THE DANGER SIGNAL.
It will naturally be asked by what sign is a man or woman to know when
they are threatened with a breakdown.
By no one sign in particular. One cloud does not make a wet day. It is
only when other clouds begin to gather and we feel a certain change in
the atmosphere that we surmise that rain is coming. The signs which
warn us of the approach of a storm are almost too indefinite for words.
[Sidenote: Signs of a breakdown.]
The symptoms by which a man is led to think he is on the verge of a
breakdown are equally vague. That is what makes them all the harder
to locate and to bear. If he has sciatica, pleurisy or a gumboil, he
can speak of his ailments and tell people what is the matter with him.
The neurasthenic has not even this consolation. His symptoms are so
indefinite that he can scarcely find words in which to express them; if
he could do so, he would shrink from mentioning them for fear that his
friends would laugh at him.
For it must be understood that neurasthenia is a very different matter
from hysteria or hypochondriasis. The hysterical subject craves for
sympathy, and will imitate all sorts of ailments in order to secure
it. The hypochondriacal imagines he has all manner of diseases and
loves to talk about them to anyone who has the patience to listen to
his tale of woe.
The neurasthenics are the very opposite of this. They are usually
people of refined susceptibilities, sensitive about themselves and
their feelings. They have, therefore, to bear their burden alone.
They see the clouds gathering on their mental horizon and their sky
getting darker and darker. The future becomes laden with foreboding,
and all around there is the presentiment of a storm that is about to
break. Often they keep their feelings to themselves, until at last
these become of such intensity that they can no longer be hidden.
Such persons often welcome a definite illness, if only because it
gives them something unmistakable to speak about, affording them the
opportunity of calling in the medical aid of which--quite wrongly, be
it observed--they had previously been ashamed to avail themselves.
We are sometimes told that headache, giddiness, pains in the region
of the spine, weak digestion and a host of similar complaints are
preliminary signs of oncoming breakdown. Yet, whilst they often
accompany the latter condition, they are also significant of many other
ailments, which have nothing to do with it. Sciatica may be the result
of a chill, spinal pains of an influenza cold, whilst headache may be
due to biliousness, faulty eyesight or a variety of other conditions.
The fact that we suffer from any one of them does not imply that we are
threatened with a breakdown. For all that, it is not well to neglect
these complaints, for it is certain that if we have any tendency to
nervous trouble they will hasten it on.
To suggest, however, that such symptoms are preliminary to a nervous
collapse would be to inspire, in the minds of many people, a sense of
terror which would precipitate the very disaster we are anxious to
avoid.
One thing, however, it is necessary to emphasise. If any symptom of
this sort--and the remark applies especially to headaches--is found
consistently to come on during the hours of work, alleviating after the
work is over for the day, it should be taken as a danger signal. For
when anyone’s occupation brings on a headache, the complaint is much
more likely to be due to some weakness of the nervous system than to
any fault in digestion or eyesight. And the same applies to many other
symptoms also.
The phenomena I am about to describe are those suggestive of nervous
weakness, and any man or woman who recognises themselves in the picture
I shall attempt to draw had better take warning. They need not alarm
themselves unduly, but they will be well advised to pull up short.
There is one point which must always be kept in mind. It does not
follow that because a person is easily tired, or is irritable or
depressed or dreads any ordeal awaiting him, or is nervous in any
direction, that he or she is drifting towards a breakdown. It is when
people who have previously been free from such weaknesses find that
they are acquiring them that they must face the fact their nervous
systems are on the down grade. Each individual must be taken as his
or her own standard. What is natural for some would be unnatural for
others. A person is ill when he falls below his own level of health,
either of body or mind. The various signs of neurasthenia or breakdown
depend, not on comparing a man with anyone else, but in measuring him
by his former self.
[Sidenote: Loss of strength.]
One of the most constant symptoms is a gradual decline in strength,
either of body or mind, without any organic disease to account for it.
