Fifty years ago, Ms. Shapiro's experience would have been called a "nervous breakdown" an unscientific term for personal crises ranging from serious mental illness and alcoholism to marital problems and stress.

WSJ: Time for a Good Old-Fashioned Nervous Breakdown

The FBI then leaked this misinformation to the press, which soon began writing stories questioning Liuzzo's mental health (she had once suffered a nervous breakdown) and her morality.

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There's no official term for milder forms of "nervous breakdown, " though some patients and clinicians wish there was still a name for a temporary state of being overwhelmed by outside forces without an underlying mental illness.

WSJ: Time for a Good Old-Fashioned Nervous Breakdown

Despite his outward glamour, this famous young man was, at 25, living in the attic of his mother's London boarding house in Ebury Street and having his first nervous breakdown.

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The child's grandfather Kell Hutchence has launched proceedings in Australia seeking sole custody of the couple's child after concerns over a new relationship Miss Yates began while being treated at a clinic for a nervous breakdown earlier this year.

BBC: News | Entertainment | Yates loses custody battle