What Are The Different Types Of Mental Illness?

In recent years, people have begun paying more attention than ever before to mental illness. However, not everybody understands the different types of mental illnesses that exist.

For those who are unaware, we’ve compiled a brief guide with all of the details that you should keep in mind. Let’s take a look.

Mood Disorders

As the name suggests, this type of mental illness can have an adverse effect on your mood. You may experience sharp changes in your mental state, such as feeling euphoric one moment and then strongly depressed shortly after.

Most commonly, people who have a mood disorder experience either bipolar disorder or depression. Left unchecked, both of these could lead the affected individual to act irrationally under many different circumstances.

To elaborate, someone who finds themselves struggling to handle their depression may exhibit suicidal tendencies or self-harm. So, it’s essential that you seek treatment as soon as you recognize this behavior (whether it is in yourself or another individual).

Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety is one of the most common types of mental illness that people suffer from. For those who are unaware, anxiety refers to the way that your body deals with a stressful situation (or even perceived stress. Common symptoms include a sense of overwhelming fear, increased heart rate, and general symptoms of panic, such as profuse sweating.

The triggers for anxiety will vary from person to person. For example, one individual may experience an extreme feeling of anxiety before speaking in front of their peers during a college course.

Somebody else might feel anxious every time they get behind the wheel of a car. Since anxiety typically revolves around fear of the unknown, it can be highly difficult to perform certain actions or place yourself within certain situations if these are triggers for your anxiety.

Those with social anxiety, for instance, find it extremely difficult to retain their composure in social situations. Even something as simple as a trip to the grocery store could cause extreme discomfort or even panic.

As you can guess, anxiety disorders could have a drastic impact on your quality of life.

Addiction

Interestingly, many people are unaware of the fact that addiction is classified as a mental illness. When you take a step back and examine it for what it is, however, it’s easy to see why.

Certain behaviors can modify the way that your brain functions. This is true even for addictions that don’t involve the consumption of drugs or alcohol.

Someone who is addicted to pornography, for example, may find that they are only able to experience sexual arousal while watching pornography. This could result in a scenario where they are constantly preoccupied with it, even to the point where they forego intimacy with their partner in order to view pornography instead.

Of course, the long-term consumption of drugs could lead to physiological changes within your body, as well. To clarify, let’s use someone who is addicted to cocaine as an example.

Since the use of cocaine causes such a spike in dopamine production, someone who abuses this drug may reach a point where they are no longer to experience a dopamine release without using cocaine.

Unfortunately, this will often drive them to use it more frequently.

To make matters worse, the complications don’t stop there. There are numerous psychological symptoms of addiction in the form of withdrawal, including mood swings, insomnia, and depression.

As with other mental illnesses, addiction requires the treatment of a qualified professional. You can visit this resource to learn more.

Personality Disorders

An individual with a personality disorder exhibits a type of behavior that is often distressing to themselves or the people around them. In practice, this often involves their way of thinking or actions strongly differing from the normal expectation of society.

For example, an individual with a personality disorder may be prone to outbursts of anger in public spaces with disregard to how it impacts the people around them. Other scenarios involve those who suffer from personality disorders experiencing extreme bouts of paranoia.

They may feel that everyone around them seeks to do them harm, and they may even believe that a higher power is attempting to contact them through ordinary events. Song lyrics, for example, are a common medium that someone experiencing paranoia believes contains hidden messages.

A similar event could be hearing someone say their name on TV.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

This mental illness is triggered by a traumatic event. This could be a car accident, a near-death experience, or the unexpected death of someone close to you.

PTSD could also be triggered by long-term experiences, such as time spent serving in the military. The symptoms that manifest often include a feeling of overwhelming fear or finding yourself constantly reliving a specific experience.

Over time, the constant stress imposed by this disorder can cause the affected person to feel emotionally detached from their surroundings and loved ones.

Understanding Different Types of Mental Illness Is Crucial so

It’s imperative that you keep the above information in mind so that you can recognize and treat these conditions as soon as possible. The different types of mental illness could affect you or a loved one, and this guide will ensure that you take action appropriately.

Want to learn more about what we have to offer? Feel free to get in touch with us today and see how we can help.