Mental Disorders You Must Know

Actually, we suffer from two types of diseases disturbing our life – one is physical – having symptoms of bodily illness and they can be diagnosed and cured easily by doctors, but other is a mental illness which is not recognised properly either by the individual or their doctor! This life-threatening mental illness needs great care and attention. I am introducing them one by one.

First, we must know basic problems.

Now I want to tell you about the symptoms not cleared by routine medical doctors and needing psychiatric help. All these listed here if not relived or recurred now and then, be aware mental illness is certainly present.

Symptoms

Vomiting – Nausea
Fainting spells – dizziness
Headache – backache
Pain in the chest
Palpitations
Breathlessness
Stomach ulcers and acidity
Stomach loss of appetite
Heaviness after eating
Excessive belching
Weakness
Pain in joints. Arthritis.
Quickening or slowing of the heart
Rise and fall of blood pressure
Asthma
Eczema

Now, let us discuss important mental disorders.

Anxiety

Anxiety is a mental condition with fear, shakiness, fast heart rate and excessive worrying. Anxiety is a feeling of worry, nervousness or unease, worry about future events. Anxiety can be generalized, phobia, social, separation anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, panic disorder or selective mutism. 12% of the population suffers from anxiety. It is twice in females than males.

Neurosis

Neurosis is a relatively mild mental illness involving symptoms of stress (like obsession, depression or anxiety) but not a radical loss of touch with reality. So Neurosis is a borderline personality disorder. Thus Neurosis is in short excessive and irrational anxiety or obsession. Neurosis (also known as psychoneurosis) is a mental disorder that causes a sense of distress and deficit in functioning.

Neurosis is a behaviour that interferes with normal living, impairs the individual’s efficiency, happiness and makes one unable to get along with or love other people.

Disability characterized by too much neurotic behaviour.

Examples: gambling, over concern about bowels, diet and appearance, sexual promiscuity.

True neurosis is accompanied by a feeling of unhappiness, disappointment and frustration.

Neurotic is uncomfortable during an attack but otherwise feels perfectly well.

Compulsions: such as washing hands
Phobias: such as fear of germs
Obsessions: such as self–torturing jealousy

Neurosis:

Compulsion Neurosis
Anxiety Neurosis
Hysteria

Jumpiness, fast heart, Restlessness, Excessive sweating, Insomnia-nightmares, Haggard feeling and facial expression, Feeling exhausted, having prolonged suffering exertion

Hysteria: Sudden clippings of special parts of the body and any medical condition can be imitated by hysteria.

Psychosis

It is a mental disorder causing disconnection from reality which results in stranger behaviour often accompanied by a perception of stimuli of voices, images or sensations, delusions, hallucinations and talking incomprehensibly.

Symptoms are delusion, hallucination, inability to concentrate, depression, sleeping too much or too little, losing bond with family and friends, anxiety, suicidal thoughts and switching topics while talking.

Depression

Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity.

Depression can affect a person’s thoughts, feelings, behaviour, motivation and serves well-being. It may feature sadness, difficulty in thinking and concentration. It can be seen with an increase or decrease in appetite and sleep time. The person feels dejection, hopelessness and sometimes have suicidal thoughts. Actually, one has a loss of interest or loss of feeling of pleasure in certain activities usually enjoy.

It is caused as a temporary reaction to life events such as the loss of a loved one or some drugs or diseases. 4.4% population suffers from depression.

Major depression: Here person suffers for at least two weeks of low mood, low self-esteem, low energy, loss of interest and pain without clear reason. Sometimes the period of depression follows a normal mood. Genetic factors, environmental and psychological factors cause it. 3% world population suffers from major depression.
Melancholia: Is a loss of interest in most or all activities, failure to react to pleasure stimuli, worsening of symptoms in the morning hour, early morning waking, excessive weight loss, excessive guilt and psychomotor retardation.

Mania

Mania is a state of abnormally elevated arousal effect and energy level. It is a state of heightened overall activation with enhanced affective expression together with lability of affect.

The heightened mood can be either be euphoric or irritable. At a higher level of mania, irritability leads to anxiety and violence. A person has elevated mood, flight of ideas, the pressure of speech, increased energy, decreased desire and need for sleep and hyperactivity.

