Psychiatrist Dr John F. Greden once said, “We need so much more openness, transparency, and understanding that it’s OK to talk about depression as an illness. It’s not a weakness. It’s not a moral shortcoming. It’s not something people brought on themselves.” Unfortunately, the reason we cannot do this is due to the unfair stigma and bias surrounding mental illness. However, this can easily be changed. The shame was brought about through misinformation and, therefore, the only way to combat it is through information.

First, let us define what mental illness is. According to NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, it is “a condition that affects a person’s thinking, feeling, or mood.” Someone’s ability to relate to others and function each day may be affected by such conditions. Even for people with the same diagnosis, each individual will have different experiences. Mental illness, much like physical illness, is on a continuum of severity ranging from mild to moderate to severe. It does not discriminate: anyone can have a mental illness, from younger children to preadolescents to adults. While there are over 200 classified forms of mental illness, the five major categories of it are: anxiety disorders, mood disorders, schizophrenia/psychotic disorders, dementias, and eating disorders.

Anxiety Disorders

Throughout the course of our routine activities, all of us encounter anxiety in many forms. However, the contrivances that control anxiety may break down in a wide variety of circumstances, leading to an excessive or inappropriate expression of anxiety. An anxiety disorder may exist if the anxiety experienced is disproportionate to the circumstance, is difficult for the individual to control, or interferes with normal functioning. Specific anxiety disorders include generalised anxiety disorder, phobias, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Generalised Anxiety Disorder

Individuals with this illness have exaggerated, chronic worry about everyday routine life events and activities, with symptoms lasting at least six months. They almost always anticipate the worst even when there is little reason to expect it. Co-occurring physical symptoms almost always follow this disorder; they can include fatigue, trembling, muscle tension, headache, or nausea.

Phobias

Those afflicted with phobias possess an irrational, disabling, and extreme fear of something that actually poses little to no real danger; the fear leads to avoidance of certain objects or situations and can cause individuals to limit their lives.

Panic Disorder

Individuals with panic disorder are familiar with what a panic attack feels like. When the individual fears going through another panic attack, the disorder occurs. Panic disorder is, therefore, characterised by panic attacks, which are sudden feelings of terror that strike repeatedly and without warning. Symptoms include chest pain, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness, abdominal discomfort, feelings of losing touch with reality, and a fear of dying.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Individuals with OCD have anxious impulses to repeat words or phrases or engage in repetitive, ritualistic behaviour, such as constant hand washing.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder have persistent symptoms that occur after going through any traumatic event. This can include war, rape, child abuse, natural disasters, or being taken hostage. Nightmares, flashbacks, numbing of emotions, depression, and feelings of anger, irritability, distraction, and being easily startled are common indicators of PTSD.

Mood Disorders

Most individuals possess an immediate and intuitive understanding of the concept of mood. They readily comprehend what it means to be happy or sad. Mood disorders, however, reside outside the boundaries of normal fluctuations from sadness to euphoria. In the workplace, major/clinical depression is a leading cause of absenteeism and diminished productivity. Depression-related visits to physicians account for a large portion of health care expenditures. Mood disorders include clinical or major depression, dysthymia, and bipolar disorders, formerly known as “manic depression”.

Clinical Depression

Depression causes individuals to lose pleasure in daily life, can complicate other medical conditions, and can even be severe enough to lead to suicide. It can occur to anyone, at any age, of any race or ethnic group. Depression is never a “normal” part of life, no matter the age, gender, or health situation. Although treatment for depression is almost always successful, fewer than half of those afflicted with this illness seek treatment. Too many resist treatment due to their disbelief in depression’s gravity, of the necessity of professional help, or that it is a personal weakness rather than a serious medical illness. There are many indicators of depression. Victims often experience at least five of them for more than two weeks; they interfere with daily life, work, and previous functioning. Depression is often confused with “the blues” although the two are vastly different.

Bipolar Disorder

This is an illness involving one or more episodes of staid mania and depression. The illness causes an individual’s mood to swing from excessively “high” and/or irritable to sad and hopeless, with periods of a normal mood in between. Other symptoms of bipolar disorder include sleep and eating disturbances and changes in activity and energy levels. Anyone afflicted with bipolar disorder is also at risk of dying by suicide.

Dysthymic Disorder

Dysthymic disorder is a chronic, low-grade depression that seems as if it is part of the individual’s personality. A person with dysthymia has depressed mood and symptoms most of the time for more than two years and has at least two of the following symptoms: feelings of hopelessness, low self-esteem, fatigue or low energy, sleep disturbance, appetite disturbance, poor concentration, or indecision. Contrary to popular belief, individuals with schizophrenia do not have split personalities or multiple personalities. Furthermore, they are not perpetually incoherent or psychotic.

