What is Mental Illness?
mental illness .Retrieved from
http://www.cdc.gov/features/mentalhealthsurveillance/
The term mental illness refers collectively to all diagnosable mental disorders. Effects of the illness include sustained abnormal alterations in thinking, mood, or behavior associated with distress and impaired functioning. The effects of mental illnesses include disruptions of daily function; incapacitating personal, social, and occupational impairment; and premature death. The most common mental illnesses in adults are anxiety and mood disorders.
How widespread is mental illness?
According to the World Health Organization, mental illness results in more disability in developed countries than any other group of illnesses, including cancer and heart disease. Other published studies report that about 25% of all U.S. adults have a mental illness and that nearly 50% of U.S. adults will develop at least one mental illness during their lifetime.
Information About Specific Illnesses
An adjustment disorder is a type of stress-related mental illness. You may feel anxious or depressed, or even have thoughts of suicide. Your normal daily routines may feel overwhelming. Or you may make reckless decisions. In essence, you have a hard time adjusting to change in your life, and it has serious consequences.
Common Stresses Can Include:
- natural disasters
- car accidents
- major illness diagnosis
- divorce
- death
- loss of job
- drug addiction
Anxiety disorders are the most common of emotional disorders and affect more than 25 million Americans. Anxiety disorders differ from normal feelings of nervousness. Untreated anxiety disorders can push people into avoiding situations that trigger or worsen their symptoms. People with anxiety disorders are likely to suffer from depression, and they also may abuse alcohol and other drugs in an effort to gain relief from their symptoms.
Illnesses Include:
Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Panic Disorders
Phobias
Social Anxiety
Someone with a dissociative disorder escapes reality in ways that are involuntary and unhealthy. The person with a dissociative disorder experiences a disconnection and lack of continuity between thoughts, memories, surroundings, actions and identity. The symptoms of dissociative disorders — ranging from amnesia to alternate identities — depend in part on the type you have. Symptoms usually develop as a reaction to trauma and help keep difficult memories at bay. Times of stress can temporarily worsen symptoms, making them more obvious. Many people who have experienced a traumatic event, such as physical or sexual abuse, may have some aspect of dissociation during the event itself and will be unable to recall details regarding their victimization. For many people diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), dissociative episodes may be a very troubling symptom of their illness. Dissociation can also be a symptom associated with certain anxiety disorders, including panic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Severe Forms of Dissociative Disorder Include
- Dissociative Identity Disorder (previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder)
- Dissociative amnesia
- Dissociative Fugue
- Depersonalization Disorder
Impulse Control and Addiction Disorders
Impulse-control disorders are psychological disorders characterized by the repeated inability to refrain from performing a particular action that is harmful either to oneself or others. In impulse-control disorder, the impulse action is typically preceded by feelings of tension and excitement and followed by a sense of relief and gratification, often—but not always— accompanied by guilt or remorse.
Illnesses Include:
Alcohol and Drug Abuse
Pyromania
Kleptomania
Compulsive Gambling
Trichotillomania
Mood Disorders, also known as Affective Disorders, involve prolonged emotional periods. Long periods of sadness or being overly happy are common. A person with a Mood Disorder may instantly fluctuate from a feeling of extreme happiness to extreme sadness.
Illnesses Include:
- Major Depression
- Bipolar Disorder
Personality disorders are a group of mental illnesses. They involve long-term patterns of thoughts and behaviors that are unhealthy and inflexible. The symptoms of each personality disorder are different. They can mild or severe. People with personality disorders may have trouble realizing that they have a problem. To them, their thoughts are normal, and they often blame others for their problems.
Illnesses Include:
Antisocial Personality Disorder
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Paranoid Personality Disorder
Borderline Personality Disorder
Schizotypal Disorder
Schizoid Personality Disorder
Psychotic disorders are mental disorders in which a person’s personality is severely confused and that person loses touch with reality. When a psychotic episode occurs, a person becomes unsure about what is real and what isn’t real and usually experiences hallucinations, delusions, off-the-wall behavior, chaotic speech and incoherency.
Illnesses Include:
Schizophrenia
Anorexia
Bulemia
Pyromania
Kleptomania