Mental ilness has been the highlight of the day because there are people who blamed it to be the exact cause of many suicidal cases that happened recently. People thought many cases of suicide out there had something to do with Major Depressive Disorder or can we simply called it 'Depression'. In truth, depression is not the only kind of Mental Ilness we should be aware of, because there are still many kind of mental ilness that most people never know or notice, so people tend to be misunderstanding about it.
And now as a psychology student, I want to talk about mental ilness in general, only based on my learning experience. This is not going to be scientific articels because I'm not yet an expert about it. I'm still a college student who's still learning about this as well as you are. So if you find out some mistakes in this post, please kindly correct me.
Lets get start to talk about mental ilness.
First of all, what is Mental Ilness?
Mental ilness are diseases or conditions that affect how you think, act, feel, or relate to other people or to your surroundings.
Mental ilness has no exact causes because it can be causes by genes, biology, parenting, environment, etc. Symptoms can range from mild to serve. Some common symptoms include uncommon behaviour (statistically rare happens), abusing alcohol or drugs (self defeating behaviour), hallucinations or delusions, thoughts of suicide or harming themselves or others, etc.
There are many classification of mental ilness, but I just want to describe the three kind of them, which are :
1. Anxiety Disorder
Anxiety Disorder is a type of mental ilness where people respond to certain object or situation with fear, as well as physical signs of anxiety or panic, such as a rapid heartbeat and sweating. What differ them from normal people who has anxiety is, people with anxiety disorder feels anxiety in the extreme way so it can be distraction for their normal life. Their fears are uncontrollable and can't be stopped. Anxiety disorder is classified into 5 type; Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Panic Disorder, Obsessif-Compulsive Disorder, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PSD) and Phobias Disorder.
2. Personality Disorder
Personality Disorder is a type of mental ilness when the person's patterns of thinking and behaviour is different from expectation of society and so rigid. DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder) divided Personality Disorder into 3 groups.
Group A : consists of people who are considered odd or eccentric.
This group includes Paranoid Personality Disorder, Schizoid Personality Disorder, and Schizotypal Personality Disorder.
Group B : consists of people who are dramatic, emotional, and eratic.
This group includes Antisocial Personality Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Histrionic Personality Disorder, and Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Group C : consists of people who looks anxious or frightened.
This group includes Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder, Dependent Personality Disorder, and Avoidant Personality Disorder.
3. Mood Disorder
Mood Disorder is a type of mental ilness that can be easily recognized by mood swings, involve persistent feelings of sadness or periods of feeling overly happy, or fluctuations from extreme happiness to extreme sadness. Mood disorder is classified into 2 type, Unipolar Disorder and Bipolar Disorder. Unipolar Disorder includes Major Depressive Disorder and Distimic Disorder, while Bipolar Disorder includes Bipolar Disorder and Cyclothymic Disorder.
The big three of the most common mental ilness I've mentioned above has different causes and treatment as well. So if you felt like you can relate to one of them because it's really happening to you, please talk to someone to get some help. Whether you go to a psychologist to get the right treatment or you just can discuss it with your relatives, family, or close friends. Don't take mental ilness easily because it can be dangerous for you. Have courage and speak up.
Most cases of suicide happened because they keep everything to themselves, even when they had Major Depressive Disorder or serve depression. They keep all the loathe, sadness, and anger to themselves. And when they felt like they can't take that anymore, they ended up their life by committing suicide. But we can prevent this, sure we can. Family support and social support will be necesarry, perhaps will be as important as psychological treatment.
And for all people, please be aware of everybody around you. If you find your friend, or your sister, or your neighbour, or your boyfriend, or anyone show you the symptoms of any kind of mental ilness, please comfort them, be there for them, listen to them, and don't make them feel like they're all alone. You can be the one who accompany them to see psychologist to get them the right treatment. We can save one live. We can save their lives. Lets do that, shall we?