Schizophrenia/Psychotic Disorders

Schizophrenia is a serious brain disorder that is characterised by a profound disruption in cognition and emotion, affecting the most fundamental human abilities such as language, though, perception, and sense of self. The array of symptoms include psychotic manifestations, such as hearing internal voices or experiencing other sensations not connected to an obvious source (hallucinations) and aligning unusual significance or meaning to normal events or holding fixed personal beliefs (delusions). Other symptoms include withdrawal, incoherent speech, and impaired reasoning.

The “Positive” Symptoms of Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is believed to be caused by chemical imbalances in the brain which leads to a variety of “positive” symptoms including hallucinations, delusions, withdrawal, incoherent speech, and impaired reasoning.

Delusions

These are false beliefs that are not based in reality. Delusions can cause an individual to view the world from a unique or peculiar perspective. They will often focus on persecution (believes they are God, very wealthy, a celebrity, a member of the Royal Family, or possess a special talent or beauty).

Hallucinations

It is not unusual for some people with mental illnesses such as schizophrenia to hear voices or to see, smell, taste, or feel imaginary things. The individual experiences events that have no objective source, but they are nonetheless real to them.

The “Negative” Symptoms of Schizophrenia

While delusions, hallucinations, and disordered thinking are the “positive” symptoms associated with schizophrenia, the “negative symptoms” associated with schizophrenia include an inability to show feelings (flat affect), an inability to start or maintain conversations, a minimal flow of thought, a lack of motivation, an inability to feel pleasure, and minimal self-care and grooming.

Schizoaffective Disorder

This is a variant of schizophrenia. Individuals with this disorder show more mood symptoms and usually has less long term impairment if they receive treatment.

Dementias

Dementia is characterised by a disturbance of consciousness and a change in cognition (including memory loss and a decline of intellectual and physical functioning), which develops over a short period. These disorders include Alzheimer’s, vascular dementia, dementia due to medical conditions (e.g. HIV, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, head trauma), substance-induced dementia (drug abuse, alcohol abuse, inhalants, toxin exposure [mercury, lead, carbon dioxide, etc.]), and dementia due to a combination of multiple factors.

Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are serious, sometimes life-threatening, conditions that tend to be chronic. Each year, more than 5 million Americans have an eating disorder. Onset usually occurs in adolescence and tends to predominantly affect females, although can be just as severe, if not more, in males as well. Possessing an eating disorder is marked by extremes. It is present when a person experiences severe disturbances in eating behaviour such as an extreme reduction of food intake, extreme overeating, or feelings of extreme distress or concern about body weight or shape. A person with an eating disorder may have started out just eating smaller or larger amounts of food than usual, however, at some point in time, the urge to eat less or more spirals out of control. Individuals with eating disorders may also have other mental illnesses.

Anorexia Nervosa

Anorexia is characterised as self-starvation. Indicators include emaciation, a restless pursuit of thinness, unwillingness to maintain a normal or healthy body weight, a distortion of body image, and intense fear of gaining weight. Eating, food, and weight control become obsessions. Physical indicators include thinning of the bones brittle hair and nails, dry/yellowish skin, growth of fine hair over body, mild anaemia/muscle weakness, severe constipation, low blood pressure/slowed breathing and pulse, a drop in internal body temperature causing a person to feel cold all the time, and lethargy. Death can occur from starvation, cardiac arrest, other medical complications, or suicide.

Bulimia Nervosa

Bulimia is characterised as binge eating followed by purging, fasting, or excessive exercise. Indicators include recurrent and frequent episodes of eating unusually large amounts of food, feeling a lack of control over the food intake, behaviour to “compensate” for the binge eating (such as purging, fasting, and/or excessive exercise). Physical indicators include chronically inflamed and sore throat, swollen glands in the neck and below the jaw, worn tooth enamel; decaying teeth due to exposure to stomach acids, intestinal distress and irritation from laxative abuse, kidney problems from diuretic abuse, severe dehydration from purging of fluids.

Binge-Eating Disorder

Binge eating involves episodic, uncontrolled consumption of food, without the compensatory activities such as vomiting or laxative abuse to avert weight gain that is associated with bulimia. Indicators of an individual with binge-eating disorder are recurrent binge eating episodes during which an individual feels a loss of control over their eating and intermittent obesity or overweightness. They may also experience guilt, shame, and/or distress about the binge eating, which can lead to more binge eating. This disorder is not followed by purging, excessive exercise, or fasting. Other indicators include cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and co-occurring psychological illnesses.

If you have a mental illness or think you may have a mental illness, please contact your nearest psychologist or psychiatric hospital for a proper diagnosis and/or treatment. If you live in the United States, find your local NAMI by calling the helpline 800-950-NAMI or emailing the organisation at info@nami.org. The two services are open Mondays through Fridays, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.