Types of adult mental health disorders
When it comes to mental health, information is power. All diagnoses affect the brain and the body, but how the brain and body are impacted depends upon the diagnosis and symptoms.
Learn more about common adult mental health diagnoses and helpful support strategies for each.
Anxiety Disorder
What is it?
Everyone experiences anxiety at some time – anxiety can be quite useful in helping a person to avoid dangerous situations and motivate the solving of everyday problems. Anxiety can vary in severity from mild uneasiness to a terrifying panic attack. Anxiety also can vary in how long it lasts, from a few minutes to many years. An anxiety disorder differs from normal anxiety in the following ways:
- It is more intense
- It is long-lasting
- It interferes with the person’s work, activities, or relationships
Anxiety disorders tend to begin in childhood, adolescence, or early adulthood. The median age of onset is 11 years, which means half the people have their first episode by this age. Anxiety disorders often occur with mood disorders and substance use disorder. Anxiety disorders are more common in females than in males.
Signs and Symptoms
- Overwhelming, unfounded anxiety and worry about things that may go wrong, or one's inability to cope, accompanied by multiple physical and psychological symptoms of anxiety or tension occurring more days than not for at least six months
- Excessive worry about money, health, family and work, even when there are no signs of trouble
- Anxiety is difficult to control
- Intolerance of uncertainty
- Belief that worry is a helpful way to deal with problems and poor problem-solving skills
- Difficulty concentrating at school, work, or functioning at home
Support Strategies
- Assess for risk of suicide or harm
- Listen non-judgmentally
- Give reassurance and information
- Encourage appropriate professional help
- Encourage self-help and other support strategies
Resource
Bipolar Disorder
What is it?
Bipolar disorder, previously called manic depressive disorder, is a brain disorder that causes extreme shifts in a person’s mood, energy, and ability to function. People with bipolar disorder can experience periods of depression, periods of mania, and long periods of normal mood in between. The time between these different episodes varies greatly from person to person.
The median age of onset is 25 years, which means that half the people with bipolar disorder will have had their first episode by this age. Bipolar disorder is equally common in males and females.
Signs and Symptoms
Signs and symptoms of mania (or a manic episode) include:
- Increased energy, activity, and restlessness
- Excessively “high,” overly good, euphoric mood
- Extreme irritability
- Racing thoughts and talking very fast, jumping from one idea to another
- Distractibility, can’t concentrate well
- Little sleep needed
- Unrealistic beliefs in one’s abilities and powers
- Poor judgement
- Spending sprees
- A lasting period of behavior that is different from usual
- Increased sexual drive
- Abuse of drugs, particularly cocaine, alcohol, and sleeping medications
- Provocative, intrusive, or aggressive behavior
- Denial that anything is wrong
Signs and symptoms of depression (or a depressive episode) include:
- Lasting sad, anxious, or empty mood
- Feelings of hopelessness or pessimism
- Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, or helplessness
- Loss of interest or pleasure in activities once enjoyed, including sex
- Decreased energy, a feeling of fatigue or of being “slowed down”
- Difficulty concentrating, remembering or making decisions
- Restlessness or irritability
- Sleeping too much, or can’t sleep
- Change in appetite and/or unintended weight loss or gain
- Chronic pain or other persistent bodily symptoms that are not caused by physical illness or injury
- Thoughts of death or suicide, or suicide attempts
Support Strategies
- Assess for risk of suicide or harm
- Listen non-judgmentally
- Give reassurance and information
- Encourage appropriate professional help
- Encourage self-help and other support strategies
Resources
Depression
What is it?
The word depression is used in many different ways. People feel sad or blue when bad things happen. However, everyday “blues” or sadness is not a depressive disorder. We all may have a short-term depressed mood, but we cope and soon recover without treatment. A major depressive disorder lasts for at least two weeks and affects a person’s ability to work, to carry out usual daily activities, and to have satisfying personal relationships.
The median age of onset, is 32 years, meaning that half the people who will have an episode will have had their first episode by this age. Depression often co-occurs with anxiety or substance use disorders. Depression is more common in females than in males. Once a person has had an occurrence, of depression, they are prone to additional episodes.
Signs and Symptoms
A person who is clinically depressed would have at least one of these two symptoms nearly every day, for at least two weeks:
- An unusually sad mood
- Loss of enjoyment and interest in activities that used to be enjoyable
A person may also have these symptoms:
- Lack of energy and tiredness
- Feeling worthless or feeling guilty, though not really at fault
- Thinking often about death or wishing to be dead
- Difficulty concentrating or making decisions
- Moving more slowly or sometimes becoming agitated and unable to settle
- Having sleeping difficulties or sometimes sleeping too much
- Loss of interest in food or sometimes eating too much. Changes in eating habits may lead to either loss of weight or weight gain
Support Strategies
- Assess for risk of suicide or harm
- Listen non-judgmentally
- Give reassurance and information
- Encourage appropriate professional help
- Encourage self-help and other support strategies
Resources
Learn more
Eating Disorders
What is it?
Eating disorders are not just about food, weight, vanity, or willpower, but are serious and potentially life-threatening mental disorders. Most eating disorders occur when a person has distortions in thoughts and emotions relating to body image, leading to marked changes in eating or exercise behaviors that interfere with the person’s life.
