how do people become insane?

Answer 1

Not entirely sure, but working my job for a week might give you an idea...

Answer 2

Your question seems simple but its answer is far from it. Even the definition of insanity changes with the year.

Chemical imbalance of the brain certainly is one way, a very important way. People whose seritonin levels are abnormal may become fixed on ideas. This can be genetic, brought on by adolescence, birth of a child, etc.

Inappropriate electrical activity of the brain can lead to strange behavior, hearing and seeing and even smelling things that are not there. This sometimes comes about from trauma (like being hit on the head).

Conditioning - repeated reinforcement of offnormal behavior - can lead to what most would call insanity. If you beat a child for speaking pretty soon the child will shut up. The repercussions of that can lead to other behaviors however.

Diseases of the brain can lead to insanity. We do not know what causes Alzheimers but it does lead not just to forgetting but to some very sadly bizzare behaviors.

I am not a doctor. If you think you or a loved one are having mental problems, seek professional help.

Answer 3

A person only becomes insane when other people think that person is insane. It is a social perception thing.
The person's mental processes and behaviour are not what decides insanity.
This social perception of what constitutes an insane person varies with time and place; in the early years of the last century unmarried mothers were committed to Rampton (secure mental hospital) because their actions seriously contravened what was socially and morally acceptable.

Answer 4

There are several possible explanations for mental illness (not just insanity); the true reason is not fully known, or it may be a combination of all of them:

1) Biological: mental illness is just the same as physical illness; it is caused by pathogens (viruses or bacteria); poisons or excess or lack of bodily chemicals such as hormones; genetics; injuries (for example, amnesia is caused by a blow to the head) and so forth.
2) Behavioural; we "learn" mental illnesses in the same way we learn to speak, or to obey social norms. This is to do with the idea that things are gradually reinforced (the idea that media exposion increases anorexia)
3) Psychoanalytic; mental illness is caused by mental trauma, repression, an interruption to mental and emotional development.

I think there's another, but I can't think of it at the moment!

Answer 5

Insanity is a legal term. Not a medical term. In the legal world, it means
one is in such a state of mind that he is not repsonsible for what he does
(e.g., he is not capable of realizing that what he is doing is wrong, like
killing someone).

Outside the legal world, it usually means along the lines of psychotic,
that is, one is unable to determine what is real and what is not.
Psychotic patients often have problems with hallucinations. Hallucinations
are sensations that people get that are not real. For example, hearing
voices or seeing things like bugs or snakes crawling on your skin. People
with hallucinations do not realize that the hallucinations are not real,
and respond to them as if they are real.

There are several different causes of psychosis. One is drugs and other
toxins. People who take drugs like amphetamines (uppers) or LSD (acid)
often have hallucinations and have difficulty determining what is
real and what is not. Alcoholics who stop alcohol sometimes have what are
called the DTs (delirium tremens). These often involve very real visual
hallucinations.

Another cause of psychosis is schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a very
difficult disease to understand. Patients often have auditory
hallucinations (for example they hear voices that tell them to kill other
people), become very paranoid (feel that people are out to get them), and
difficulty with processing information and determining what is real. The
cause of schizophrenia is unknown, but a large part of this is genetic
(what is in our genes). There is also a large environmental component. But
this is very clearly a biological disorder; in other words, people with
this problem have something wrong with their brain. However, one is not
born insane. When people who develop schizophrenia are young they are
pretty normal. And when an indentical twin (who have identical genes) gets
schizophrenia, only about half of the time does the other twin become
schziophrenic; meaning that the environment plays a large role as well.

There are other causes of what other people would call insanity, but these
are two common ones (drugs and schizophrenia

Answer 6

Some people who are inflicted by traumatic experiences may succumbed to having mental instability.

Some are due to constantly worrying over certain matters which they could not resolved and no help is at hand. As time passed, their mental state may be unstable ..leading to insanity.

Answer 7

Sanity is defined by the majority, therefore, if your thinking, way of life, social demeanour, whatever is different to that of the sheep majority, then you are insane. Or to put it differently, if everyone was insane except you, then insanity would be sanity and sanity would be insanity.

Answer 8

there are many factors that can cause insanity, or for someone to be considered insane. sometimes hormones, or chemical imbalances, substance abuse, lack of logical methodical thinking, brain damage,trauma, it's quite perplexing.

Answer 9

the higher yahoo level they reach the crazier they get.. and this answer sends me directly to the 3rd level where my mind will be a raging torrent flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives...

Answer 10

trauma, substance abuse, genes or life itself no one answer and too many ways to become insane to list

Answer 11

Teaching high school students for 29 years...