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11[[quoteright:316:[[Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jack_slipping.png]]]]
12[[caption-width-right:316:Get some sleep Jack, jeez.]]
13
14->''"Now, madness, as you know, is... like gravity. All it takes is a little '''push'''!"''
15-->-- '''The Joker''', ''Film/TheDarkKnight''
16
17A character has been a bit... off for a while now. Maybe they just [[NotHimself haven't been themself]], maybe they've been [[IdentityBreakdown struggling with who or what they are]], maybe they've gone as far as painting a RoomFullOfCrazy while reciting a MadnessMantra, or maybe they've gone through a MadnessMakeover, but it's apparent from their actions that their rational mind is losing its grip, and they are sliding inch by inch toward insanity.
18
19The end result of this varies, depending on the tone of the series and who the character is. If the series is [[DarkerAndEdgier dark and edgy]], they may go on a [[MurderIsTheBestSolution murderous rampage]]. On the other hand, if it's [[LighterAndSofter light and soft]], it may just be PlayedForLaughs, becoming a source for their hilarious dialogue and wacky plans. A villain is likely to have a VillainousBreakdown resulting in KarmicDeath, while a hero will just have a HeroicBSOD and then get better.
20
21Occasionally, a character will be seen [[ReluctantPsycho holding back their insanity and generally keeping it in check]], until that final straw breaks the camel's back and they finally snap, having a massive FreakOut.
22
23And most rarely, the Sanity Slippage is the effect of being {{Gaslight|ing}}ed by a villain.
24
25A common way to demonstrate this process is MundaneHorror: when some weird and unsettling details appear in everyday life, this may be the first sign that a character is losing his grasp on reality.
26
27A SuperTrope to SanitySlippageSong.
28
29Compare GoMadFromTheApocalypse, GoMadFromTheRevelation, FreakOut, VillainousBreakdown, RoomFullOfCrazy, MadnessMantra, LaughingMad, DrivenToMadness and WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity. If this is a backstory it's PreInsanityReveal. Compare SlowlySlippingIntoEvil. The opposite of SanityStrengthening.
30
31[[noreallife]]
32----
33!!Example subpages:
34[[index]]
35* SanitySlippage/AnimeAndManga
36* SanitySlippage/ComicBooks
37* SanitySlippage/FanWorks
38* [[SanitySlippage/LiveActionFilms Films — Live-Action]]
39* SanitySlippage/{{Literature}}
40* SanitySlippage/LiveActionTV
41* SanitySlippage/{{Music}}
42* SanitySlippage/VideoGames
43* SanitySlippage/{{Webcomics}}
44* SanitySlippage/WebVideos
45* SanitySlippage/WesternAnimation
46[[/index]]
47
48!!Other examples:
49
50[[foldercontrol]]
51
52[[folder:Alternate Reality Games]]
53* ''ARG/OmegaMart'': The "Exceptional Customers" are people who have clearly had their sense of reality and well-being deeply messed up by the Omega Mart shopping experience. Workers are encouraged to keep them hydrated, speak calmly, and coax them into buying more stuff.
54[[/folder]]
55
56[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
57%%* Jafar in ''WesternAnimation//{{Aladdin}}''.
58* Ursula of ''WesternAnimation/{{The Little Mermaid|1989}}''. While not a good character, she was sane and composed during most of the film. However, when she transforms into Vanessa, its implied that she lost quite a bit of sanity (to the point of becoming a borderline AxCrazy) when turning into her, as she talks to her mirror in a manner similar to a schizophrenic, emits a psychotic grin when throwing a pin at a mirror's head with enough velocity to knock the mirror back, and most certainly kill a person had that been a human being, not to mention her cackling.
59* In ''WesternAnimation/OpenSeason2'', Fifi begins to lose most of [[GenderBlenderName his]] sanity after getting the fur on his forehead burned during a chase. Over time, his eyes begin to get more and more twitchy. Ultimately, Fifi tries to kill the wilds with the shock collars in revenge, but then realizes that Elliot put all the collars on him. Fifi survives, but the electricity makes him lose all of his fur, humiliating him.
