Mental Disorders List – The Most Common Mental Conditions Explained

This may come as a surprise, but mental health experts claim that one in four people suffer from a mental illness each year. As much as five percent of the population is afflicted with a serious, long-term mental illness. Here is a mental disorders list with the most common conditions explained.
Anxiety Disorder. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is an umbrella term used to describe a number of different anxiety problems such as phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder and anxiety attacks. Anxiety refers to feelings of tension and worry that get so out of hand they make it hard to function normally.

Chronic Depression. Depressive disorders are extremely common. These are marked by sadness, low self-esteem, loss of meaning in life, lack of pleasure in things you enjoy, and suicidal thoughts. Depression often occurs along with other mental illnesses such as anxiety disorder, addiction, or psychosis.
Bipolar Disorder. Bipolar disorder is one of the most common mood disorders. It’s marked by dramatic swings from manic to depressed. These moods are much stronger than the regular ups and downs all of us experience. Manic or depressive episodes can last anywhere from a few minutes to weeks at a time. People with bipolar are likely to make bad decisions that can hurt themselves or others when at these extremes.
Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is an extreme mental condition that often makes it hard for the sufferer to enjoy a normal life. It’s marked by delusions, paranoia and hallucinations. Schizoaffective disorder is a combination of schizophrenia and mood disorders such as depression or bipolar disorder. Most schizophrenia sufferers can enjoy a fairly regular life as long as they’re on the proper medication and seeking therapy.
Dementia. Dementia is a loss of cognitive functioning that occurs as you get older. It’s more extreme than the usual loss of functioning that comes with old age. Dementia actually isn’t a disease but a way to describe symptoms where memory, language, attention span, problem solving abilities and other mental functions are impaired.
Eating Disorders. Eating disorders are a form of mental illness and they’re much more common than most people realize. Many people with eating disorders can maintain the appearance of being healthy. Eating disorders are caused by distorted body image, usually where the person perceives themselves as overweight even though they aren’t.
Addiction. Addiction is an extremely common form of mental illness. There are two types of addictions – addictions to substances and addictions to certain behaviors or activities. While alcohol, prescription drug and illegal drug addictions are the most common, gambling addiction, sex addiction, and food addiction are also quite widespread. In all addictions, the addictive substance or behavior triggers pleasure chemicals in the brain. The addict becomes dependent on the drug or activity and can’t feel pleasure without it.
All of the above mental disorders are treatable and treatment has high success rates. If you suffer from a mental illness, it’s important to realize that you’re not alone. The sooner you seek help, the sooner you can receive treatment and get back to optimal health.

Living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental illness that affects a large segment of the population. It’s an anxiety disorder where worry, fear, and nervous tension are so bad that you perform repetitive behaviors to make those feelings go away.

The negative thoughts you suffer from are extremely upsetting. They’re called obsessions and they rarely leave your mind for any length of time. You create rituals which banish these thoughts from your mind temporarily. OCD can be debilitating and seriously interfere with your daily life. For some sufferers, whole days can be consumed by their obsessions.
What Does OCD Look Like?
What’s the nature of these obsessions? They differ from person to person. Each sufferer has their own, but some examples include:

