How Not to Fall Apart Mentally When Life Starts Collapsing on Several Fronts? - Part 2
8 mins read
When everything is falling apart at once, the first thing to do is stop staying silent
There are crises that affect one area of life and, painful as they are, can still be somewhat contained. Trouble at work does not have to destroy the home straight away. The collapse of a relationship does not always immediately take the ground from under your feet professionally. But there are also moments when everything starts to come apart at the same time. Work, health, relationship, money, sense of meaning, trust in yourself. And that is exactly when a person most easily starts to believe that nothing has any support left.
In moments like that, the first rule is both simple and difficult: do not stay alone.
This is not about dramatically telling everyone everything. It is about not shutting down completely. Telling someone that things are bad. Naming it. Calling someone. Asking for a conversation. Making an appointment with a specialist. Allowing for the fact that this is not the moment for solitary heroism.
I have the impression that men in particular are stripped of that right very early on. They are taught to grit their teeth, not cry, not make a fuss, to pull themselves together. And then we are surprised that they do not speak, but disappear into themselves instead. The psyche truly does not like isolation. Silence may look dignified, but in a crisis it often works like an accelerant of collapse.
Help does not always look the same, and there is nothing wrong with that
There is still a persistent belief surrounding psychological growth that there is one proper path. Either therapy or nothing. Either deep work or superficiality. And yet people are different, and so are their needs.
For one person, psychotherapy will help because they need to go deep, name old wounds, and see the patterns that have been following them for years. Someone else will benefit more from a mentor who can help bring order to chaos, see a direction, and take the first concrete steps. Yet another person needs a good coach who can teach skills they simply never received: setting boundaries, communication, stress management, negotiation, asking for help.
The worst thing you can do to yourself is give up on the whole path just because one form of help did not work. Not every specialist is right for every person. Not every method gets to the core straight away. That does not mean a person is “beyond help.” Sometimes it simply means you need to keep looking.
I really like the metaphor of a mountain guide. You can walk alone. But with a guide, a person usually moves more safely, more quickly, and with fewer mistakes. It is much the same with your own psyche.
A mental crisis less and less often looks like drama. More and more often it looks like overload
What breaks a person does not always wear the face of a great tragedy. Sometimes it is simply a long life lived in fragmentation. An excess of information. An excess of decisions. Too many stimuli, too many messages, too many things to tie up, too many open loops. A person is not living through one catastrophe, but through thousands of micro-burdens that accumulate in the nervous system every day.
That is why modern exhaustion can be so deceptive. There is no single cause, so it is harder to name. A person does not say, “I broke after a loss,” but rather, “I do not know what is happening, but I have no strength left.”
For a long time I underestimated how much distraction can masquerade as ordinary fatigue. How often it is not laziness or lack of motivation, but a mind that has not had a single moment of full focus for months. When everything is torn into pieces, a person really can feel as though their psyche is failing for no clear reason. But there is a reason. It just is not dramatic.
Less does not mean poorer. Very often, less means healthier
In such moments, a return to simplicity is not some whim. It is a form of rescue. Fewer stimuli, fewer unnecessary decisions, fewer relationships based on polite exhaustion, less life lived “just in case.” More of what is genuinely your own.
A very important idea appears here: essentialism. The conscious choice of what truly matters and the letting go of the rest. Not as a luxury for people with free time, but as everyday mental hygiene.
A person who tries to be everywhere, answer everyone, keep track of everything, and be good at everything will sooner or later pay for it with their head. This is not a matter of poor organization. It is often a matter of unrealistic expectations of oneself.
You cannot live well if you treat everything as equally important.
Engagement does not always drain you. Sometimes it is exactly what restores energy
This is one of the most paradoxical and, at the same time, most valuable insights. People very often withdraw from full engagement because they are afraid of exhaustion. They tell themselves: I will not push so hard, I will not give so much of myself, I will not go in that deep, because I will burn out.
Except that living half-heartedly is exhausting too. Sometimes even more so.
When a person does something without presence, without commitment, without immersion, they do not magically save energy. Often the opposite happens: they get more tired, because nothing carries them. There is no meaning, no flow, no contact with what they are doing. There is only ticking things off. And ticking things off dries a person out very quickly.
Full engagement, though it can be demanding, often generates energy. It gives vigor, focus, a sense of meaning, and sometimes also that special state in which a person stops fighting with themselves for a while. It does not have to be a great passion. Sometimes it is enough to be present in what you are doing right now. A conversation, a walk, work, ironing, cooking, time with your child, an hour without your eyes darting back to your phone.
I really believe in this kind of simple immersion. In the idea that the psyche likes to be where the body is. And that many inner breakdowns come precisely from the fact that a person is everywhere except in their own life.
To get out of a dark place, you have to stop waiting for everyone to like you
One of the cruelest mental burdens is the need for approval. The desire not to disappoint anyone, to be enough for everyone, to make a good impression, to be accepted, not to let anyone down. This can grind the psyche down more than many open conflicts, because it works quietly and for a long time.
And yet it is a need that can never be fully satisfied. Not everyone will like us. Not everyone will agree with us. Not everyone will see our choices as wise, reasonable, elegant, or mature. And that is not failure. That is simply a condition of living among other people.
When a person truly understands this, a great deal of relief appears. You can say no. You can fail to meet someone else's expectations. You can do something your own way. You can also accept that someone else's dislike is not always proof of your guilt.
This is one of those moments when the psyche stops being a hostage to the outside world.
Not everything has to be fixed. Some things simply have to be well understood
Many people look for things in themselves that need fixing, whereas sometimes what is needed is understanding rather than correction. Temperament, the way one reacts, sensitivity, the pace at which one recovers, these are not always defects. Sometimes they are simply the material a person was made of.
One person will find it easier to return to balance because they are more easygoing, more flexible, less prone to worry. Someone else will from the start be more reactive, more emotional, more vulnerable to hurt. It is not fair, but it is real.
The sooner a person understands what they are starting with, the less they will torment themselves for not functioning like somebody else. And that in itself can already be the beginning of healing.
The most important relationship truly is the relationship with yourself
It sounds like a cliché until life delivers a proper earthquake. Then suddenly it turns out that you can lose your job, your partner, your status, your sense of direction, and still one person remains, the one with whom you have to live through it all to the end. Your very own “self.”
If a person has even a little support inside, even a little trust that they will somehow cope, that they can get through the next week, the next phone call, the next conversation, the next decision, that is already a great deal. Not because the crisis stops hurting. But because it stops defining identity completely.
What moves me most, perhaps, is precisely that mental strength does not turn a person into a hero. It simply helps them become their own ally when everything else is shaking.
And maybe that is exactly where one has to begin when everything is falling apart. Not with grand declarations, not with the pressure of immediate transformation, not with the question of how to become perfect again. But with a simpler one: how can I stand on my own side today, even a little more firmly than yesterday?
Missed the beginning? Part 1 explores what mental strength really is, why meaning matters in moments of crisis, and how to regain a sense of control when life starts to fall apart.
Link: Read Part 1