60* ''WesternAnimation/{{Ratatouille}}'': Skinner goes through this throughout the entire movie, to the point he starts making conspiracy theories regarding Remy's presence. Even his lawyer asks if he should be worried about his client.
61* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretOfTheMagicPotion'', Sulfurix was never a very stable individual to begin with, but his sanity keeps deteriorating over the course of the film. He seems to completely lose it once he realises that [[spoiler:Getafix did not transmit the full recipe of the Magic Potion to Teleferix]].
62* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSpongeBobMovieSpongeOutOfWater'', ''everyone'' in Bikini Bottom loses it after the formula is stolen, becoming savage and selfish. Sandy is a more noticeable example, as her treedome is converted into a RoomFullOfCrazy, and she keeps prophesing about [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt "The End"]].
63* ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory1'': Buzz doesn't take the [[TomatoInTheMirror revelation that he's a toy]] particularly well. During his HeroicBSOD, he gets drunk on imaginary darjeeling at Hannah's tea party, breaks into maniacal laughter and crowns himself Mrs. Nesbitt, and eventually peels off and throws away his wrist communicator sticker. It takes a YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre speech from Woody before Buzz eventually regains his senses.
64* ''WesternAnimation/{{Up}}'': Charles Muntz is an implied example. Psychologically speaking, the years have clearly not been kind to him.
65[[/folder]]
66
67[[folder:Multiple Media]]
68* Franchise/MonsterVerse:
69** The ColonelKilgore of ''Film/KongSkullIsland'' becomes increasingly unhinged the longer he and his men are stranded on the titular IsleOfGiantHorrors, progressing from unloading bullets into monsters with a look in his eyes like the shark from ''Jaws'', to pointing his gun at his fellow survivors when they disagree with him, to finally trying to get himself and everyone else killed in a mad dash to kill Kong.
70** [[MaskOfSanity It's not obvious until later on]], but [[FallenHero Emma Russell]] in ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters]]'' has definitely lost some of her marbles due to her unresolved grief over the death of her elder child who was caught up in Godzilla's previous battle against the [=MUTOs=]. [[spoiler:Emma wants to save the world as a way to respect her child's memory, but the way she intends to do that is by unleashing every {{Kaiju}} on the planet so they can kill millions, and she's the only character in the movie who doesn't recognize the ''ginormous'' cognitive dissonance required to come to this conclusion, even going so far as to state that she's never been clearer-headed when she's arguing with her ex-husband]].
71** In the graphic novel ''The Birth of Kong'', which ties the above two films together, a member of the new expedition to Skull Island goes crazy after he drinks too much of the natives' medicinal brew, experiencing splitting headaches and [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane visions (or hallucinations)]] of the island's inhabitants, which culminates in him shooting his comrades' rescue down with a rocket launcher because he doesn't want anyone to leave until they've made "communion" with King Kong.
72[[/folder]]
73
74[[folder:Podcasts]]
75* ''Podcast/TheMagnusArchives'': Jonathan, the primary viewpoint character, spends most of the first season becoming steadily more unhinged as the nature of the job starts to get to him.
76* Season four of ''Podcast/MissionToZyxx'' sees this happen to Pleck as his lack of purpose drives him to conspiracy-theory extremes and bizarre ritualistic behavior.
77[[/folder]]
78
79[[folder:Radio]]
80* ''Radio/BleakExpectations'': A few days on a dessert [[note]]Not a typo, it's an island [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin made out of dessert]][[/note]] island drive Pip Bin utterly mad, to the extent that he loses track of time, and considers eating himself, only relenting when he realises this is "probably a bit of an own goal". He quickly recovers when he finds someone to boss around.
