When is enough is enough?

I saw a mentally challenged person today. She is my client's mother. He did not tell us that his mother has this condition until she suddenly came into his office and started screaming hysterically. He was extremely embarrassed but not once raised his voice. After a while, the mother left. He took sometime to lift his eyes to meet us but we waited patiently. He apologized repeatedly. I tried my best to tell him that he has nothing to be embarrassed about and we are okay.

He then explained that his mother had a mental breakdown 8 months ago, after his father passed away. He said that his family knew that even before his father passed away that his mother was going through something. She was depressed for quite sometimes. Since she never said anything, they did not ask. They assumed that she must be able to handle whatever she was dealing with or else she would say something. Unfortunately she never said anything and whatever that was building inside her exploded the day her husband passed away.

Later that day, I keep on thinking about what happened. The questions that keeps nagging at the back of my mind is, how bad is it? Why did not she tell someone? And finally, when is the breaking point?

I cannot help but think back of all my depressed days. I took some psychology classes, so I know a little bit about the symptoms of people going through depression. One of the symptoms is that not wanting to leave the bed or even do anything. Whenever I feel like going through this, I always push myself to at least leave the bed to wash my face. That is all the push it needs, everything else will slowly fall into place. The worst thing when you reach the stage of not wanting to leave the bed is that, you don't really want to talk to anyone. Pushing someone to talk at this stage is a waste of time or would even make it worse. They will talk only when they feel like talking.

I know that this is more of Lina Ideris's area and I am no expert. However, I think when someone reach this stage, what they need is just attention. Whether a small talk or a touch of hand or simply by just being there next to them would help. Any amount of love is appreciated.

So, the question: When is the breaking point? When would you know that enough is enough?

The answer might be 'never' when it comes to love. However, in depression, whenever the question is triggered, the answer will always be 'Now' and it's time for story telling.