Why do people go crazy? Causes and signs that a person has gone crazy

Often in the media you can learn about people who have gone crazy or committed suicide. Why is this happening? In the modern world, our brain is constantly in a stressful situation. TV often shows programs that provoke negative emotions. There are almost always tragic incidents in the news. At work - the boss scolds. Nighttime sleep was reduced to a minimum, and the quality and frequency of food deteriorated. These are some of the common reasons why a person may lose his mind. How to live to old age and maintain clarity of thought? Why people go crazy, read the article.

Madness

People often joke about going crazy or losing their minds. Many people call a person crazy if they are a little eccentric, individual, or prone to strong emotions. It is also very common to assume that people who commit violent crimes are crazy. In addition, some great writers, actors and scientists have suffered from some form of mental disorder. So why are people going crazy?

Insanity is a psychological state where a person hears or sees things that are not there, or is convinced of something that is different from the opinions of others. Deviation causes the patient to perceive or interpret things differently from those around them. This condition may be caused by a mental or general illness, a substance such as alcohol or drugs.

About slow reactions and errors

Some people are a little luckier (as a rule, these are young and middle-aged people), and the coronavirus does not reward them with a psychiatric diagnosis, but, for example, only with impaired concentration, slow reactions, deteriorated memory and absent-mindedness, increased irritability and aggression. After six months or a year, everything more or less returns to normal, but to the full extent or not, such studies have not yet been carried out. No one did a CT scan on me before and after the illness, but the fact that the coronavirus causes certain areas of the brain to work differently has been established for sure.

Everyone complains about errors in work, problems in understanding texts, and drivers complain about slow reactions while driving. The accountant, who knows the subject of her work inside and out, took and gave out the change not in five-hundred-ruble bills, but in five-thousandth ones - she “didn’t notice” the extra zero. Then the man could not explain how this happened. Another patient, passionate about online chess, for several months, even at a difficulty level reduced several times, could not play a game even to a draw.

Cognitive impairment occurs in both those who have had a severe form of the disease and those who have had a mild form of the disease. Absolutely no one is insured.

How to deal with all this? There is no specific and one hundred percent effective method, everything is just general phrases: adequate sleep, massage, physiotherapy, psychotherapy, quality nutrition. Medicines include adaptogens, nootropics, neurometabolites. Under no circumstances should you prescribe any medications for yourself, especially antidepressants. If you feel like you can’t cope with yourself, with insomnia and mood swings, go to the doctor.

Medical facts

Why do people go crazy? According to statistics, the most common mental disorders are:

Schizophrenia is a mental condition that causes hallucinations and delusions.
Bipolar disorder. People with this disorder may have episodes of low mood (depression) or high mood (mania).
Dementia is senile dementia.
Depression is a feeling of constant sadness and emptiness, including postpartum depression, which women sometimes experience after the birth of a child.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a condition characterized by the appearance of obsessive ideas and unpleasant thoughts.
A panic attack is a periodic attack of anxiety.
Neurasthenia is a disorder with increased irritability, fatigue and tension.

It follows that people who are considered crazy, in fact, simply suffer from the above diseases.

What to do at home in quarantine when you're bored: make the most of your time

Boredom is perhaps the most easily solved problem during the quarantine period. Time spent within the walls of the house can be made interesting and useful at the same time. Choose an activity that really captivates you and won’t get boring.

Things to do:

take a training course that has been in your plans for a long time, but you didn’t have enough time - right now discounts are offered for many trainings and courses;
do things that evoke positive emotions for free: dance, sing, draw, sew, knit, sculpt, etc.;
clean up - order in the surrounding space helps to maintain calm and mitigate the manifestations of stress;
learn what will be useful in life after self-isolation: master new dishes, improve your knowledge in your specialty, gain useful practical skills (sewing, knitting, minor repairs);
start learning a new foreign language or improve your knowledge;
remotely visit free broadcasts of world-famous museums, galleries, theaters: the Hermitage, Louvre, Tretyakov Gallery, Bolshoi Theater, Vienna Opera and others.

A little advice: if useful things seem boring and annoying to you, choose conditionally useless ones. Some people can only fight boredom by watching edgy TV shows and listening to their favorite music. Don’t blame yourself for being idle – do something that will help you survive being in a confined space.