81** PlayedForDrama with Harry Biscuit's mother, who after her husband died started believing she was literally a biscuit (named Susan), and dunked herself to death. After that, the Biscuit fortune was taken by their rivals, the Flapjacks, and Harry was sent to [[BoardingSchoolOfHorrors St. Bastards]].
82** Subverted with Pip Bin's own mother, who after the death of her husband starts sitting in linen closets and claiming to be a tablecloth married to a curtain, before moving on to bizarre interior decorating tips (replacing the walls with geese, putting scatter cushions on fire), and then believing she's the host of a cooking show. In Georgian England. Only it turns out [[spoiler:she was faking it, and the minute her husband returns she goes back to normal.]]
83[[/folder]]
84
85[[folder:Roleplay]]
86%%* In ''Roleplay/WeAreOurAvatars'', [[@/HilarityEnsues Hilarity]], comedically. [[@/SapphireFlame Sapph]], [[ShellShockedVeteran not]] [[DrunkWithPower so]] [[WhatHaveIDone comedically]]
87* Kevin Low from ''[[Roleplay/NewGamePlusTheRpg NEWGAME+]]'', after countless slights against him, begins to believe the world is against him, as he begins to slip even more, he starts to have spans of time where he wishes vengeance upon his friends. "He smiles at the twitching bloodied body, he knows she is still alive, but he wants her to suffer. She has become a proxy for every single person who hurt him, every situation bent on beating him down. and now they all are suffering. and it pleases him."
88[[/folder]]
89
90[[folder:Pro Wrestling]]
91* Wrestling/{{Edge|Wrestler}} began to gradually lose his mind as he kept getting closer to a Wrestling/HellInACell match with Wrestling/TheUndertaker. It took Wrestling/MickFoley to tell Edge that he needed to let loose to have a hope of winning, culminating in a two-word NoMoreHoldingBackSpeech: "I understand."
92** The entire summer of 2008 was this for Edge. After losing the World Heavyweight Championship to Wrestling/CMPunk, things fell apart and it was a long, drawn-out ride off the slope for him. The above incident with Foley was just the straw that broke the camel's back.
93* Wrestling/RandySavage became increasingly paranoid of other wrestlers trying to make moves on Wrestling/MissElizabeth as time went on, which in truth, [[ProperlyParanoid they were]]. But as it is said, just because they're out to get you doesn't mean you aren't paranoid.
94* Wrestling/RandyOrton infamously started to lose it after his first world title run, which involved his friend and mentor, Wrestling/TripleH, ousting him ([[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown forcefully]]) from Wrestling/{{Evolution}} in a fit of jealousy. Cracks began to show in The Legend Killer's suave persona over the next few years, and a Wrestlemania feud with (and loss to) Wrestling/TheUndertaker shoved him over the deep end. His partnership with Wrestling/{{Edge|Wrestler}} managed to keep him in check for about a year or so, but after that fell apart there was nothing stopping his descent, culminating in his first feud with Cena which saw him attack Cena's father. By 2008, he was more-or-less gone, and by 2009 he had fully become the "Viper" that continues to terrorize WWE over a decade later.
95* Wrestling/BrianPillman, due to an increasing string of injuries cutting down on his in-ring time.
96* This is how Wrestling/{{ECW}} explained the transformation of narcissistic Johnny Polo to the chronically depressed, manipulative cult figure Wrestling/{{Raven}}.
97* Having his mask stapled to his head and then being hung by Wrestling/RingOfHonor's Hang Men 3 really took a toll on [[Wrestling/HunterJohnston Delirious's sanity]]. As the name implies, he was already a {{Cloudcuckoolander}} but the experience drove him AxCrazy enough to concoct a poison designed to restrict the airway, which he stored in his mouth!
