Mental Health Conditions
Mood Disorders
“Mood disorder” is a category used to describe all types of depression and bipolar disorders. People with mood disorders often have emotions and moods that aren’t consistent with what is going on in their life or circumstances.
People who are diagnosed with mood disorders can have symptoms like: ongoing sadness, hopelessness or worthlessness, trouble sleeping or sleeping too much, reckless behavior, irritability and aggression. However, every person’s experiences are more complex and unique than any label can explain.
Here are some of the most common mood disorders. For a more comprehensive list, click here.
Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar disorder causes shifts in a person’s mood, energy and ability to think clearly. People with bipolar experience high and low moods—known as mania and depression—which differ from the typical ups-and-downs most people experience. The average age of onset is about 25, but it can occur in the teens, or more uncommonly, in childhood. A person may be diagnosed with bipolar I, bipolar II or cyclothymia. These labels describe different severity, pattern and length of symptoms.
Depression
Depression, sometimes called depressive disorder, is more than feeling sad or going through a rough patch. It’s a serious mental health condition that requires understanding and care. Symptoms may include sadness and hopelessness, loss of interest in things that were once pleasant, lack of energy, or sometimes feeling like life isn’t worth living. There are many different kinds of depression.
Dysthymia
Dysthymia is a type of depression where symptoms are ongoing for years. Because people with dysthymia feel sad, low energy, hopeless or other symptoms for such a long period of time, the feelings are often embedded into their life and outlook, and feel “normal” for that person.
Postpartum Depression
Postpartum depression is different than temporary mood changes after childbirth. People may have extreme difficulty in going through their day to day lives, feelings of guilt, anxiety and fear, bouts of crying, and thoughts of hurting themselves or the infant. Symptoms can begin before delivery, which makes the term “postpartum” somewhat misleading. Any person can experience postpartum depression and it has no relationship to their ability to be a good parent.
Anxiety Disorders
“Anxiety disorder” is a category used to describe mental health conditions that involve extreme fear or worry. Everyone has worry and fear sometimes, but with an anxiety disorder those feelings can seem overwhelming, uncontrolling and get in the way of living the life a person wants.
Here are some of the most common anxiety disorders. Every person’s experiences are more complex and unique than any label can explain, but these disorders are used to describe common groups of symptoms. For a more comprehensive list of anxiety disorders, click here.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
People with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) have ongoing extreme worry about daily life. This can consume hours each day, making it hard to concentrate or finish daily tasks. A person with GAD may become exhausted by worry and have headaches, feel tense in their body or feel nauseous.
Panic Disorder
A person with panic disorder gets panic attacks and sudden feelings of terror. Panic attacks are often mistaken for heart attacks or other physical conditions. They cause powerful physical symptoms like chest pain, dizziness, shortness of breath, and upset stomach. Many people with panic disorder will go to great lengths to avoid having a panic attack, even avoiding going out in public.
Social Anxiety Disorder
A person with social anxiety disorder has intense fear about social situations - it’s more than being shy. They worry about humiliation, “saying something stupid,” or “not knowing what to say.” Someone with social anxiety disorder may not participate in conversations, contribute to class discussions, or offer their ideas, and may become isolated. Panic attack symptoms are a common reaction.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
A person with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has repeated and unwelcome thoughts (called “obsessions”) and strong, irrational urges to do certain actions (called “compulsions”). Some people with OCD know their thoughts and behaviors don’t make sense but don’t feel able to stop them.
Phobia
We all tend to avoid certain things or situations that make us uncomfortable or even fearful. But for someone with a phobia, certain places, events or objects create powerful reactions of strong, irrational fear. Most people with phobias have several triggers, and will work hard to avoid them, to keep from panicking.
Trauma- and Stressor- Related Disorders
Mental health conditions can develop from trauma. Trauma is “a deeply distressing or disturbing experience” that can make a person feel powerless or helpless, such as abuse, assault or community violence.
Trauma can cause a person to lose control of their brain’s response, which can lead to the development of mental health conditions. The human body and brain have natural responses to traumatic experiences, like a desire to run away, hide or fight, or to avoid things that later remind them of those experiences. These responses serve a purpose in the moment, but when they continue happening uncontrollably as time goes on, they can become damaging.
Here are some of the most common mental health conditions that are correlated with traumatic experiences. However, trauma can be connected with every kind of mental health condition, and every person’s experiences are more complex and unique than any label can explain.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
People with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have long term symptoms that are related to trauma they have experienced. They might have recurring and unwanted memories, flashbacks or dreams. Or, they might have trouble recalling the traumatic experience, or have strong urges to avoid places and objects that remind them of it. They also might have mood symptoms like feeling numb, guilty, worried, depressed, trouble sleeping, or outbursts of anger.
Dissociative Identity Disorder
People with dissociative identity disorder (DID) alternate between two or more different personality states. A person may feel like one or more voices are trying to take turns, or take control, in their head. These personalities can be quite distinct in characteristics, mannerisms and voice. The person with DID may or may not be aware of this, to varying degrees. People with DID often experience gaps in memory of everyday events and personal information but may not be aware of these gaps or of the underlying trauma that caused the disorder.