The median age of onset for eating disorders ranges from 18 to 20 years (50% have onset before these ages). A high proportion of people with eating disorders also have another mental disorder, particularly anxiety, mood, or substance use disorders. However, less than one-third of people with eating disorders received treatment for a mental health problem in the past 12 months. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.
Signs and Symptoms
Behavioral
- Dieting behaviors, such as fasting, counting calories, avoidance of food groups or types
- Evidence of binge eating
- Evidence of vomiting or laxative use
- Excessive, obsessive, or ritualistic exercise patterns
- Changes in food preferences
- Development of rigid patterns around food selection, preparation, and eating such as cutting food into small pieces, or eating very slowly
- Avoidance of eating meals
- Lying about amount or type of food consumed, or evading questions about eating and weight
- Behaviors focused on body shape and weight
- Development of repetitive or obsessive behaviors relating to body shape and weight, such as pinching waist or wrists, repeated weighing, or excessive time spent looking in mirrors
- Social withdrawal or avoidance of previously enjoyed activities
Physical
- Weight loss or weight fluctuations
- Sensitivity to cold or feeling cold most the time, even in warm temperatures
- Changes in menstruation
- Swelling around cheeks or jaw, calluses on knuckles, or dental discoloration from vomiting
- Fainting
Psychological
- Preoccupation with food, body shape, and weight
- Extreme body dissatisfaction
- Distorted body image, such as complaining of being, feeling, looking fat when actually having a healthy weight or being underweight
- Sensitivity to comments or criticism about exercise, food, body shape, or weight
Support Strategies
- Assess for risk of suicide or harm
- Listen non-judgmentally
- Give reassurance and information
- Encourage appropriate professional help
- Encourage self-help and other support strategies
Resources
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
What is it?
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a real illness. You can get PTSD after living through or seeing a dangerous event, such as war, a hurricane, or bad accident. PTSD makes you feel stressed and afraid after the danger is over. It affects your life and the people around you. PTSD can happen to anyone at any age.
Signs and Symptoms
- Bad dreams
- Flashbacks, or feeling like the scary event is happening again
- Scary thoughts you can’t control
- Staying away from places and things that remind you of what happened
- Feeling worried, guilty, or sad
- Feeling alone
- Trouble sleeping
- Feeling on edge
- Angry outbursts
- Thoughts of hurting yourself or others
Children may show other signs:
- Behaving like they did when they were younger
- Being unable to talk
- Complaining of stomach problems or headaches a lot
- Refusing to go places or play with friends
Support Strategies
- Assess for risk of suicide or harm
- Listen non-judgmentally
- Give reassurance and information
- Encourage appropriate professional help
- Encourage self-help and other support strategies
Resources
Self-harm
What is it?
The term self-harm is used to refer to situations where self-injury has no suicidal intent. It is not easy to tell the difference between self-harm and a suicide attempt. The only way to know is to ask the person directly, “Are you suicidal?”
Self-harm is relatively common in young adults and has been found to occur in 5 to 19% of middle and high school students in the United States.
Signs and Symptoms
Types of self-harm
- Cutting, scratching, or pinching skin enough to cause bleeding or a mark that remains on the skin
- Banging or punching objects to the point of bruising or bleeding
- Ripping and tearing skin
- Carving words or patterns into skin
- Interfering with the healing of wounds
- Burning skin with cigarettes, matches, or hot water
- Pulling out large amounts of hair
- Deliberately overdosing on medications when this is not meant as a suicide attempt
Reasons people engage in self-harm
- To escape unbearable anguish
- To change the behavior of others
- To escape from a situation
- To show desperation to others
- To get back at other people or make them feel guilty
- To relieve tension
- To seek help
Support Strategies
- Assess for risk of suicide or harm
- Listen non-judgmentally
- Give reassurance and information
- Encourage appropriate professional help
- Encourage self-help and other support strategies
Resources
Schizophrenia
What is it?
The term “schizophrenia” comes from the Greek word for “fractured mind,” and refers to changes in mental function where thoughts and perceptions become disordered. Most people begin to experience symptoms of schizophrenia, such as hallucinations and delusions, between ages 16 and 30. Rarely do people develop schizophrenia after age 45. Onset of Schizophrenia in childhood (before age 13) is exceedingly rare. Schizophrenia affects males and females equally; however, men tend to experience symptoms at an earlier age than women.
Signs and Symptoms
- Delusions: False beliefs of persecution, guilt, having a special mission, or being under outside control
- Hallucinations: Most commonly involve hearing voices, but can also involve seeing, feeling, tasting, or smelling things. These are perceived as very real by the person but are not actually there.
- Difficulties in concentration, memory, and ability to plan, making it difficult for the person to reason, communicate, and complete daily tasks
- Lack of motivation even for self-care
- Blunted emotions: Oblivious to the things around them and often reacts inappropriately
- Withdrawal from contact with others, even family and close friends
Support Strategies
- Assess for risk of suicide or harm
- Listen non-judgmentally
- Give reassurance and information
- Encourage appropriate professional help
- Encourage self-help and other support strategies
Resources
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