98* Wrestling/MickieJames's obsession regarding Wrestling/TrishStratus started about as innocently as an ''obsession'' could conceivably be (she used Trish's moves in new ways, hung around, sung her praises, etc). But then Mickie started giving up her own good fortunes for Trish, first admirably but later...to the detriment of her own health. Then Mickie started dressing like Trish. Then she got ''jealous'' of anyone who spent any significant time with Trish, be it Trish's preexisting protegée Ashley or Trish's boyfriend Chad. When Mickie basically [[NotWhatItLooksLike rested her head on Trish's crotch]] and [[NoSenseOfPersonalSpace refused to move it]], that was enough for Trish, but the descent of Mickie's sanity had only just begun.
99* [[Wrestling/RonKillings R-Truth]] turned heel after losing out on a WWE Championship opportunity. And after that, his mind.
100* [[Wrestling/BryanDanielson Daniel Bryan]]. Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! And after Wrestling/AJLee left him at the altar, it turned into: No! No! No! No! No!
101* In 2010, poor Wrestling/ShawnMichaels started losing his mind after not being able to beat Wrestling/TheUndertaker at Wrestling/WrestleMania XXV. And after Wrestling/WrestleMania XXVI, his career. He regained his sanity at this point.
102* In her route to the Wrestling/{{SHIMMER}} singles championship belt, Madison Eagles went from [[FunnyForeigner a silly lady in pink]] to obsessively dedicated to prying the belt away from Wrestling/MsChif. After she did, it only got worse, to the point she defined her very existence by the title and became jealously paranoid of it, equating any criticism that might in anyway relate to her, any kind of success by anyone else, as being part of some agenda to take it away...leading to the MemeticMutation of the SHIMMER belt being an {{artifact of doom}} only "[[OurBansheesAreLouder demons]]" like the aforementioned Chif could handle.
103* Wrestling/AJLee's descent into insanity began when Bryan first dumped her after Wrestlemania -- needless to say, he would regret it. It's been over a year and AJ still hasn't regained her sanity yet.
104* Wrestling/SuYung had been slipping toward insanity since at least 2009 thanks to an inferiority complex regarding Tracy Taylor. A tour of Japan was supposed to help her get better but thanks to a few encounters with "[[IronicNickname Sweet]]" Saraya in SHINE she seems to have completely lost it in 2014...[[Film/JuOn completely.]]
105* If Su Yung's the long case, Kimberly Maddox is the alarmingly short one, as in two shows in two months short, over the fact she couldn't get a win in the Shine promotion. However, Leva Bates theorized that Kimberly already had narcissistic personality disorder, so she likely didn't start very far up the slope.
106* This happened to both Wrestling/SethRollins and Wrestling/RomanReigns after [[Wrestling/JonMoxley Dean Ambrose]] left WWE in 2019, with the implication that Ambrose was serving as their MoralityChain. Rollins' big face run ended up collapsing thanks to bad booking and his own OutOfUniverse behavior, causing him to make a FaceHeelTurn involving developing a messiah complex before flat-out becoming a straight up [[PracticallyJoker Joker-expy]]. Meanwhile, years of fan vitriol and being constantly screwed out of the world title (in addition to never fully recovering from the trauma of the Shield's break-up) had been secretly eroding away at Reigns' sanity for a while, culminating in him snapping and becoming a sociopathic mob boss that was willing to brutalize and gaslight [[Wrestling/TheUsos his own cousins]] into becoming his lackeys after the company attempted to freeze him out during the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Rather ironically, the exact [[SanityStrengthening opposite]] ended up happening to Ambrose (who used to be Wrestling/TheShield's resident {{Cloudcuckoolander}}), in that the stable's dissolution led to him becoming the OnlySaneMan, since he was the only one to make any real peace with what happened.
107* When Wrestling/ToniStorm lost the women's world championship for a second time in Wrestling/AllEliteWrestling during 2023, she began adopting a new "Timeless" persona akin to a WhiteDwarfStarlet, who believes in the delusion that she's still relevant in the wrestling industry, even though she's no longer a champion. During interviews with Toni, her loss of reality mixed with incoherent rants and [[RunningGag shoe-throwing antics against interviewers]] really started to take a toll on her mind.
