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.
  • Lane is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
    — Lily Meyer, The Atlantic, 31 Oct. 2025
  • So that brings it back to the concept of a nervous breakdown.
    — Leah Greenblatt, EW.com, 5 Oct. 2022
  • My adult son suffered a nervous breakdown a couple of years ago.
    — Jeanne Phillips, The Mercury News, 1 Feb. 2024
  • Phoenix’s Joe is a leg breaker on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
    — Gary Thompson, Philly.com, 11 Apr. 2018
  • This woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown is running the line like the Navy.
    — Hannah Jackson, Vogue, 10 Sep. 2024
  • 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
  • Next up, a career in banking, only a nervous breakdown came first.
    — Lili Anolik, Vanities, 14 Dec. 2017
  • At 19, as his peers made plans for college, Diller had a nervous breakdown.
    — Alexandra Jacobs, New York Times, 16 May 2025
  • One of my editors used to say that every good book has at least one nervous breakdown in its background.
    — Thomas E. Ricks june 6, Literary Hub, 6 June 2025
  • Adulthood comes in the form of flatscreen TVs and public nervous breakdowns.
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 2 May 2024
  • 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
  • Chief anaesthetist Jacob, caught in the trailer, is near to nervous breakdown.
    — John Hopewell, Variety, 1 Feb. 2022
  • 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
  • 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
  • Trevelyan suffered a nervous breakdown and was discharged from the military.
    — Town & Country, 23 Mar. 2022
  • 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
  • His mother, who worked as a spinner in Dundee’s vast jute mills, suffered a series of nervous breakdowns.
    — Town & Country, 21 Feb. 2023
  • Dern played a troubled sales executive who moves back in with her mom after a nervous breakdown at the office.
    — Meriam Bouarrouj, NBC news, 3 Nov. 2025
  • Another great performance in a go-for-broke horror flick about a woman well over the verge of a nervous breakdown.
    — Amy Nicholson, Twin Cities, 1 Mar. 2025
  • But, of course, the producers didn't want Caroline to have a nervous breakdown.
    — Jordan Hoffman, Entertainment Weekly, 23 Sep. 2025
  • After a nervous breakdown, Walter trades the city for the countryside.
    — Jacob Siegal, BGR, 28 Aug. 2022
  • Gohil succumbed to a nervous breakdown in 2002 due to the stress of keeping up with a fake image.
    — NBC News, 30 Jan. 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
  • But trying to pull it off now—in the midst of what feels like a national nervous breakdown—is to risk coming off as downright delusional.
    — Mckay Coppins, The Atlantic, 20 Oct. 2017
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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

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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