Nervous shock

“ It is somewhat strange, though every one accepts as a mere truism the maxim that sudden emotional shock may produce almost any degree or variety of nervous disorder, the slower but far surer influence of long-continued mental habit is often practically ignored. ”

“ The shock to the nerve-centers which these momentary frights give, and the nervous strain which the city dweller endures from keeping a lookout for such dangers, can not fail to impair the strength of the nervous system. Through the nerves an injurious influence is exerted upon the heart also. ”

“ It is easy to see, from this glance at the fundamental conditions of imaginative creation, that it has one of its main impulses in uncommon experiences of suffering. The fine nervous organization, tremulously responsive to every touch, constitutes in itself, in this all too imperfect world of ours, a special dispensation of sorrow. Exquisite sensibility seems to be connected with a delicate poise of nervous structure eminently favorable to the experience of jarring and dislocated shock. ”

“ By a line of humorous reflection already suggested, we may in all cases of worry and moral disturbance reach the consolatory idea that the trouble has, in the first view of it, been grossly exaggerated. At the moment when the sensitive tissue is lacerated the shock of pain blinds us to dimensions; our disappointment fills the outlook, like a thunder-storm. The healthy nervous organism will show its vitality in the rapidity of the recuperative process ”

“ This is the reason why a very heavy and sudden shock to the nervous system does not pain, but kills outright at once; while one with which the system can, at any rate, try to familiarise itself is exceedingly painful. ”

“ Convalescent states as well as exhaustion from pain and disease, such as fever or a shock from some accident, war-shock, shell-shock, surgical shock predispose to the manifestation of the fear instinct. ”

“ This brings me to the consideration of another point, namely, that violent stimulation of a centre exhausts the nerve-force, not of that centre only, but of the whole nervous system. A terrible shock may so use up the nerve-force that the individual falls senseless, or, short of this, he may yet be so paralyzed with fear or grief that he loses all muscular power, or he may be so violently moved that the great exertions which he makes only last for a short time. ”

“ She had lost her nervous air, for she had perceived very clearly that it would be dangerous, indeed, to display the anxiety which was harassing her. It was only natural that she should appear upset by the shock, but not that she should appear in any way fearful. ”

“ Whatever the symptoms, the mechanism of the puzzling malady is always the same. There has been an abnormal dissociation. The ideas connected with the original shock, although submerged beneath the threshold of consciousness—in a word, forgotten—remain vividly alive in the subconscious, to act as perpetual irritants of the [234] nervous system and in time to give rise to the appearance of the symptoms of which the sufferer complains. Often, indeed, the dissociation is instantaneous, and the appearance of the disease symptoms equally rapid. ”

“ Army surgeons report that wounded men almost never suffer from shell-shock. The wound is enough to secure the unconsciously desired removal to the rear. But in the absence of wounds, a desire for safety may at the same time be so intense and so severely repressed that it seizes upon the neurosis as the only possible means of escape from the unbearable situation. In time of peace, however, the instinct of reproduction seems to be the only impulse which is severely enough repressed to be responsible for a nervous breakdown. ”

“ In the study of every nervous malady great importance must always be attributed to the investigation of the moral causes. The vivid impression of a strong emotion may produce the same effects as a blow on the head or some physical shock. There are men who, through fear, have lost consciousness, sight, or speech; others, still more sensitive, have remained for a long time paralytic, unable to move legs or arms, and have lost all sensibility. ”

“ There are a few who sadly collapse before the onslaught of adverse circumstances, who give way without a fight to nervous prostration, and who are subject at times to wild spasms of uncontrolable trembling, finally going down the line with a form of shell-shock altogether distinct to shock from violent concussion. ”

“ The nervous system also can act in a way that must always even to the most advanced student be totally unexpected. Cases are known, and well-authenticated ones, when a paralytic person has jumped out of bed on the cry of ‘Fire.’ Cases too are known when a great shock, which produces depression so profound as to amount to lethargy, is followed by abnormal activity, and the calling into use of powers which were previously unknown to exist, or at any rate existed in a quite ordinary degree. ”

