“Mental illness” is the general term given to various kinds of mental disorders that affect the thinking and behavior of a person. It can be anything ranging from mild anxiety to most severe forms of schizophrenia. Some types of mental illness can seriously affect the quality of your life disturbing your relationships in office and in your family. Any medical condition that affects the normal functioning of thinking and feeling interrupting the daily activities can be called as mental illness. A mental illness can make life miserable by causing problems and affecting relationships at office or family.
Some of the common mental illness is bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, eating disorder, major depression, panic disorder and anxiety disorder. It is possible to cure all illnesses with continued medications or psychotherapy.
Causes :
What exactly causes mental illness is still a mystery. Certain conditions or combination of factors can produce such illness according to the opinion of medical experts. Genetics play a role in causing mental illness because certain types of disorders run in families and passed on from parents to their offspring. Genes are the fundamental units that decide how you think and act in a given situation.
Biological factors like abnormal functioning of neurotransmitters can affect the normal thinking of a person causing mental illness. Neurotransmitters act as communication receptors of the brain sending and receiving signals. Any change or chemical reactions in the neurotransmitters can affect normal thinking pattern. Psychological factors like child abuse, emotional trauma or sudden loss/death can affect the brain causing mental illness.
Symptoms :
Symptoms of mental illness are not the same for all disorders. It varies considerably according to the nature and intensity of the disorder. For example depression can produce sadness, anxiety disorder can produce restlessness and excessive fears, borderline personality disorder can impair the normal thinking causing poor concentration and confused thinking, avoidant personality disorder can produce social phobia and anxiety, eating disorder can produce major changes in one’s eating habits etc.
Some of the common symptoms of mental illness include extreme mood swings, excess of fear/worries, guilt feelings, withdrawal from family/friends, confused thinking, change in behavior, detachment from reality, hypersensitivity, loss of sleep and extreme tiredness. In many cases mental illness can cause physiological changes causing headache, back pain and unexplained pain on many parts of the body.
When to see a doctor?
Any feeling or behavior affecting normal functioning of life can be mental illness. Mental illness can become worse if not treated on time. Most of the personality disorder and other illnesses can be treated by effective psychotherapy. Some people can develop suicidal thoughts due to major depression. Nonverbal communication and body language can reveal their intention of committing suicide. In such cases it is necessary to consult your doctor immediately.
Who are at risk?
Any person can develop mental illness. But there are certain factors which make you prone to mental illness. Having parents or close relatives with schizophrenia or other disorder, exposure of fetus to drug abuse or excess of alcohol in the womb, experiencing traumatic childhood, getting neglected as a child, serious injury on the brain and having chronic physical illness like cancer/AIDS etc. makes one prone to develop mental illness.
Tests :
Your doctor may get complete medical history and order for few lab tests including blood profile, hormone tests etc. He may refer you to mental health provider for evaluating the nature of disorder. Psychologists or therapists would ask you series of questions and determine about your state of mind by the way in which you are answering them.
Types :
- Mental illnesses are of many types with varying intensity.
- Mood disorders are one that affect your thinking, behavior and emotions like major depression, bipolar disorder etc.
- Anxiety disorders are one that causes frequent worries, fears and uncomfortable feeling like panic disorder, OCD and phobias.
- Disorder caused by substance/drug/alcohol abuse.
- Psychotic disorders are one that causes delusions and hallucination affecting daily activity of a person. Example: schizophrenia that makes one to lose touch with reality.
- Cognitive disorder that affects one’s reasoning ability and thinking like dementia and delirium and Alzheimer’s disease.
- Developmental disorders (autism/ADHD), personality disorders (paranoid personality, avoidant personality) and other disorders can also seriously affect one’s quality of life.
Treatment :
Psychiatrist or psychologist will examine the concerned person and check the severity of the illness. Treatment methods vary according to the nature of disease and intensity of the mental illness. Often, combination of medications and psychotherapy is effective in treating many disorders.