Nervous Breakdowns and How to Avoid Them

by Charles David Musgrove

Yet not uncommonly it has turned out that those who have been handicapped from the start have in the long run passed their more robust comrades. It is not always the healthy baby that develops into the hardiest member of the family. The puny little one has been known to have the best of it in regard to health by the time it has grown up.

And when this happens it is simply a reward for taking care. Parents are bound to pay more attention to a weakly child, while the robust ones are often left to take their chance, and as they grow up into boyhood and manhood, the delicate one has still to exercise care and look after his health, if only for his own comfort. He knows, even in his schooldays, that if he eats too much pastry or sweets, or neglects to change his clothes if he gets a wetting, he will have to suffer for it. All this time his hardy brother is running all sorts of risks, and playing ducks and drakes with his digestion and his constitution in general.

When they are approaching middle age, the strong one has developed into a gouty, dyspeptic individual, who does not know what it is to feel well for a single week at a time. And the weakly one may be better and stronger than he has ever been in his life before.

He has never been able to do anything by leaps and bounds, but he has plodded steadily on, exercising care and common sense, and looking after his health in every possible way. It is another example of the hare and the tortoise.

Two men were crossing a ship’s gangway, which had a rail at one side but was unprotected on the other. The first was a frail, nervous man, while his friend who followed him was a strong, lusty fellow. The delicate one took care to keep a firm grip on the rail. He reached the ship’s side in safety. The second man disdained to avail himself of its aid, and walked up the gangway with his hands in his pockets, paying no heed to his steps. Suddenly he lost his balance and fell into the water.

He scrambled out and cursed his bad luck. “He was the most unfortunate beggar that ever lived,” he said. He completely lost sight of the fact that it was his own carelessness which had brought about the mishap.

And it is a common occurrence to hear people, who have been running all sorts of unnecessary risks, complaining of their bad fortune when illness overtakes them. They get wet through and sit in their damp clothes, and are very much aggrieved when they take a chill. Or they gorge themselves with pastry or sweetmeats, and consider themselves martyrs when they suffer from a bilious attack.

The inevitable penalty.

There is one penalty ever before us, that which must be paid by all who transgress the laws of health. I say penalty, not punishment. A boy who has purloined a plum cake and eaten inordinately of it may obtain his mother’s forgiveness, but the chances are that he will be penalised by having to endure a bout of stomach-ache.

In all this I have no wish to imply that those who disregard the laws of health do so from self-indulgence. On the contrary, the great majority of breakdowns occur in those who have overtaxed their strength whilst toiling to support their wives and families, or to minister to the welfare or comfort of those around them, or to labour in some way or other on behalf of humanity.