nervous breakdownnoun [ C usually singular ]
uk/ˌnɜː.vəs ˈbreɪk.daʊn/us/ˌnɝː.vəs ˈbreɪk.daʊn/a period of mental illness, usually without a physical cause, that results in anxiety, difficulty in sleeping and thinking clearly, a loss of confidence and hope, and a feeling of great sadness:
He suffered a nervous breakdown in his twenties.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Mental & psychiatric disorders
- ad
- adjustment disorder
- age-associated memory impairment
- anhedonia
- anorexia nervosa
- dementia
- eating disorder
- learning difficulties
- male menopause
- melancholia
- paranoia
- persecution complex
- PTSD
- sad
- schizophrenia
- schizophrenic
- seasonal affective disorder
- Sen
- Stockholm syndrome
- visual variant of Alzheimer's disease
See more results »