“ During the act, they are subjected to nervous shocks, they "see stars," and undergo rigors and nervous sweats which are severely debilitating. Often, too, they will lie awake all night after engaging in the act, and be more or less of a wreck for a day or two afterwards. ”

“ Nevertheless I denied my condition, and so one day the doctor tried to explain it to me. “A person,” he began, “is said to be nervous when presenting a special susceptibility to pain, or exhibiting an undue mobility of the nervous system, as when one starts, or shakes on the occasion of abrupt or intense sensorial impressions, thus showing an exalted emotional susceptibility. ”

“ Nervousness may set our teeth chattering just as it may cause tremor through our sympathetic nervous system, disturbing the flow of blood through muscles and so disturbing control of them. Vehement emotion, anger, fright, and even those of less violence may cause similar effects. All these phenomena illustrate the close relation between mind and body. ”

“ But when action is hesitant there always seem several alternative possibilities of nervous discharge. The feeling awakened lay the nascent excitement of each nerve-track seems by its attractive or repulsive quality to determine whether the excitement shall abort or shall become complete. Where indecision is great, as before a dangerous leap, consciousness is agonisingly intense. ”

“ Since this test of emotion is fundamentally sound, it is not surprising that the nervous man is in a state of distress. Indigestion, fatigue, over-sensibility, sound like problems in physiology, but we cannot go far in the discussion of any of them without coming face to face with the emotions as the real factors in the case. When we turn to the mental characteristics of nervous folk, we even more quickly find ourselves in the midst of an emotional disturbance. ”

“ At every inspiration there is a very noticeable tremor of the limbs and of nearly the whole muscular system. The excitement arising in the nerve-centres to produce [144] a contraction of the diaphragm and of the muscles of the thorax seems to have become so strong, that it goes beyond the limits of the respiratory centre and diffuses itself over a great part of the nerves. In anger, fear, and mental perturbations, when the stormy winds of passion rage, waves flow to all parts of the nervous system, then break, revealing themselves in the agitation of the muscles. ”

“ Nature will mend the break, but tired, worn, stretched, abused nerves take time to restore. These nerve ailments call for most vigorous mental treatment.
Neurasthenia means debilitated or prostrated nerves and it shows itself first of all by worry. Worry means the inability to relax the attention from a definite fear or fancied hard luck. Worry leads to many physical and mental disorders.
Left alone this worry stage develops into an acute state and brings with it nervous prostration, and sometimes a complete collapse of the will power. ”

“ The technical term for nervousness is psycho-neurosis—disease of the psyche. There are certain "real neuroses" such as paralysis and spinal-cord disease, which involve an organic impairment of nerve-tissue. However, as this book deals only with psychic disturbance, we shall, throughout, use the term neuroses and psycho-neuroses indiscriminately, to denote nervous or functional disorders.
To still other people nervous trouble means fear,—just terrible fear without object or meaning or reason (anxiety neuroses) ; or a definite fear of some harmless object (phobia) ”

“ The fatigue, pains and aches, changes in mood and emotion are born of this reaction, except in those cases where they arise from definite bodily disease, and even here a vicious circle is established. The weakness and fatigue state, the consciousness of impaired power brought about by sickness, are reacted to in a neurasthenic manner. It is not often enough realized by physicians that a physical defect or a physical injury may be reacted to so as to bring about nervous and mental symptoms; may cause the emotions of fear, hopeless anger, and sorrow; may cause an agony of doubt. ”

“ A person wrings the hands, beats the breast, stamps upon the floor in an agony of grief and apprehension, and if terror is added he trembles violently. It is no great stretch of the imagination to suppose that great fear, anger, or some kindred passion, acting upon the sensitive nervous organization of a delicate woman or child, should throw them into a convulsion. This, in fact, we know happens. Darwin72 believes that in certain excited states of the brain so much nerve-force is liberated that muscular action is almost inevitable. ”