If a man whose heart, lungs and kidneys have been proved sound begins
to suffer from fatigue after an amount of exercise such as he would not
previously have noticed, everything points to the fact of its being the
result of some impairment in his nervous system. More particularly so
if the tiredness is of an unpleasant nature. There is a delightful form
of fatigue and there is a painful one. There is nothing more enjoyable
than the gentle aching which a healthy man feels as he stretches out
his limbs in a comfortable chair after a good day’s walking, shooting,
golf or whatever else it may have been. He feels, in mind and body
alike, a delicious sense of half-sleepy lassitude, which affords to a
higher degree than anything else a sense of repose and well-being.
That is very different from the weariness that dogs a man’s footsteps
wherever he goes, or is even with him during his sleeping hours, so
that he rises in the morning more tired than when he lay down. When
that happens something in his organisation has gone wrong.
Equally significant is the langour that attacks people when they are
following their daily avocations. Of course, it is natural that as
people grow older they should find themselves less capable of exertion
than they were in their younger days. Most persons over forty years of
age have to take things somewhat more quietly than before. They are
not so well able to run, and perhaps have to walk more deliberately,
but that is very different from feeling fatigued when there has been
no justification for it. Yet even that is not a matter of such gravity
as when a man who has taken a keen interest in his daily work, of
whatever sort it may be, discovers that it is becoming more and more
of an effort. Or it may be a woman, who finds her household duties,
which had hitherto been a pleasure to her, becoming a bugbear. And when
anyone, either man or woman, begins to look forward habitually with
dread to the work of the following day, their health is in sore need of
attention.
[Sidenote: Worry.]
Yet in most cases all that they do is to reproach themselves for their
indolence and apply themselves to their duties still more assiduously,
with the usual result that they worry themselves and everybody else.
And the harder they try the worse things get, until at last the work
in which they had taken such a pride becomes a nightmare to them.
They begin to shrink from the thought of it, yet it forces itself
continually upon their notice. Perhaps even the evenings, which should
bring a sense of refreshing and repose, are spoiled by fretting over
the events of the day that is gone and worrying as to the work of the
morrow; the housewife in trepidation as to her duties in the home, the
workman to his job, the commercial man to his business, the parson to
his next appearance in the pulpit.
The result is that in many cases the work suffers.
Worry and anxiety are the common lot of mankind, at any rate in this
age of stress and competition. Yet it is not the common cares of life
which have a detrimental effect on the human system, but this useless,
exaggerated vexation of spirit. When a man has lost the power of
leaving his worries behind him, it is time that he began to take heed,
for sooner or later they will affect his work. If he allows himself
to drift, wasting his energies by futile struggling against his own
disabilities, his mental faculties will begin to show signs of wear and
tear.
[Sidenote: Memory.]
It may be that his memory will play him tricks, words and facts failing
him at the critical moments. There is no surer sign of neurasthenia
than when a man who has always been a ready speaker, begins to hesitate
for words in which to express himself. The worst symptom of all is when
people noted for their firm, decisive characters find themselves unable
to make up their minds, either on some subject of general interest or
on points connected with their own pursuits.
[Sidenote: Pleasures pall.]
An even worse phase of fatigue is that which intrudes upon the hours of
recreation. It is bad enough for people to become unduly tired at their
work; it is worse when they become tired at their play. When amusements
cease to afford any gratification, and people lose interest in their
favourite hobbies and pursuits, their nervous systems are perilously
near a breakdown. This weakness has passed into a further and a more
serious stage.
Then social intercourse is apt to weary them. They find a difficulty
in concentrating their attention on a conversation, especially if the
subject under discussion happens to be one demanding close attention.
Sometimes, however, even an ordinary chat will tire them out. It may
be that they are unable to read the lightest literature, the effort to
follow a story proves too much for them.
[Sidenote: Change of disposition.]