Worrying about things being dirty or out of order, causing you to constantly clean
Having to say the same things over and over again or ask the same questions
Fear of getting injured or sick
Needing to count things repeatedly or perform an action a set number of times
Having to do things in a specific order
Hoarding or worrying about things getting lost
People who suffer from OCD may be totally aware that they have a problem but unable to stop their negative thoughts and compulsive behavior. This is because the urge to perform these actions is absolutely overwhelming. The compulsive behaviors work to get rid of the fear or negative thoughts, but only for a while.
Do You Have OCD?
Obsessive compulsive disorder is extremely common but it often goes undiagnosed, especially in cases where it’s not terribly severe. We often mistake the symptoms as simply a person’s personality quirks. However, these obsessions and compulsions can take a considerable amount of time, interfere with normal functioning, isolate you socially and even cost you money.
When diagnosing OCD doctors look for a few key traits:
You have unwanted thoughts or extreme anxiety
Your worries are irrational, often not connected to any event or situation in everyday life
You use a specific thought or action to suppress them
There are rigid rules for your rituals that must be followed perfectly
The point of your rituals is to reduce stress and they work to do that
Doctors don’t know exactly what causes OCD but they believe there may be a biological cause. It appears to have something to do with the neurotransmitter serotonin. There may also be environmental causes. In some cases, people who have undergone a serious trauma develop the symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder.
Learning to Live with OCD
There are several effective treatments for OCD. One is called exposure and response prevention. Your therapist exposes you to the things that cause your anxiety and then you’re prevented from performing the ritual. For example, you have to touch a doorknob and you’re not allowed to wash your hands. This treatment may sound harsh, but it’s highly effective. In most cases, the urge goes away on its own.
Cognitive therapy is also used to treat OCD. This type of therapy focuses on your thought processes and dispelling irrational beliefs. It goes after the root cause of the disorder. You work with a therapist to discover the true reasons why you feel such anxiety.
Medications are also used to treat the symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder. Anti-anxiety drugs and anti-depressants both work well.
We all have our personality quirks, but if your obsessions and compulsions are interfering with your life, you may have a serious problem. Therapists can help you manage your OCD and live a normal life.

Schizo-affective Disorder - Symptoms and Treatment Options

By Randall McGhee

Schizoaffective disorder is a major mental illness that is usually debilitating for its sufferers. It's a combination of two types of mental illnesses - schizophrenia and affective (mood) disorder. This mood disorder may be something like depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder. Fewer than 1 in 200 people suffer from this mental illness, but it has a huge impact on every aspect of their lives.
The Symptoms of Schizoaffective Disorder
If you suffer from schizoaffective disorder, you'll exhibit symptoms of both schizophrenia and mood disorder. Schizophrenia symptoms include hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized speech or behavior.
The most common sign of an affective disorder is extreme depression that lasts for days or even weeks. This includes sadness, feelings of worthlessness, lack of interest in things you enjoy, and possibly thoughts of suicide. Dramatic mood swings from extremes of happiness and depression may also occur.
Schizoaffective disorder is relatively new and little understood. While therapists have lots of experience dealing with schizophrenia and affective disorder on their own, the combination is largely uncharted territory.
The Cause of Schizoaffective Disorder
While the cause isn't exactly known, this mental illness appears to be caused by a brain disease that interferes with the brain's regular functioning. Genetics plays a part and there is also evidence of altered brain chemistry. Injuries, illnesses, substance abuse, and stress can all cause an onset of symptoms.
Symptoms usually start to appear when the person is between the ages of 16 and 25. This disorder is more common in women than in men and very rare in children. If someone in your family suffers from schizoaffective disorder, you're at higher risk for developing the condition yourself.
Living with Schizoaffective Disease
Medications are usually used to help manage the symptoms of schizoaffective disease. There is a wide range of medication options available for therapists to use. It all depends on the individual being treated. Everyone reacts differently and it usually takes some trial and error before the doctor selects the drug that works best.
Psychotherapy is an important part of treating this condition as well. The patient will have one-on-one sessions with the therapist as well as group therapy sessions. These will focus on life skills, planning for the future, and strategies for dealing with the disorder. Group therapy is especially important since social isolation is such a factor in this mental illness.
If the patient is unable to care for themselves, the therapist may choose to put them in special housing where they'll be supervised. People who suffer from schizoaffective disorders are at much higher risk of substance abuse problems and many are unable to care for themselves on a day-to-day basis.
There is no known cure for schizoaffective disorder, but the treatments described above can help patients manage the disease and live a normal life. Community groups and family support also help.

To read more about major depressive disorder please feel free to visit my site http://www.mentalillnesstest.org.

