Recovering from Nervous Breakdown - What to do with Betrayal

If you or a loved one have - or are - suffering from a nervous breakdown (or any number of mental illnesses) be warned: you're not going to like this post very much. The reason? The subject for today is Betrayal - the betrayal that nervous breakdown sufferers can cause, and the betrayal that those same sufferers...well, suffer. It's a painful topic and one that can possibly trigger negative emotional reactions.

But it must be discussed.

In my case, betrayal (or my perception of betrayal), and its aftermath, has been the single worst cause for anxiety and depression during, and following, my breakdown. Betrayal - caused by friends, colleagues, and loved ones, and directed by me to those same people - shattered my paradigm of living. Everything that I believed in - my family, my God, myself and the values that I held dear - crumbled to dust. The anchors that I had used to stay strong during emotional gales tore and snapped, and my ship was swept out into a maelstrom of illness. And this feeling of being lost and without hope on a lonely storm-tossed sea is, I suspect, common among those who suffer - and those who do not but who witness the pain of breakdown.

In short, betrayal - both by the sufferer and by others - destroys trust: trust in ourselves and trust in others.

When You Have Betrayed
Today, three years following my breakdown, I know that I betrayed those that I love and care for. It would be simple to say that I was only ill: that I was not responsible for my actions during my breakdown. Much of the time that was true. What I said and did often came from a person that I did not recognize. A wild man that behaved irrationally, fearfully, angrily, sometimes horrendously because I was possessed by mental illness. And mental illness can be expressed in a maelstrom of emotions and behavior that inflict harm on others. I screamed at my ex-wife. I screamed at my children. I was convinced that complete strangers had hurt me deeply. I lashed out, venting my toxic fear on many others. My paranoia was such that I had little grasp of reality. At the time, much of what I said and did seemed perfectly logical because what I thought and what I felt had become a whirlpool of horror. It was like living in a land of Nightmares, a perpetual Steven King novel, and I was the star and also the victim. It is embarrassing now to write about it, so sick was I.

And because I was sick I took actions that hurt me and most around me. I pushed away my children. I pushed away my ex-wife. I abandoned two businesses that I had sweated to build for over 20 years. The consequence is that my actions fractured my ability to make a living. I bought crazy stuff, expensive stuff, for reasons that were only logical to my crazy mind. A truck. A boat. A house. A complex set of computer equipment. I had no need for any of these things and in my right mind I would never have purchased any of them.

I sent friends horrible emails, venting small long-held resentments that became mountainous in my sick head. Many of those friends have never returned despite my abject apologies.

Yes, I was crazy. But yes, the 'recovering' me must also take responsibility if I am going to heal. I realize now that even though I was nuts, my actions and words were still a betrayal because they hurt others. I think back on what I did and I am filled with guilt and shame. While I know that the 'sick' me was not responsible due to illness, the 'healing' me must take responsibility. Those that I have hurt need to understand that if I could wipe the slate clean I would. They need to realize that  I would never have said or done the things that I did if I had been well.

But that is the problem. Because mental illness is often not understood, those that I have hurt will have a hard time differentiating between the 'sick' me and the 'well' me. When I am able to talk to these people - and yes, some now talk to me - they still don't grasp it. "You were a complete b**tard," they might say. "You knew what you were doing. Now you're going to pay for it."

These people, unfortunately, will never choose to understand that I was ill and will therefore never forgive me. For ages, and even now during dark days, I suffer due to the immense guilt that I experienced because I was 'unforgiven'. Then I finally realized that I can't change these people, that I had done everything that I could to make up to these friends and colleagues, but they will never hear me. For that reason, I finally walked away from them with a relatively clear conscience. At least I know I tried. I still regret, of course - my life is full of so many regrets! - that I have had a nervous breakdown and that it hurt so many. But at least I am still alive. And for the rest of my life I will do what I can to make amends.