Symptoms

Why do people go crazy? What signs can be used to determine this condition? Most often, crazy people may experience various combinations of symptoms, for example:

Deviant behavior is deviating from socially accepted norms.
Hallucinations are a psychological condition in which a person hears, sees and, in some cases, touches, smells or tastes something that is not there.
Misconceptions Characterized by strong beliefs that are not shared by others.
Delusional thinking.
Anxious thoughts.
Obsessions.
Mania or insanity.
Lack of understanding and self-awareness.
Rapid and unintelligible speech.
Violation of the sequence of speech, for example, the patient may switch from one topic to another in the middle of a sentence.
Sudden loss of thought, resulting in an abrupt pause in conversation or activity.
Inexplicable aggression.

Character accentuations

There is such a term in psychology - accentuation. They denote bright character traits. For example, emotional confinement, a weakened connection with earthly reality, combined with a rich inner world, is called schizoid accentuation. The increased thirst for admiration, egocentricity and demonstrativeness inherent in artists is called hysterical accentuation. Increased scrupulous pedantry, irritability, emotional callousness and a tendency to tyranny are attributed to epileptoid accentuation.

I won’t go deeper into this topic. For details, contact search engines, but here I talked about these prominent character traits to emphasize one pattern. Moderate accentuation is inherent in everyone and is considered a psychological norm. Excessive accentuation is already called mental pathology.

That is, when character begins to prevail over sobriety of thinking and perception, then a person loses contact with reality, and his mind is dominated by the most pronounced hallucinations.

Causes

The man is going crazy. Why is this happening? The main triggers that can lead to insanity include:

chronic stress;
alcohol or drug addiction;
traumatic brain injury;
age;
constant failures;
psychological trauma;
loss of meaning in life;
social isolation;
loneliness.

There are many reasons why a person can go crazy. But they all provoke the development of psychological abnormalities according to approximately the same scenario.

First, a person accumulates negative emotions. He becomes irritable and tired. As it progresses, excessive sensitivity to what is happening in the outside world appears. After a short period of time, the human psyche loses stability. If you do not contact a specialist at this moment, the patient may have a nervous breakdown. This can lead to depression, mania, addiction and even suicide.

How not to go crazy?

No one is immune from nervous shock, stress and psychological trauma, but every person has the power to make sure that the risk of going crazy becomes minimal. But for this it is not enough to avoid conflict and stressful situations, because there are many factors that can cause madness. Therefore, psychotherapists argue that the best prevention of mental disorders is to take care of the health and functionality of your nervous system. And in their opinion, the following will help maintain a stable, healthy psyche for many years:

Proper nutrition.
Food is a source of macro- and microelements necessary for the functioning of all body systems, including the brain. With a lack of certain substances, malfunctions in the functioning of organs occur: for example, with a lack of B vitamins, a person becomes irritable, absent-minded and quickly gets tired, and a deficiency of any macroelements leads to loss of strength, loss of performance and the development of harmful processes in all organ systems, including including in the brain. Therefore, food rich in vitamins and minerals will ensure that the brain receives all the substances necessary for stable functioning.
Rejection of bad habits. Nicotine, alcohol and drugs are brain poisons that kill nerve cells and destroy neural connections. Therefore, those who want to remain sane and sober for a long time need to give up bad habits and not poison their body with their own hands.
Taking care of your health. Diseases suffered “on the feet” can cause complications on the nervous system, as a result of which brain functions will be impaired. It is especially important not to postpone a visit to the doctor if dizziness and migraines regularly occur, constant drowsiness and loss of strength are felt, coordination of movements and speech are impaired - as a rule, this is how the first signs of a pathological process in the brain appear.
Optimistic outlook on life.
Optimists are much less likely to go crazy than pessimists, since they know how to find positive aspects in almost any event and tend to believe in the best even when the situation is far from being the best. Pessimists live in constant stress and anxiety, so they risk sooner or later developing depression, phobia or other mental disorders.
Expanding your circle of friends. Humans are social creatures, and even introverts need people with whom they can at least occasionally communicate. But friends are necessary not only for communication, but also as support and support, because the very knowledge that in case of trouble there will be someone to turn to for help can give strength to survive a traumatic situation.
Constant self-development. Learning new information, searching for interesting activities and hobbies, self-improvement and mastering new useful skills - all this not only gives a feeling of happiness and fulfillment in life, but also allows you to train the brain and significantly slow down the age-related deterioration of the central nervous system.
Self confidence. A person who is confident in his own abilities and has adequate self-esteem copes with difficulties and experiences stress much easier than people with low self-esteem. The reason for this is simple: those who believe in themselves know that they can ultimately find a way out of any situation and survive temporary difficulties, therefore, in difficult periods of life, self-confident people mobilize and make every effort to solve the problem constructively. “Whiners,” on the contrary, experience severe stress at the slightest difficulty and fall into melancholy and depression.