In consequence of all this, they fall into a sad plight. For not only
are they deprived of the solace of amusing themselves, but their
friends are apt to fight shy of them. When people get into this state
they become ultra-sensitive, and see slights and insults where none
were meant. They are liable to lose their sense of humour too, and can
neither appreciate nor take a joke. After that, it is not long before
they see their friends deserting them, which means that they are driven
back upon themselves.
That, on the top of everything else, depresses them, and they worry
still more over unnecessary trifles. Probably they become sleepless,
and that will hasten on as nothing else can do the inevitable climax.
Irritability of temper is often one of the first signs of this malady,
not of course in those who are naturally quarrelsome, but in those
who have hitherto been of a genial, companionable disposition. In
fact, change of disposition is one of the most significant features in
nervous breakdowns. A man who has always taken the greatest pleasure
in the society of his children will begin to snap at them without any
cause. Their very presence seems to fidget him.
His companions find it out, too, for not uncommonly he begins to lose
his temper when he is beaten at a game, a thing he has rarely before
been known to do. But what is the clearest danger signal of all is
when men or women see this irritability worming its way into the
solitude of their own thoughts. In one case of neurasthenia the first
sign consisted of the fact that the patient found, whenever he was
alone, a tendency to have resentful and bitter thoughts even of his
best friends. Once or twice he even cut his chin while shaving, simply
because he was feeling so angry with a chum, who had not given him the
slightest reason for animosity. Sometimes it happens that a man who has
not been in the habit of swearing will find himself using bad language
in the course of his soliloquies. Once he starts doing that, he may
know, without any doubt whatsoever, that his nervous system has gone
wrong.
[Sidenote: Increased nervousness.]
Increasing nervousness is a predominant feature of neurasthenia. It
appears in various guises. A man who has never found any difficulty in
holding his own in his dealings with others will suddenly find himself
looking forward to an interview with fears and qualms. When the time
comes he may be able to string himself up to the pitch, but it will
only be by an effort such as he is quite unaccustomed to, and the
nervous tension will perhaps leave him spent and exhausted.
Others, who have never known the meaning of the word nerves, will feel
ashamed and angry with themselves when they start at the sound of a
loud noise or a banging door, or are afraid to enter a dark room.
Not infrequently it happens that people who have been the first to
welcome a friend in the street will commence to make a practice of
crossing the road when they see anyone approaching.
Or their nervousness may take the form of a fear of the unknown. The
future becomes full of dark spectres. Visions of poverty, even of the
workhouse itself, will attack a man whose financial affairs are on a
safe footing. A common sign of disordered nerves is a constant dread
of illness. If an epidemic of influenza is prevalent, the neurasthenic
will feel certain that he is to be the next victim, and his sensations,
purely imaginary it may be, will confirm his forebodings.
[Sidenote: Loss of zest.]
In whatever way neurasthenia assails anyone, it has one certain
effect. It deprives them of the joy and zest of life, and when once
that has disappeared there is little left. People have their different
temperaments. Some are of a sanguine type, and it is no effort for
them to be blithe and gay. Others are cast in a more sombre mould; not
that they are thereby miserable, for such people can enjoy themselves
as much as anyone else, but in a quieter way. But when their nervous
system shows signs of damage, they lose their sense of contentment just
as the others lose their flow of vivacity.
All these are the premonitory signs of a breakdown, and if they are
neglected the crash may come. The man finds that he cannot face his
work, the woman is unable to carry out her duties in the home. Life
becomes dark and void, and all that made it worth living seems to have
gone.
Then too often they are assailed by the worst dread of all, the fear
that they will lose their reason. For their comfort we may say that,
tragic as a breakdown may be, there is a wide gulf between it and
insanity.
And those who are in the preliminary stages, and have not arrived at
that of a breakdown, may console themselves with the fact that the
latter is one of the most preventable of conditions. It is the aim of
this book to show the different ways in which it may be avoided.