A psychiatrist! Janet wasn’t “crazy.” And everyone knows that only “crazy” people have anything wrong with them mentally. So she took the tranquilizers and ignored the advice of the physician. She continued to experience “panic attacks” on a more frequent basis until one Monday morning, she couldn’t get out of bed. Her children got very upset and called their grandmother who found Janet in a catatonic state. She took her daughter to the hospital where she was admitted to the psych ward for a few days. Janet had what used to be called a “nervous breakdown.”

Was Janet “crazy?” No, she was just suffering from severe anxiety and depression caused by several stressors. One of them was her boss who was just a bully. The other was the fact that her husband had died and left her as the sole provider for her two children.

Fortunately, Janet’s mother took her to the hospital as Janet had been thinking more and more about joining her late husband. Even more fortunate for Janet was the fact that the doctor at the hospital was able to help Janet identify her stressors.

While Janet could not do anything about the death of her husband, she could do something about the second stress factor, which was her boss. She looked for a new job with a boss who was a bit more human and finally found herself not only with a better boss, but more money. She was still able to keep in contact with the friends she made at her old job, who regaled her with stories about how her bully boss kept going through secretaries.