Psychotic Disorders
“Psychotic disorder” is a category used to describe mental health conditions that can cause people to lose touch with reality for periods of time. The most common symptoms of psychotic disorders are delusions or hallucinations. Delusions are false beliefs, like a person feeling like the world is out to get them, or thinking they are somebody else. Hallucinations are false perceptions, like hearing voices or noises that aren’t real, or seeing images that are not there.
Here are the most common psychotic disorders. Every person’s experiences are more complex and unique than any label can explain, but these disorders are used to describe common groups of symptoms.
Schizophrenia
People with schizophrenia often have hallucinations or delusions, and may also have trouble thinking clearly and relating to others. They often don’t show much emotion in their voice or actions, and lose interest in activities and relationships - symptoms that are sometimes mistaken for depression. It’s common for people with schizophrenia to have lack of insight, meaning that they are not aware they have a mental health condition.
Schizoaffective Disorder
People with schizoaffective disorder have some symptoms of schizophrenia, such as hallucinations or delusions, and also have symptoms of a mood disorder, such as mania and depression. Schizoaffective disorder is relatively rare and is often diagnosed incorrectly at first.
Feeding and Eating Disorders
Eating disorders are serious, treatable conditions that affect the brain and body. They significantly impact a person's emotions and relationship with food and/or weight. Eating disorders can have devastating impacts on the body that can result in serious physical damage or death. Many people with eating disorders have a co-occurring condition, such as PTSD, anxiety, substance use, OCD, or depression.
Eating disorders can affect individuals of any age, weight, body shape, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, race, gender, identity, or ethnicity, and while they have frequently been thought of as beginning in adolescence, increasing amounts of children and older adults are also being diagnosed.
Here are some of the most commonly diagnosed eating disorders. Every person's experiences are more complex and unique than any label can explain, but these disorders are used to describe common groups of symptoms.
Anorexia Nervosa
Individuals with anorexia nervosa often experience a disturbance in the way that they perceive their weight or shape and may fear weight gain. People with anorexia likely restrict food intake and the types of food that they eat, engage in compensatory behaviors to control weight or shape such as exercise or purging, and may also experience periods of binge eating. This results in weight loss (or lack of necessary weight gain for a growing child/ adolescent).
You cannot tell just by looking at someone whether they have anorexia, as it can occur in individuals of any weight or shape.
Bulimia Nervosa
Individuals with bulimia nervosa experience cyclical periods of bingeing followed by compensatory behaviors, such as self-induced vomiting, misuse of diuretics/laxatives/other medications, periods of restriction or fasting, or excessive exercise. According to the DSM-5 an episode of binge eating is characterized by both of the following:
Eating, in a discrete period of time (e.g., within a two hour period), an amount of food that is definitely larger than what most people would eat during a similar period of time and under similar circumstances.
Lack of control over eating during the episode (e.g., a feeling that you cannot stop eating, or control what or how much you are eating).
For a diagnosis to be made, these cycles typically must occur once a week or more for a period of at least three months. Like many other eating disorders, bulimia nervosa can cause individuals to experience distress related to their body weight or shape which may unduly influence their self-evaluation.
Binge Eating Disorder
Binge eating disorder is characterized by recurrent episodes of binge eating (see above), without regular use of compensatory behaviors. The binge eating episodes cause significant distress, guilt, and/or shame for the person who experiences them. BED is the most common eating disorder in the United States (NEDA).
Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder (OSFED)
The OSFED diagnosis was developed to encompass individuals who have significant eating disorders who do not meet the strict diagnostic criteria for bulimia nervosa or anorexia nervosa. Research demonstrates that OSFED is just as severe and life-threatening as other eating disorders.
Personality Disorders
“Personality disorder” is a category of mental health conditions where people have deeply held thoughts and behaviors that are hard to change, cause them distress and can get in the way of having healthy relationships. There are a number of different personality disorders, and they affect people in different ways. Some may lead people to act odd or “eccentric”, dramatic, or fearful.
Here are a few of the most common personality disorders.
Every person’s experiences are more complex and unique than any label can explain, but these disorders are used to describe common groups of symptoms.
Borderline Personality Disorder
People with borderline personality disorder (BPD) have trouble controlling their emotions. They can have extreme mood swings, including times of feeling very depressed or very angry, and can act impulsively in ways that can have a dangerous outcome. They often have trouble seeing themselves clearly, and worry a lot about people in their lives abandoning them.
Paranoid Personality Disorder
People with paranoid personality disorder are suspicious of other people and do not trust easily. They often think that innocent things other people say or do are meant to harm or threaten them.
Antisocial Personality Disorder
People with antisocial personality disorder often show no regard for right and wrong, and ignore the rights and feelings of others. People with antisocial personality disorder often treat others badly or manipulate them and don’t show any guilt or remorse for it.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
People with narcissistic personality disorder have a larger-than-life sense of how important they are, and think they are superior to others. They often need a lot of attention and want to be admired constantly. They often want to have the “best” of everything - and only spend time with others they consider superior.