Stress

Almost any psychological disorder, from various diseases to depression or addiction, is somehow associated with an increase in stress and anxiety. Increased emotionality does not allow a person to think adequately in stressful situations. But feeling constantly stressed or depressed is not a sign that you are going crazy.

One type of psychological disorder is panic attacks. In this state, people experience periodic attacks of fear or anxiety, which are accompanied by fear of death, increased heart rate, and difficulty breathing. Sometimes a person suffering from panic attacks may feel as if they are going crazy from increasing anxiety.

Help with fears at the ROSA clinic

Experienced and sensitive specialists: psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists and psychotherapists;
We advise adults, teenagers and children;
Licensed and certified in all types of assistance for mental and nervous system disorders;
We work around the clock;
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If necessary, there is the possibility of placement in your own comfortable hospital.

If you or your loved ones are overcome by fears or obsessive thoughts, call us, we will help.

Age

Have you noticed that some older people sometimes say or do strange things? In critical conditions, it may seem that a person has gone crazy. However, this is not quite true. Why do old people go crazy? One of the common diseases encountered in old age is dementia. In other words, it is called senile dementia.

There are many different forms of this disease, and each of them has specific causes. The most common types of dementia are the following disorders:

Alzheimer's disease (“senile insanity”). It is characterized by the death of brain neurons, which primarily leads to memory impairment.
Vascular dementia. It most often occurs in people with high blood pressure, diabetes, smokers and those who have had several strokes. Each attack leads to a deterioration in the patient’s neurological condition. As it progresses, memory and thinking deterioration, gait disturbance, muscle weakness, emotional instability, and depression may occur.
Dementia with Lewy bodies is a disease in which cognitive impairment is combined with motor impairment. A distinctive and specific symptom is visuospatial disturbances. For example, blurred vision, hallucinations, difficulty recognizing objects.
Huntington's (or Huntington's) disease. Clinical symptoms include the appearance of mental disorders (depression, apathy, schizophrenia-like disorders), nervous tics, seizures, strange gait, impaired swallowing, etc.
Korsakoff psychosis is most often observed in patients with alcoholism. They experience memory impairment, paralysis, muscle atrophy, and decreased intelligence.

Why do older people go crazy? Dementia can happen to anyone, but is more common after age 65. Early signs of the disease are very subtle and vague and may not be immediately obvious. Some common symptoms include:

progressive memory loss;
personality change;
apathy;
loss of ability to perform daily tasks.

“It’s infuriating that they immediately think you’re in a gang of anti-vaxxers”

Olga, 26

Recurrent depressive episodes

I had several major depressive episodes about five years ago. It’s gotten much better since then, I didn’t take pharma [medication] for a long time, but due to the pandemic and the accompanying stress, as well as the financial ass, my anxiety got worse.

During quarantine, I injured my knee and gained 20 kilograms. This created an additional vicious circle: I know this weight is extra for a bad knee, but food is my favorite calmer after a shitty day. This obviously has a bad effect on the cuckoo's condition.

After Covid, I'm having a hell of a time concentrating. I can decide to do something and forget, spend an hour in a trance and forget again. If before I simply procrastinated, now I physically cannot force myself to do some nasty but necessary thing. I found myself in tears next to the bed, where there was a mountain of things, without the ability to do anything about it. Anxiety can hit me in the middle of the day because of some nonsense. I began to be afraid and shake because of completely stupid things that I had not paid attention to before. Plus, my creativity has decreased to hell.

I was not on pills when I got coronavirus. And now I understand that I will probably have to be treated with medication, and this just makes me cringe. Most antidepressants don’t work for me or give me such side effects that it’s a nightmare. And I’m afraid to start this months-long journey of changing medications again, each of which will ruin my life in its own way.

OlgaPhoto: Alena Agadzhikova

I don't have a psychiatrist right now. The family therapist said that [after the illness] everything would be fine, with minor side effects possible. But they weren’t fucking easy, and now I’m actually shaking before the imminent vaccination. What’s also infuriating is that when you tell your friends about this, they immediately assume that you’re in a gang of anti-vaxxers. After all, everything was ok with them, what’s wrong with you if everything goes through your ass?

Anxiety, forgetfulness, inhibition of thoughts and paralysis of the will take a toll on both the nerves and the wallet. Three weeks of Covid cost me several hundred euros in salary. But the post-Covid problems are much greater: I have trouble concentrating, the work process itself takes twice as much time and effort, and I’m very upset about it. Even on vacation I can’t relax and I get carried away, for example, if the cat doesn’t want to eat pate. This sucks out the remaining strength. When I'm at home, I just lie on a cloth.

