Mental Illness
Definition
Mental illness is a physical illness of the brain that causes disturbances in thinking, behavior, energy, or emotion that make it hard for infected people to cope with life’s ordinary demands.
Causes of Mental Disorders
Mental illness is a result of several factors. They include; genes and family history, d.ifferent life experiences, such as stress or a history of abuse. Also, biological factors such as chemical imbalances in the brain, traumatic brain injury, mother’s exposure to viruses or toxic chemicals while pregnant, alcohol or recreational drugs, having a severe medical condition like cancer, loneliness, to mention a few.
Types of Mental Disorders
Some common ones include; Anxiety disorder- This disorder comes on board if the person’s response is not appropriate for the situation, if the person cannot control the answer, or if the anxiety interferes with normal functioning. Eating disorders involve extreme emotions, attitudes, and behaviors involving weight and food. Anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder are the most common eating disorders. Impulse control and addiction disorders; people with Impulse Control Disorders cannot resist urges, or impulses, to perform acts that could be harmful to themselves or others. Another disease is Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)- this is a disorder that causes people to be plagued by constant thoughts or fears that cause them to perform certain rituals or routines.
Personality disorders: these are disorders that make people inhabit extreme and inflexible personality traits that are distressing to the person and cause problems in work, school, or social relationships. Also, there is Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): It is a condition that can develop following a traumatic or terrifying event, such as a sexual or physical assault, the unexpected death of a loved one, or a natural disaster. People with PTSD often have lasting and frightening thoughts and memories of the event and tend to be emotionally numb. Furthermore, there are Psychotic disorders, a group of serious illnesses that affect the mind. They make it hard for someone to think, make sound judgments, respond emotionally, communicate effectively, understand reality, and behave appropriately.
Signs and Symptoms of Mental Disorder
Long-lasting sadness or irritability, too high and low moods, excessive fear, worry, anxiety, social withdrawal, dramatic changes in eating or sleeping habits, an exaggerated sense of self-worth, erratic thinking, and impulsive actions others.
Effects of Mental Illness
To the victims
Stigma and discrimination
A higher level of the stigma of mental health conditions and negative attitudes may lead to discrimination and poor treatment. People with mental disorder conditions face discrimination in almost every aspect of their lives. For example, in health care settings, they are given poor treatment by non-psychiatric professionals, and therefore limited access to general health care. This condition causes mortality rates for the mentally ill people to be significantly higher than the rest of the population.
Human rights violations
Individuals with mental illness experience human rights violations globally both within and outside psychiatric institutions. They include an objection to marriage, denial of education, employment, procreation, malnutrition, physical, emotional, sexual abuse, and negligence.
- To society
Mental illness creates enormous social and economic costs. These costs impact many different sectors, including health care, business, education, law enforcement, the criminal justice system, and emergency and social services.
Firstly, Health System-Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide and contributes to the disease’s global burden. The cost of treatment for mental health issues is equivalent to the cost of cancer care. Secondly, mental illness leads to a reduction in work Productivity, and Earnings-Major depression is associated with more annual sick days and higher short-term disability rates than other chronic diseases. People suffering from depression have high rates of absenteeism and are less productive at work. Thirdly, they cause Family and Community Disruption; Children of mothers who suffer from chronic depression are more likely to have school behavior problems. These disorders also result in school failure, whereby untreated mental illness among youth leads to school failure, delinquency, substance abuse, and entrance into the criminal justice system.
Treatment for the mental illness
For social-related disorders, talk therapy to those affected should be encouraged, loved, and spent the most time with those that are mentally healthy. Specialized psychologists can treat the conditions.
Conclusion
Providing for and supporting good mental health is a public health issue. Lack of attention to and treatment of mental illnesses has impacts that extend well beyond the disease’s individual. Communities prosper when the mental health needs of community members. Thus, there is a need for the government to pull up socks in projects that touch mental health issues. The government should set up more training colleges should be set up to train more psychologists, medication for the mentally ill people to be declared free.