Betrayed
But while I betrayed I was also the subject of betrayal. And those hurts compound the difficulties in recovering from nervous breakdown. As a husband, father, son, and friend, over the years I had done my very best to help others when they were troubled. During, and after, my breakdown I thought that my earnest efforts to help would be returned. How wrong I was.

Remember this: because mental illness and breakdowns are not understood by the general public, people who have been affected by your breakdown may at best turn their backs on you and at worst actually compound your mental illness.

In my case: some of my friends turned hostile. Others, not knowing what to do, dropped me as if I had leprosy. The people that I thought I could count on wouldn't talk to me. Business partners in a project that I had worked on for 10 years took legal action, stripping me of my shareholding, an action that cost me tens of thousands of dollars.

A counselor that I was attending leading up to the breakdown, and who had never encountered behavior or thinking such as mine, took one look and ran the other way.

My family - my adult children, only sister, and father - misdiagnosed my behavior. Rather than showering me with concerned love, safety, and help, they first contacted a doctor to have me hospitalized in a psychiatric unit against my will (which only compounded my breakdown), and then when I had convinced the psychiatric unit to let me go, stopped talking to me for over three months. During that three month period only two friends understood what was happening and stood by me.

Aftermath
Because I had betrayed and because I was betrayed, my ability to trust people - a characteristic that was always strong in me - was shattered. It has taken me years to be able to truly trust someone - anyone - again. Today, when I talk to people or they seem to 'like' me, I'll find myself wondering if they have an ulterior motive: what are they out to get from me? What harm will they do me? Why are they interested in me in the first place because today I am only the shell of what I once was?

The inability to trust is a sad, sad state of affairs. Without trusting, we are consigned to live alone in a world of fear. The inability to trust actually hinders our ability to recover from mental illness.

But what can we do about it?

Healing
I know that I don't want to live a life that is full of fear, anger, shame and guilt. I want to trust people again, fully and without reservation. Trusting also means loving, and without love what is there in this life worth valuing?

With the help of my present counselor, reading, meditation, and simple contemplation, I've decided to take some action. Here is what I'm trying to do.

• Letting Go - in the case of those that I've betrayed, from whom I've sought forgiveness, but who are unwilling to forgive, my only course of action is to Let Them Go, at least for now. Eventually, they may get over their hurt. If not, I know that I can't change them. Yes, I miss those friends that no longer speak to me or who have taken actions that have been extraordinarily hurtful to me. But I can't let my wish for reconciliation hinder my journey to wellness.
  
• Pushing Away the Bad Thoughts - my healing is often stopped by 'bad thoughts': missing my friends, as I've said above. Shame for the way I treated people and decisions that I made when I was ill. Anger at the way I have been treated. The thoughts of revenge against those that had treated me poorly. Fear for my future which shatters hope. On bad days, those feelings can overwhelm me. I've learned that these emotions are triggered by negative thoughts. To counter those emotions, I try to gently push away those thoughts. This can be a hugely difficult task. I use a combination of breathing techniques, yoga, and simple rest to do this. But when I'm successful I find that I am also much less dark, much more well, than I was when the thoughts intruded on my well-being.
  
• Compassion - my journey to health also includes my ability to develop more compassion; for those that I hurt, for those that hurt me, and for myself. And I found that I needed to start with self if I am to have any hope. I discovered that I hated myself for what I did when I was ill. Self-hatred breeds hopelessness which is no way of living. So I have had to start there.
  
  And why compassion for self and others? Because without it, I find that what I have gone through has no value. If I can use what I have learned, what I experienced, what I have felt to help others, then perhaps the pain that I endured and that others had to endure because of me can be useful. My breakdown can be transformed into healing myself and others. And by doing so, I will also learn to fully trust again.

Recovering from nervous breakdown is difficult. It requires patience with self and others. It can be a journey made more difficult by self-doubt and the difficulty in learning to trust others again. But it is a journey that must be taken because the alternatives are unthinkable.