Mental breakdown trigger?

Hi, I left for college last august. I don't want to get in too much detail, but home is not what I could call good. The torment, the abuse (mostly when I was young), etc., it's pretty complicated. When I got to college, I felt excellent, but when I went home briefly, I went under a mental breakdown.

When I came back on campus, I went to see a psychiatrist and I got diagnosed with an unspecified mood disorder. The doc put me off pills in only a short time, and I was fine, stable in college in the next 7 months.

However, I came home again.. I thought I became a mentally strong person, but I was wrong. I started having mental breakdowns (esp. at night), the past 4 days I've been home.

Is this normal? Just asking and wondering if anyone else experienced something like this.

Hello Reddawn5, I'm so sorry to hear about your past history.It makes me want to cry. Home should be a place of great comfort and love and you cant get that there. Would you call them panic attacks that you are having at night? Best wishes to you..

Just wanted to send you hugs and well wishes. Is there a way to sleep somewhere else while you are visiting your family? As Pierro mentioned, home should be a place where you feel safe and at ease. You are probably stronger than you were last time but I can understand why going back home still affects you so much. Our families will always affect us in deeper ways than other people. hugs

Hi and welcome.
Can you explain a bit more what you mean about mental breakdowns? I also would question if it is more of a panic attack. Do you still currently take meds? Can you stay with a friend while you are not at college, or other family members?

Definitely normal if home is a place of pain and bad memories for you. Same thing happened to me. I had to move in with my grandparents to just get away from my mom and that house. You should consider therapy to work through your past issues of abuse. It has nothing to do with being mentally strong. You can be pretty darn strong and still be triggered by past abuse. Don't beat yourself up.

Thanks guys, I'm not on medication anymore, and by mental breakdown I mean rapid cycling mood swings that last about a hour. It's really weird. The bad things that I used to experience doesn't happen anymore (the abuse I mean), but it is interesting that most of the abuse took place at night, after dinner, when it did happen in the past.

a rapid cycle mood swing that lasts about an hour sounds like anxiety/panic attack .. Does it happen daily ?

It does sound like it could be panic attacks, but maybe a cycle. Tell us more about how you feel and maybe we can help you manage it a bit. I do think it could be caused by triggers of being home & time of day. Maybe as a distraction tonight try to refocus your attention on finding housing at school that wouldn't require you to come home and stay for long periods. I always thought it was fun to look for places to live and potential new roomates when I was in college. Hang in there.

It sounds like your mood problem is situational? Or maybe just coincidence that the breakdowns are at home? It could be that there's a trigger (or stress) at home that pushes you over the edge and into an abnormal mood swing? Triggers vary from person to person. What's your mood like before you fall into depression? Experience any severe irritability, agitation, anxiety, more easily distracted, etc.?

I had one yr in college where I could not take tests. Very easily distracted and would lose my concentration. (Stuffed in room, arm-to-arm with 125 people, people coughing, turning pages, dropping books. Everything seemed amplified.) Got two Ds, two Fs. Next semester was worse, I cracked and took a leave of absence.