108[[/folder]]
109
110[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
111* ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'' is famous for introducing the SAN attribute, which drops a little each time the players encounter a monster or cast a spell, or something.
112** Mechanically, most Mythos creatures and knowledge cause a San check. A failed check will generally make you roll, while a successful check will only deal one point. Most lesser mythos creatures can only inflict up to the max Sanity damage that roll can deal to a person before the character becomes ConditionedToAcceptHorror. This also adds to a characters Mythos Knowledge score, which is subtracted from their maximum possible sanity (not to be confused with their current SAN score)
113* Characters in ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase'' are very hard to [[DeathIsCheap kill permanently]] due to [[BrainUploading cortical stacks and backups]], fortunately for [[KillerDM GMs]] there's a mechanic called "stress points" that can cause psychological disorders or permanent catatonia if the PC lets them accumulate.
114* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' loves this trope:
115** The Solars gradually experience this as they become more and more godlike, from both the Great Curse and general detachment from humanity and less powerful divine beings.
116** Being close to a Primordial War survivor in the First Age can be dangerous, humiliating, and bad for your physical, mental, and social health.
117** Also happens to Infernals. They have access to Yozi Charms. Everything the Yozis are, is made of Charms. Most of the Yozis are insane, and their Charmsets tend to be arranged so that the good stuff with no drawbacks is padlocked by something with benefits that makes you a little crazier. The best example of this is Kimbery, who has an entire Charm tree (built on ThePowerOfHate) locked behind something that permanently skews the sanity of its user to be either more naive or more vindictive, depending on the chosen variant.
118* In ''TabletopGame/FadingSuns'', Psychics and Theurgists are prone to "Urge" and "Hubris" respectively.
119* The fan-made ''World of Darkness'' game ''TabletopGame/GeniusTheTransgression'' is unique in that players start out insane by nature of their [[MadScientist profession]], and as they lose Obligation start unconsciously [[RealityWarper altering reality]] to fit their delusions.
120* Everyone in ''TabletopGame/NewWorldOfDarkness'', from normal humans to blood-hungry vampires to reality-bending mages, has a KarmaMeter. As you slide down the slippery slope, you tend to become a little more unstable with each step, until finally, humans are reduced to raving lunatics, vampires and werewolves go nuts and become meat-hungry animals, mages and changelings fly off the deep end and lose the ability to separate reality from fantasy, and prometheans lose hope of ever becoming humans.
121** With the ''Chronicles of Darkness'' rebrand, the KarmaMeter has also received a rebrand to avoid moralistic associations of sin and mental illness, but some of the meters have been rejiggered to focus on sanity. Mortals get Integrity, reflecting their ability to deal with the sheer supernatural horrors they're exposed to. Vampires still have Humanity, but it can be affected by things that don't represent sin but rather represent the psychic weight of a divorce from the pulse of the mortal world (e.g., realizing you've been alive for a century).
122* The ''TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness'' also has sanity-slipping {{Karma Meter}}s, though not all splats have them.
123* ''TabletopGame/TrailOfCthulhu'' iterates on ''Call'''s design with it's sanity/stability split. Sanity is the same as it ever was, but Stability represents how well put together are. Characters with low Stability definitely resemble the slippage, while high Stability allows even an insane cultist to fake normality.
124* Any KillerGameMaster worth the title can put this into ''any'' game.
125* A daily occurrence in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' and ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''; living in an endlessly terrible CrapsackWorld will do that. Witches/psykers are especially vulnerable to Slippage, thanks to the source of their powers being the home of TheLegionsOfHell.
126** As befits its source material, GaidenGame ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'' has mechanics by which players can go insane.
127** ''TabletopGame/{{Necromunda}}'' actually has an Insanity status that your gangers can be afflicted with. One of the first perks of [[TheCorruption making them a Chaos cult]] is immunity to it.
