Others are precisely the opposite of this. They become moody and taciturn, or disinclined to meet their friends or take part in a conversation. A woman will sit by herself most of the time, not caring even to have her children about her. A man will have a difficulty in making up his mind not only on important points of business, but it may be on the most trivial matters. He begins to look at his work as stupidly as the aforesaid horse stared helplessly at the cart he was supposed to pull.
Where does the fault lie? Not in too much energy or too little, but in some derangement of the system, whereby the patient’s faculties either go astray or are rendered inert. And in order to discover the real source of the mischief, it is necessary to look, not at the climax, but farther back, through a long sequence of events which have been leading up to it.
CHAPTER II.
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.
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.