STAGE THREE OF STRESS BREAKDOWN: THE PROBABLE STRUCTURE OF THE ‘CIRCUIT BREAKERS’
In order to understand the circumstances under which the brain s circuit breakers begin to function, and how their function affects human behaviour, we don’t really have to know their actual structure. After all, we don’t have to know how a digital watch works before making use of it.  For those who are interested, however, it is probable that the ‘circuit breakers’ are small groups of cells which release neuro-transmitter chemicals. These chemicals have the effect of rendering the brain cell receiving strong levels of input less able to fire off. These small groups of cells are arranged so that they are activated by the same incoming stimuli as the receiving cells but they can also be activated by the reticular activating system.When we use our will-power, or we concentrate hard in trying to remember or to forget something, it is the reticular activating system that either activates or inhibits areas of the brain in accordance with our wishes. When this reticular activating system is over-strained or malfunctions, then grossly abnormal responses might be expected from an otherwise normal brain.Regardless of what their structure actually is, these inhibitory cell circuits function just like ‘circuit breakers’ when the person is experiencing excessive stress.In exactly the same way as the circuit breakers in our domestic electrical circuits will switch the current off if the current flowing in the circuit is too high, the brain appears to be able to switch off overloaded circuits to protect itself from overload.The reader may in fact have experienced this switch-off response of the brain to sudden, overwhelming input, or perhaps observed it in others. People who are informed of a sudden tragedy affecting a loved one, may appear stunned and unable to think, incapable of making a coherent response. They may even appear not to have heard the person who brought the bad news, and may make no visible or audible response. The person who hears the tragic news may later be able to describe the experience as a total switching off of thinking. The switching off which occurs in stress breakdown is something like this.In third stage stress breakdown, the brain has been forced to allow its function to be disturbed in order to protect itself.If we can’t protect our nervous systems from over-stimulation and overload by some suitable circuit breaker mechanism, we may well suffer epileptic discharges which will render us incapable of survival.It is the way the brain tries to protect itself from overload that determines the symptoms of third stage stress breakdown.
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Thoughts are like a big theatre stage. Thoughts are ideas, images, and conversations that are presented to the conscious mind. There may be a lot of thinking going on in the mind, but those thoughts that are conscious to us at one single moment are very limited. For example, right now you are reading this book, and your mind is conscious only of reading this sentence. You are less conscious of the last paragraph or of the last chapter. You are even less conscious of your surroundings, such as what clothes you are wearing, and, furthermore, you are even less conscious of the activities outside your room; unless your attention is drawn to them. At one single moment the mind is only conscious of a limited amount of information.

The mind is very much like a big stage in the theatre. There may be a lot of activities on the stage. The theatre is normally dark, and you can hardly read the programme, but the stage is bright and you can see and be aware of what is on the stage. This is like the fully awake state of your mind. You are aware of most of the events on the stage and you can be very easily distracted from one part of the stage to the other.

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Our Lack of Experience of Pain-One reason for our relative inability to cope with excessive pain is simply our lack of experience in the matter. Life in Western communities is so organized now that we have very little firsthand experience of pain except an occasional visit to the dentist; and even he gives us an injection if he thinks it necessary or if we wish it This is all a very wonderful advance in the history of man but it has this unfortunate side-effect, that we are less able to cope with severe pain if it should befall us; and we turn more and more to the use of drugs for pain of less and less severity.

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«I get the shakes. It seems silly. I’m not shaking. You can’t see it. But I am shaking. Shaking inwardly. Horrible. Demands my attention. So I can’t listen to what people say. It’s all inward. They don’t know I am shaking.

‘Sometimes, just sometimes, I do shake outwardly. Feel such a fool. Pass someone a cup of tea. The cup rattles on the saucer. The spoon jigs about as if to fall on the floor. Feel a fool. And feeling a fool makes it worse. »

The over-alertness of our brain cells plays tricks on the muscles they control. The feeling of insecurity and loss of control adds to our anxiety, and makes things worse.

Spots before the eyes

«I get spots before the eyes. They are not really spots. Funny little transparent shapes. Sometimes curled like a comma or a question mark. I don’t get them all the time. If I am looking down, and then look up, they shoot up, in front of whatever I am looking at. Then if I keep looking there, the spots slowly sink down. If I keep looking where I was, there are no spots. But if I look down, and look up again, I see them just as before. It’s strange. It makes me worry. I have heard of a person with cancer of his eye. »

These specks seen floating before the eyes are technically known as ‘muscae volitantes’, or ‘flitting flies’. More commonly they are called ‘floaters’. They are due to little bits of sediment in the aqueous compartment of the eyeball. When the eye is still, they rest at the bottom, but if we look up quickly they are thrown into the fluid of the compartment in front of our line of vision. If we hold our eye looking upwards, they gradually sink down.

‘Floaters’ are quite harmless, and are of no ill import at all. Usually we become aware of them only when stress increases our perception of things that normally would not reach our consciousness. As the stress is relieved, we are no longer troubled in this way.

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“She smothers me with love. My mother all over again. I don’t want it. I’m a man now. I can’t stand it. Bring work home at night. Want to get on in the world. To get on is to have the work done. There is no answer to that. She wants me to come to bed. I don’t want that. I ought to do the work. Grizzles about my golf. A man must have some time with his friends. Says I’m not with the children enough. I might as well tell you, there is a girl. Younger. Beautiful. Makes no demands. It’s I that makes the demands! And it’s good.

‘Say I’ve got the best of both worlds. The children at home and the girl. Both worlds and I should be happy. But I’m not. I’m fussed about it all. And my work. My work is not as good as it was. Deteriorating.”

More messages coming to his brain that can be integrated. Stress is upon him.

Life is for living. Life is for pleasure. Have what fun you can. But the seeking of it brings problems. Problem after problem. Let the mind run quiet. Just quiet. Messages arriving at the brain become integrated. It dawns. It does not have to be spelled out on the screen of the mind for us to see it all in better perspective.

The lonely woman

“How can you be lonely if you are married with two young children? Sounds crazy! To me it is the reality of life. The kiddies. They come to me, I love them. I mother them. But that does not fulfill the loneliness within me.

‘My husband. He does not have other women. I am sure of that. He provides well. No long overseas business trips like other men. But there is still a loneliness. An emptiness in my life. We seem to get along all right. That is the terrible paradox. Getting along all right, and the essence of man and woman together, are just poles apart.”

She is poised on the brink. Some other pressure and she will be forced over the edge.

Problems, such as the chronic illness of one of the children, would add to this background. Stress develops, and is likely to show itself in restlessness and irritability.

We have biological needs. Food and sex are obvious enough. If these needs are not satisfied, our brain soon becomes clogged with messages reporting our condition. But other biological needs also play upon our mind, and such a one is the need of man and woman together, in its naturalness and simplicity.

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