128* Also appears in TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRoleplay, it has a mechanic for going insane and lists quite a nice amount of mental illnesses for which your character can suffer
129[[/folder]]
130
131[[folder:Theatre]]
132* Burr shows shades of this in the song "The World Was Wide Enough" during ''Theatre/{{Hamilton}}''. It's particularly evident in the line "This man will not make an orphan of my daughter!"
133* The title characters in Creator/WilliamShakespeare's ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'' and ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'' gets an obsessive variety.
134* In ''The Medium'' by Gian-Carlo Menotti, PhonyPsychic Baba suffers increasingly from delusions of someone touching her throat and childlike voices calling out to her as in one of the séances she and Monica put on. She suspects Toby of being the one who touched her, and interrogates him with increasing violence (being a CuteMute, Toby never answers).
135* The title character of ''Theatre/ThePhantomOfTheOpera'', though your mileage may vary on how sane he was to begin with. But he's definitely completely off the beam by the end, determined to have Christine at all costs, even if he has to blackmail her into marriage by threatening to kill her lover.
136* In ''Theatre/ShrekTheMusical'', Fiona has a moment of this in "I Know It's Today" from waiting to be rescued [[GoMadFromTheIsolation from a small room in a tower for over twenty years]].
137* Blanche in ''Theatre/AStreetcarNamedDesire'' as well as the film adaptation with Creator/VivienLeigh.
138* ''Theatre/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet'' does this with its eponymous character via [[SanitySlippageSong "Epiphany"]].
139[[/folder]]
140
141[[folder:Visual Novels]]
142* Sakura in ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight''. It's like everything anyone ever says to her is another stab at her self confidence. And then Shinji tries [[spoiler:to rape her one more time, and then he'll tell Shirou about it]]. Yeahhhh things kind of go downhill from there. Oh, and she was already [[spoiler:eating people in her sleep]], passing out frequently and also quietly going crazy anyway. [[spoiler:She does get better, however.]]
143* ''VisualNovel/TheFruitOfGrisaia'': In her bad ending [[spoiler:Makina goes through this after watching Yuuji die right in front of her. She proceeds to keep his rotting body in a trash bag talking to him, believing he is still alive.]]
144* ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' has this occur several times, almost once an arc, and often bloodily.
145* ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'' has [[spoiler: Clover, waking up and being forced into playing the Nonary Game. For a second time. She is fine over this. What gives her a dive in the deep end, is Snake's death. Apparent in the "[[MultipleEndings Axe]]" ending]].
146* The [[Franchise/WhenTheyCry sister series]], ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry'', reveals in the fifth arc that [[spoiler:Natsuhi]] has slowly been losing it since [[spoiler:Kinzo died]] ''two years'' before the story begins.
147** Arc 3 of ''Umineko'' also has [[spoiler:Eva/Eva-Beatrice]] ''really'' losing it, first after [[spoiler:finding the gold]] and then after [[spoiler:Hideyoshi is killed]]. By the end of the arc, she's gone completely [[AxCrazy apeshit]] and [[spoiler:shoots Battler]].
148* VisualNovel/{{Echo}} has a lot of examples. Basically everyone who has their own route end up very messed up. Well, that or [[spoiler:[[VillainProtagonist Chase]]]].
149* During the second act of ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'', Yuri, who was previously kind of weird but sympathetic and harmless, starts to get increasingly overexcited just from being near the PlayerCharacter. She also rushes off to [[SelfHarm cut herself]] when she gets excited, something she presumably did earlier with much more moderation, and gets openly excited at the gory horror in the book she's reading. [[ReluctantPsycho Though she's afraid of what's happening to her]], she can't help it, and she starts getting aggressive towards the other girls and possessive of the player character. [[spoiler: Perhaps her last flash of sanity is when she feels like vomiting after handing her last [[{{Squick}} "poem"]] to the player character. Finally, she drives everyone else away from the clubroom and confesses her love to the player character with such delightful turns of phrase as "I just want to pull off your skin and crawl inside of you" before going LaughingMad and stabbing herself to death.]] It's later revealed this was because [[spoiler: somebody was affecting her mind to exaggerate aspects of her personality to motivate the player not to choose her to romance.]]