Post-Covid has also affected my relationship: I have a great, understanding partner, but it’s difficult for him to stand the circus that’s happening with my cuckoo. Although he also had Covid and side effects such as mood swings and forgetfulness also appeared.

I'm afraid of hidden side effects, especially psychological and neurological. Before coronavirus, I was afraid that I would end up in intensive care, or that my sense of smell would disappear, or that the symptoms would remain for a long time. Nobody warned me about mental problems, and I was completely unprepared for what was happening. It’s the same with the vaccine: there are large studies about side effects like cramps, constant temperature, heart problems, but about the psychological consequences everything is cloudy and vague. Some are worse, some are better, but don’t be discouraged and get vaccinated.

Genius

Why do smart people go crazy? Is there really a thin line separating madness from genius? For example, you can remember Vincent Van Gogh. This famous 19th century artist suffered from bipolar disorder. He cut off part of his left ear and ultimately committed suicide. Unfortunately, there are many such examples.

Bad dream

A hundred years ago, people averaged nine hours of sleep every night. Currently, according to research, the duration has been reduced to 7 hours. This trend leads to a decrease in the overall level of psychological health. In order for the human brain and body to fully rest and recover, a person needs to sleep from 8 to 10 hours. Otherwise, mental disorders and, subsequently, insanity cannot be avoided.

“A pandemic is a tragedy extended over time”

Alina, 24

Depression

I was diagnosed with depression as a child. I don’t take pills, I try to cope without them. In mid-April this year, I suffered from coronavirus; I sat at home for two weeks, worked from bed, had a temperature of 37.5 and all the signs of a cold, lack of smells and tastes. I really wanted to sleep, I fell asleep while working every few hours.

Shortly after I received a negative PCR test, my anxiety increased. This period coincided with the fact that my friend was detained and put in a pre-trial detention center, and I helped organize a support campaign. I felt sick for days, couldn’t sleep from excitement, and was under a lot of stress. This was the first time, although I have been working in politics for two and a half years now and such work is routine for me. So I associate my anxiety specifically with the consequences of Covid.

Over the next months, sometimes I couldn’t even get out into the city center: I felt so sick and weak that I could only lie down. The anxiety continued for a few more months and went away, but it became difficult for me to concentrate on work matters and do many things at once, although I used to be a master at this. The usual task of drawing up a report or writing a text was many times more difficult than before Covid. The boss thought I was being lazy and “not working,” and I felt depressed and vulnerable like never before. I received my first vaccine injection on February 18th. All winter I cried every day for two or three hours.

AlinaPhoto: Alena Agadzhikova

By the beginning of March, the severity of the condition reached its peak; I could no longer sit quietly at my workplace and constantly cried because I couldn’t do anything. On March 10, I was given the second component of the vaccine. Since the end of March, I also went on vacation for this period, they began to let me go, plus I started taking a nootropic and an anxiolytic.

I was “lucky”: my job means that it can be done remotely, so I was able to maintain my financial situation. And thanks to chats and regular calls with friends during the period of self-isolation, we managed to maintain and even strengthen our connections, although, of course, when the quarantine was lifted, it became easier.

The pandemic has greatly affected the entire world. This is a tragedy stretched over time. People began to feel fear and uncertainty, and coronavirus restrictions became one of the new methods of pressure on civil society. This includes a ban on single pickets when a concert is being held at the same time in Luzhniki, and all that. I feel general anxiety and depression, but I try to cope and do what I can.

Nervous shocks

Can a person go crazy, for example, from losing the meaning of life? This usually happens when he loses someone close, such as a child or parents. In this case, the feelings from the tragedy that have occurred can be so strong that a person cannot feel anything else except pain, grief and devastation. At such moments, many close down, do not pay attention to anything, worry and often try to drown out the pain with alcohol. If this condition drags on, depression and psychological breakdowns may occur. In addition, when a person cannot cope with emotions and does not receive psychological help or the support of close friends or relatives, he may develop suicidal thoughts.

Teenage seizures

They frighten those who become their unwitting witnesses and plunge parents into despair. And this is not without reason - after all, attacks of insanity are always very strong, and especially among teenagers.

“Such attacks often occur in adolescents, but are rarely repeated more than once,” explains psychoanalyst Pierre Marie. “This is not a symptom of mental illness, but a sign that something is wrong with the child.” Let's take, for example, a graduate who is preparing to enter a university. He is under enormous pressure! And sometimes insanity is the only way to tell your neighbors: “Leave me alone, everyone!” It will pass without a trace after a few days of hospitalization.” The crisis will disappear as suddenly as it appeared.