:34:34Z")
How about [fugue states?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugue_state)
---
### Author:  [@solkoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solkoe)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2007, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-person-just-go-crazy/423581/12 "2007-10-23T02:11:26Z")
WWI soldiers definitely went crazy as a result of the cruel conditions particularly the days and days of heaving bombing. I’m actually surprised that more didn’t go crazy. Everyone has their own limits.