150[[/folder]]
151
152[[folder:Web Animation]]
153* Alfred Alfer, the dog, has hit the event horizon of insanity by part one of ''WebAnimation/AlfredsPlayhouse'' due to the aftermath of loneliness and his childhood abuse and neglect, whereas in the WebAnimation/AlfredAlferShorts he appeared relatively sane by appearance, aside from being a {{Cloudcuckoolander}}. He had a best friend, Phat Dawg, and held a job at a [[BrandX generic Taco Bell stand-in]]. Things had apparently turned sour in his psyche when, though a random occurrence, Alfred's memories of neglect and loneliness resurface as does his alter ego, dictator Pickles, in ''The Rise of Alfred Alfer''. ''The Perpetual Limbo of the Room'' appears to be the segue from Alfred's initial psychotic break into the birth of the physical Playhouse.
154* ''WebAnimation/EtraChanSawIt'': [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRzEMl9hj-Q Akane]] cheated on her husband Kuroki with Akamatsu. When she tried to move in with him, she found out that he had a fiancee. This broke her heart and caused her to go insane. Since then, she began to hallucinate Kuroki everywhere demanding that she apologize. Her parents eventually hospitalized her.
155* ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'': Petunia goes through a horrifying example in the episode "Wishy Washy"; which is the first to establish her as a NeatFreak. As she and her house get dirtier, her mind slowly falls apart as she tries to get rid of all the grime. By the end of the episode, Petunia goes insane and [[DrivenToSuicide commits suicide]] [[FlayingAlive by skinning herself alive with a potato peeler]] in a vain attempt to clean herself up. This is notable for being the ONLY intentional suicide in the series.
156* ''WebAnimation/MangaWaido'': At the end of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPUzyHlRs20 "My sister messed up, but I ended up paying for her… But then…"]] [[spoiler:Sayo's spoiled sister Hiromi gradually went insane and started to break everything in her parents' house after becoming a shut-in since her boyfriend dumped her, causing her parents to call Sayo for help, but she rejected the calls for all the abuse they put her through.]]
157* Malikar, the villain of a game ''WebAnimation/PuffinForest'' ran, had a form of ResurrectiveImmortality, being reborn every time he died, but losing the vestiges of his humanity as a consequence.
158* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'':
159** [[Characters/RWBYJamesIronwood General James Ironwood]] is introduced as a decent man with a problematic over-reliance on military solutions even when told it's inappropriate. He acknowledges that it's possible to see things that aren't there, even after a battle ends, implying he suffers from PTSD. Then his robot soldiers are hacked, the city he's guarding is invaded, and TheHeavy gives a speech implying the world's on the brink of war and Atlas might be behind it. From that point, Ironwood becomes increasingly authoritarian as he desperately struggles to control the situation and thwart the villains. His decisions increasingly hurt his kingdom while he becomes ever more intolerant of objections. The villains count on this, employing a BatmanGambit in Volume 7 to trigger his TraumaButton. [[spoiler:Once it's pressed, Ironwood fully descends into villainy, becoming as dangerous a threat as the BigBad herself, and an ArcVillain one volume later.]]
160** After assuming command of the White Fang, [[Characters/RWBYAdamTaurus Adam Taurus]] shows increasingly violent, aggressive behavior. He's so obsessed with Blake to the point where the mere mention of the Belladonna name produces outbursts. He has to make efforts to calm himself down, and issues the order to kill the Belladonnas, a plan the Albain brothers are concerned could backfire if it radicalizes Menagerie's population against the White Fang by making Ghira a martyr. The Albain brothers contemplating removing Adam from power if he becomes too erratic. After Blake foils his plans to destroy Haven Academy, he tries setting off bombs that would have killed not only Blake and her supporters but also Adam and his followers; his own followers demand to know what he's doing. When his followers learn that he abandoned his men at Haven Academy, they refuse to follow him any more and try blocking his access to the throne. When they insult the effect Blake has on Adam, he furiously slaughters them all. He sits on the throne surrounded by their dead bodies, mulling over what they just said to him. When he recalls the reference to Blake controlling him, he angrily destroys the throne.
