How to Use nervous breakdown in a Sentence

nervous breakdown

noun
  • He is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
  • She had a nervous breakdown shortly after her sister's death.
  • So that brings it back to the concept of a nervous breakdown.
    Leah Greenblatt, EW.com, 5 Oct. 2022
  • Phoenix’s Joe is a leg breaker on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
    Gary Thompson, Philly.com, 11 Apr. 2018
  • In the second half of the story, the soldier-writer has left Esme’s town, gone to the front and suffered a nervous breakdown.
    Lauren Markham, Longreads, 7 June 2018
  • Gohil succumbed to a nervous breakdown in 2002 due to the stress of keeping up with a fake image.
    NBC News, 30 Jan. 2018
  • Who in his or her right mind would want to relive the year of our collective nervous breakdown?
    Barbara Vandenburgh, USA TODAY, 12 Nov. 2021
  • Although the guy who installed the tile almost had a nervous breakdown.
    Christine Pittel, House Beautiful, 5 Dec. 2013
  • Europe is a continent on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
    Jason Horowitz, BostonGlobe.com, 16 Sep. 2023
  • When Marie Kondo was 16 years old, the clutter in her messy bedroom drove her to a nervous breakdown.
    Kate Storey, Good Housekeeping, 5 Jan. 2016
  • My adult son suffered a nervous breakdown a couple of years ago.
    Jeanne Phillips, The Mercury News, 1 Feb. 2024
  • Jamie harbors his own guilt for having left Iraq in the wake of a nervous breakdown before the bombing.
    Kerry Reid, chicagotribune.com, 22 Feb. 2018
  • Meanwhile, Randall is just one day away from the birth of his first child—a month after his first nervous breakdown.
    Candice Frederick, Harper's BAZAAR, 1 Nov. 2017
  • But this film about a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown lacks the epic sweep, neat plot and Tennessee Williams-like pathos of the earlier film.
    Laura Demarco, cleveland.com, 11 Dec. 2017
  • Chief anaesthetist Jacob, caught in the trailer, is near to nervous breakdown.
    John Hopewell, Variety, 1 Feb. 2022
  • Link ends up in the car with Jo, who is having a nervous breakdown trying to be a single mother to Luna.
    Lincee Ray, EW.com, 1 Oct. 2021
  • Lawrence wants to call it off, but June, who's on the brink of a nervous breakdown and holding onto the gun Lawrence had given her, informs him he's no longer in charge.
    Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY, 14 Aug. 2019
  • When Thomas was a toddler, his mother had a nervous breakdown, and he and a sister were sent to live in an orphanage for more than a year.
    New York Times, 11 Jan. 2021
  • Her chapters on greed and lust and more apply to nervous breakdowns, break-room donuts and the unbreakable glass ceiling.
    Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times, 29 Apr. 2023
  • After a nervous breakdown, Walter trades the city for the countryside.
    Jacob Siegal, BGR, 28 Aug. 2022
  • His father died before he was born, and because his mother, Clemence, had a nervous breakdown, he was sent to live with his aunt in France.
    Sam Whiting, San Francisco Chronicle, 23 Feb. 2021
  • His mother, who worked as a spinner in Dundee’s vast jute mills, suffered a series of nervous breakdowns.
    Town & Country, 21 Feb. 2023
  • Next up, a career in banking, only a nervous breakdown came first.
    Lili Anolik, Vanities, 14 Dec. 2017
  • His wife has a nervous breakdown, Henry ends up with his best friend’s wife, and a drug dealer ends up with Henry’s briefcase.
    Gege Reed, The Courier-Journal, 14 Feb. 2018
  • Wilson famously retired from the road in 1964 after a nervous breakdown on a flight to Houston to open a Beach Boys tour.
    Ed Masley, The Arizona Republic, 8 June 2022
  • In short, the Republican Party needs to have a nervous breakdown, get therapy and come to terms with the modern world.
    Fareed Zakaria, CNN, 16 May 2021
  • People on the verge of a nervous breakdown go sit by this roadside river (the best stretch is in Elkmont, Tenn.) and feel a whole lot better afterward.
    Kathryn O’Shea-Evans, WSJ, 12 Apr. 2018
  • Trevelyan suffered a nervous breakdown and was discharged from the military.
    Town & Country, 23 Mar. 2022
  • His options are to stew inside his own skull while his marker berates him into a nervous breakdown or to act out.
    Emma Grey Ellis, Wired, 11 Sep. 2020
  • The frog, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, takes a seat atop a crate and sings the lovely ode to self-acceptance and serenity, as the bare stage transforms into a forest grove around him.
    Tyler Aquilina, EW.com, 19 Feb. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'nervous breakdown.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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