What about Mazrim Taim? Isn’t his withstanding of the madness for fifteen years something exceptional? [Short segue from there to Taim=Demandred?]
The duration varies from man to man; the circumstances are different, and the men themselves. Nobody really knows how long the process takes (or has to take), since once you start channeling the Aes Sedai usually find you pretty quickly, and gentling stops the progression of the madness and the taint (though it does not cure what’s already happened). Channeling is addictive; once you’ve done it, you can’t stop. The Breaking took about a hundred years before all the men finally died, though some of them did shelter in the stedding for a while. Nobody knows how long the process takes, except that there is variation. It’s all in my notes.
But what about Taim? Isn’t fifteen years something really exceptional? [Subtext: Is he Demandred???]
Read and Find Out.
If you are viewing this on github.io, you can see that this site is open source. Please do not try to improve this page. It is auto-generated by a python script. If you have suggestions for improvements, please start a discussion on the github repo or the Discord.