Hypomania: is a less intense Mania. Hypomania leads to increase creativity and productivity. Goal motivated behaviour and metabolism increase. Though hypomania with elevated mood and energy is good, when exaggerated, a person displays excessive optimism, grandiosity and poor decision making.

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a mental illness characterized by relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations often of hearing voices, delusions of having beliefs not shared by others and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social withdrawal, decreased emotional expression and lack of motivation. Symptoms come gradually and young persons of 16 to 30 years of age are involved.

A person has significant alterations in perception, thoughts, mood and behaviour.

The end results, or say, complications are suicide, heart disease or lifestyle disease.

It is a Split Partial or Complete

Between

What happens to them and how they feel about it.

Their feelings are flat so their response is flattened or inappropriate. Their emotions depend more upon what happens inside than what happens outside their minds.

Four types of Schizophrenia:

Paranoid Schizophrenia (More common): The most prominent symptoms are hallucinations and delusions. The patient has the unusual feeling of being watched, followed or even hunted down. Paranoia means an intense, irrational persistent instinct or thought process of fear fall feeling and thoughts.
Catatonic Schizophrenia (Rare): Catatonic means extremes of under or over motor activity. Person falls into behaviours extremes much like music and depressive episodes. In a catatonic stupor, there is a deficit of movement making him motionless and in catatonic excitement, there is excessive movement associated with violent behaviour to oneself or others.
Disorganised Schizophrenia (Also known as hebephrenia): Person has an intentionally disorganized behavioural pattern. This leads to difficulty in communicating because his train of thoughts cannot be understood. It is a disease of adolescence appearing between 15 to 25 years ago.
Undifferentiated Schizophrenia: Here the person has mixed symptoms of any of the above three.

Bipolar Disorder (Also known as manic depression)

Bipolar disorder is characterized by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood. The severally elevated mood is called mania and the less severe is called hypomania

Condition is characterised by intermittent episodes of mania and depression with an absence of any symptoms in between (normal state of mind)

Manic Episodes: The person has euphoria to delirium, increased self-esteem or grandiosity, decreased need of sleep and disinhibited social behaviour, impulsive or high-risk behaviours like excessive spending or hypersexuality, inability to work or socialize. A milder form of the above manic symptoms is called hypomania.

Depressive Episodes: Here the person has persistent feelings of sadness, irritability or anger, feeling of guilt, sleeping too much or too little, change in appetite and /or weight, feeling of worthlessness and thoughts of death or suicide.

Mental Health is a human right!

Practices for intact mental health.

Medicate every day. Learn Practice Mindfulness
Affirm:

“I love and approve of myself.”
Louise Hay
Say the above statement meaningfully. Say it 3 – 4 times every day especially before retiring at night.

Choose kindness :

Whenever there is a choice between being right and being kind, choose to be kind Dr Wayne Dyer. Kindness increases serotonin levels… a great healing hormone.

Hobby: Pursue your hobbies. They are a must for stress relief.
Deep breathing: Practice deep breathing whenever possible. Keep your brain healthy and efficient.
Walking: A 20 minutes brisk walk in the morning releases endorphins… the positive and happy hormones.
Read Inspiring books every day.
Smile: Smile is the window of your soul and laughing is the door. – Neal Donald Walsch.
Love: Love Everything, Love Empowers you beyond measure, Love includes unconditional acceptance.
Speak out: Don’t suffer silently speak out – seek help. Stock up on compassion for yourself.
Peace: Choose peace in every situation. Make it a habit. Peace brings the best of everything to us. Peace brings prosperity.
Thankful heart: Wake up and sleep with a thankful heart.

Take-Home Message

Life (to remain alive) is more important than no life. Any problem like a failure in examination, financial loss in life, disturbance in friendship or marital relation or any problem can be solved with time, but the resultant mental disorder can be life-threatening. So do not remain disturbed, confused or low, instead talk to your close relatives and friends, communicate freely personally, by writing or on the phone and sick help, the solution is assured.

Lastly, I will conclude by talking about this most important advice, do not plan treatment yourself or with the help of non-psychiatric doctors. The help of a psychiatrist nearby will cure you in total by psychotherapy, medicines or ECT (Electro Convulsive Treatment). So, do not wait and waste time.

Best of luck!