What Is Mental Illness?

For the first post for Knowledge Building Thursday, I’ll start with the basics and as weeks go on, we will get more into details. Mental illness is considered to be a disease and it can affect anyone. When some people hear the words mental illness, they associate it with being crazy, but that’s not the case.

There are over 200 forms of mental illnesses. Many of the common disorders are depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, schizophrenia, and even dementia. Mental illness can be caused by many different things such as, dealing with an illness or a loss, biochemical imbalances, genetics, stress, or a combination of things. Symptoms can range from changes in behavior, mood, habits, personality, and withdrawal from people. Dealing with mental illness can be short term or life long.

If you have experienced any changes in your daily life and your starting to act differently, you may be dealing with a mental illness. If you notice changes in your mood or personality and it hasn’t been improving, you should talk with your doctor. You could be depressed and not even fully realize it. There’s many other things that could be going on with you. It could be something as simple as a lack of vitamin D that’s causing you to be depressed or tired. There’s no harm in speaking to your doctor. It’s always better to get help than to ignore any problems that you may be experiencing.