161** After being horribly scarred by Ruby's Silver Eyes, [[Characters/RWBYCinderFall Cinder Fall]] harbors an intense hatred for her and motivates herself to grow stronger by having Emerald conjure illusory copies of a begging Ruby for her to burn. In Volume 5, it is becoming clear that Cinder's desire for revenge against Ruby and her insatiable lust for power is starting to have a detrimental effect on her sanity as she has become increasingly unstable and more openly sadistic than before. Watts even begins to worry that her vindictive, unstable nature may jeopardize their plans for Haven. When fighting Jaune in "The More The Merrier", she constantly makes several insane facial expressions as she taunts him over his failure to save Pyrrha, relishing in his torment. And when Jaune manages to nick her mask, she flies into a homicidal rage, screaming at him for thinking he could actually beat her and it takes visible effort for her to calm down. In Volume 6, Salem makes it clear to her subordinates that they are to leave Cinder isolated so that she can work her way back into Salem's good graces; forced to work for herself, Cinder's sanity appears to stabilize and she begins thinking and strategizing again, using Little Miss Malachite's network to find out where Team RWBY is going and then convincing Neo to join forces with her to plot Ruby's downfall.
162* ''WebAnimation/RevengeFilms'':
163** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4_jWB6CyWY&t=492s "She ruined her own wedding by revealing all sorts of stories about her past"]]: [[spoiler:After her husband divorced her after she told him her scandalous past and that she became infertile because of said past, a 40-year-old Taylor snapped and tried to steal a young mother's baby, only to get the cops called on her when said mother screamed for help. As a result, Taylor ended up in jail for misconduct charges after she verbally abused the police.]]
164** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULaH9dOXde8 "Husband "Sorry, my wife freaked out and called the ambulance" But the truth is…"]]: A woman was forced to babysit Mr. A's kids since his wife was pregnant and her husband wanted to be "a good friend" for him. Added to the fact she had a baby of her own, this affected her mental health to the point she called an ambulance and the cops. When Mr. A's mother found out, she empathized with the poor woman as she herself was forced to babysit her sister-in-law's kids.
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168* Hockey writer [[https://downgoesbrown.com Sean "Down Goes Brown" McIndoe]] had one in [[https://theathletic.com/1708548/2020/03/30/down-goes-brown-attempting-to-answer-a-simple-question-about-jersey-numbers/ an article]] which in his website is titled "[[InWhichATropeIsDescribed In which I attempt to answer a simple question about jersey numbers that almost breaks me]]". He tries to find a season where a player scored the same number of goals as his jersey. Given the only one who pulled it wore [[spoiler:34]], he had to go through a lot of numbers to find out, getting increasingly more frustrated with each one.
169* This happens to a ''book'' in Website/TheWanderersLibrary story ''[[http://wanderers-library.wikidot.com/of-the-metabible Of the Metabible]]''. The Metabible, a godlike entity over which wars have been fought, is an impossibly long book. As you read farther it begins to get more and more incomprehensible, and by the millionth page it's completely broken and begging for somebody to read it. [[spoiler: The last page of the book separates itself from the Metabible and forms a second one. It's implied it eventually goes through the same process.]]
170* At the climax of ''Literature/{{Worm}}'' [[spoiler:Taylor]], already a mess of neuroses, suffers irrevocable brain damage from [[spoiler:Panacea altering her powers]] and begins rapidly losing her faculties, starting with the ability to comprehend language, and eventually culminating in a complete LossOfIdentity.
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