“ From the evidence just given it appears that any high degree of excitement in the central nervous system, whether felt as anger, terror, pain, anxiety, joy, grief or deep disgust, is likely to break over the threshold of the sympathetic division and disturb the functions of all the organs which that division innervates. ”

“ The quick blush, the sudden paling of the cheeks, the start of fear, the dilated pupils of fright are the direct result of the action of involuntary muscles under control of the sympathetic system. The stimulus is received by the central nervous system; the fibers connecting the central and the sympathetic systems carry the message quickly to the latter, which immediately respond by ordering contraction or expansion of involuntary muscles. So tears flow, we breathe freely again or we quake and tremble, our pupils widen or contract, the heart beats suffocatingly, or seems almost to stop. ”

“ How strange it is that a simple feeling of discomfort, impeded or heightened circulation, perhaps the irritation of a nervous thread, a slight congestion, a small disturbance in the imperfect and delicate functions of our living machinery, can turn the most lighthearted of men into a melancholy one, and make a coward of the bravest! ”

“ Our nerves enter intimately into every feeling, thought, act of life, into every function of our bodies, into every aspiration of our souls. They determine our digestion and our destinies; they may even influence the destinies of others. Let us turn a few pages of a life and see the cost of defective nervous-living. ”

“ It is known only too well today by those who seek to know, that back of all such physical conditions as nervousness, prostration, temporary insanity, nervous disorders, pains resembling rheumatism, hay fever, heart troubles, mental symptoms, nervous chills, morbid forebodings and mild mania, there lurks the abnormal activity of the psychic or "thought body" caused by thoughts and feelings acting abnormally upon the vital centers of the nervous system and mind. ”

“ If we examine closely the symptoms of fear, we invariably find the symptoms of functional psychosis or neurosis. Fear affects the muscular and sensory systems, the vasomotor system, the respiratory system, the sudorific glands, the viscera, the heart, the intestines, all organs and functions of the organism. ”

“ To be seized with panic, to send post-haste for the doctor, to carry the patient to the open window, to burn strong-smelling vapours, and so forth, not only is apt to prolong the nervous spasm on this occasion, but makes it likely that a strong impression will be left in his mind which by auto-suggestion will provoke another attack shortly. ”

“ Anxiety neuroses: A clinical type in which morbid anxiety or fear is the most prominent feature. A general nervous irritability (or excitability) is regularly associated with the anxious expectation or dread; in addition there are numerous physical symptoms which may be regarded as the bodily accompaniments of fear, particularly cardiac and vasomotor disturbances; the heart's action is increased, often there is irregularity and palpitation; there may be sweating, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, suffocative feelings, dizziness, trembling, shaking, difficulty in locomotion, etc. ”

“ One of the most striking features of the war from which we have recently emerged -- perhaps its most important feature from the medical point of view -- has been the enormous scale on which it produced those disturbances of nervous and mental function which are grouped together by the physician under the heading of psycho-neurosis. ”

“ It can not be too much emphasized that mental perturbation affects the body in many ways. Shame fills our cheeks with blood. Fear drives the blood away. Excitement quickens the heart-beat. Grief brings tears, the reaction of glands about the eyes, and sighs, the disturbances of regular breathing. A great shock to the mind may cause fainting, the rush of blood from the head into the abdomen. Worry will interfere with digestion and sleep. The X-ray has detected the arrest of the peristaltic movement of the stomach and intestines because of a strong emotion. ”

“ In the same way, a moral wound for which we are not prepared may bring about abrupt and prolonged consequences, from which the most robust health does not always protect us; and which is in proportion disastrous if the person on whom it falls is by temperament excitable or nervous. I have over and over seen such shocks cause lasting nervousness. ”