Current Thinking Regarding Bipolar Disorder Treatment

By Chris Borg

If you are someone who is suffering from bipolar disorder, then you probably already know how important it is that you obtain regular bipolar disorder treatment in order to keep the condition under control. There are many people who suffer from this affliction and the truth is that some of these individuals have no one to talk to when they feel really sad.
One of the treatment requirements is to get professional help as soon as possible. Just talking a health care practitioner will start the healing process. In between office visits, you should always have a good friend or someone you can talk to. Someone who can listen to you, understand you and offer you guidance. A parent can often fill this role, especially if they have also been touched by bipolar disorder.
Some of the time, the bipolar disorder will appear as a result of a very great fear. People tend to harbor deep feelings about worldly events, so if something is troubling you, it is possible that you begin to fear all things related to this event which in turn manifests itself as depression. The opposite is also true in that you may go on a heightened binge such as excessive buying or other irrational activity in order to escape from an inevitable event.
Bipolar disorder has been shown to be transmitted genetically. So if your parent had it, there is a good chance that you will develop it in your lifetime. This is probably due to the fact that the root cause of this affliction seems to be due to neurotransmitter imbalance. As this is part of everyone's makeup, it points to the genetic link just mentioned.
There are multiple factors that will make your condition better. Getting involved in some good social activity, or more than one activity will help immensely. Just having people to talk to, will keep your mind occupied and away from thoughts that might hurt you. Talk with your parents and other relatives as often as possible. The social side of life is a very important bipolar disorder treatment for those suffering with this disorder.
Find a good doctor to work with. They might offer a prescription to help the mood swings, once the diagnosis has been set. The medications will stabilize the three most common neurotransmitters that have been implicated with bipolar disorder. They are dopamine, seratonin and nor-epinephrine. In time, your bipolar disorder treatment will allow you to regain a normal life. The key to the whole regimen is acknowledging the disorder and getting help. Do it today for a better tomorrow!

Chris is a practicing pharmacist who writes on health care topics. You can see Chris's latest website on Manic Depressive Free and learn all about the symptoms, treatment and related information such as Manic Depressive Treatment and much more.

Why Free Floating Anxiety Drives Me Crazy

By Debbie Dickinson

Do you ever have times in your life when everything is going great yet you just have this nagging feeling that impending doom is on the horizon? It's like waiting for the other shoe to drop. You aren't quite sure where the problem will come from, but you are convinced there will be a problem.
That is Free Floating Anxiety.
My personal belief is that we feel this way because we have had times in our past where life was humming along smoothly and we got hit with a negative life event out of the blue. You've probably had this experience a few times in your past.
What happens is that the memory of the good times along with the negative event gets intertwined. Then when you are in a good place emotionally that intertwined memory starts tugging on us. It is cautioning us not to get too wrapped up in the good events because something bad is on the horizon.
The anxiety can take over our emotional state in an effort to protect ourselves from further hurt if we allow it. I've seen happy relationships abruptly end because 'it was too good to be true'. I have seen people do other self-sabotaging behaviors because of free floating anxiety.
So, what do you do when you are in this spot?
You talk about it with others, you journal about it and sooner or later you'll be laughing about it. I have also found that exercise is a huge reliever. What you don't do is give power to anxiety. Giving power to this feeling means you over-think why you are feeling this way.
For me, sometimes I just need to share with someone that my life is going great; yet I can feel in my bones that something bad is going to happen. What often happens is that the person will share that they know exactly what you feel like. It feels great to know that what you are feeling is not uncommon.
Several years ago I was going through a particularly bad period of anxiety and anytime I talked with one girlfriend about it she suggested I pamper myself with a candle-lit bubble-bath. We laugh now because I felt that my skin had permanent texture of a prune for the next few months; I was in the bathtub almost every night. I can tell you it worked... the warm water soaked up the anxiety and the candles calmed me down.
Today I remember what someone shared with me once. Keep focused on getting through today and know that this feeling will pass.
Take it a day at a time.

Debbi Dickinson is a professional woman who understands the challenges of balancing work, home, love and carving time out for you. Her website is filled with blogs, articles and newsletters written specifically for women. To gain access to a free gift designed exclusively for professional women, visit her website at: http://www.steppingintojoy.com