| What can drive someone to insanity? Certainly, | | | | closely tied to mental health. A person's emotional |
| insanity is something that is commonly understood | | | | state can often be a reflection of a person's relative |
| (or misunderstood) and usually carries some sort of | | | | state of mental stability, but may also become an |
| stigma in the popular consciousness. If you believe in | | | | effect of fractured sanity. There is no doubting that |
| modern psychology and psychiatry, there are literally | | | | emotions can disrupt and affect a person's thought |
| thousands of forms of insanity that a person can end | | | | processes and make them do things that they |
| up developing over a lifetime. Some of them, like | | | | normally would not do. It has also been noted that |
| depression, are temporary, while others, like social | | | | extremely emotional situations and heavy emotional |
| anxiety, require more work for a person to get | | | | trauma can permanently affect a person's mind, |
| through. However, there appears to be some | | | | often resulting in a condition that requires therapy to |
| commonality as to what actually brings about most | | | | eventually overcome. However, it is rather arguable |
| of the forms of insanity that people go through. | | | | that emotions are merely augmenting the effects of |
| Which brings the question to bear: is there a | | | | stress and pressure, not a factor in itself. |
| common, underlying trigger that compromises the | | | | Trauma is also frequently cited as having drastic |
| stability of a person's mental health? | | | | effects on a person's sanity, particularly if it occurs |
| Things like stress and anxiety are often cited, as | | | | during the formative years. The extreme |
| most of the common (and several uncommon) | | | | psychological and emotional impact that trauma |
| mental health issues are triggered by one of the two. | | | | victims have to endure can often force some past |
| Continued exposure to stress can eventually push | | | | the breaking point, having permanent effects on their |
| someone beyond their "breaking point," with the | | | | mental health. However, it should be noted that |
| form of insanity afterwards being affected by | | | | trauma tends to be little more than a combination of |
| external factors. This is often a long, strenuous | | | | stressful and emotional factors, usually mixed in with |
| process because most people have some level of | | | | extreme circumstances. The vulnerability of the |
| resistance to such things, allowing them to at least | | | | person's psyche plays a larger role here than in other |
| survive the stressful period with their sanity intact. | | | | potential causes of insanity, which explains why |
| Additionally, the process may not even really result in | | | | trauma encountered later on in life does not have the |
| insanity, with most of the population serving as proof | | | | same general effect as similar events encountered |
| of this theory. Prolonged stress can affect a person's | | | | during childhood. |
| behavior and outlook, but it is also known that | | | | Ultimately, insanity is something that, like sanity, must |
| several other factors can increase or reduce the | | | | be defined on an individual basis. What is sane for |
| impact of this. In some cases, stress and anxiety can | | | | one person in a given society may not be considered |
| merely even have the opposite effect, depending on | | | | such by a different person within the same society. |
| the person's personal outlook. | | | | Insanity is a matter of context in this case, which is |
| Emotions are also said to play a critical role in driving | | | | the assumption that some psychological texts make. |
| or pushing people into insanity, with feelings being so | | | | |