According to the World Health Organisation (2014):

“Mental health is defined as a state of well-being in which every individual realises his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community.”

When we are mentally well, we:

engage in productive activities
engage in fulfilling relationships
adapt and change to difficult things
When we are mentally unwell, our:

thinking can change
memory and concentration is not as good
moods change and we may become more anxious, sad or irritable
behaviour changes, often around eating, sleeping and personal hygiene
Most mental health problems affect all of these
we may be unable to do the things they could do when they were well
we may use unhealthy coping strategies such as misusing alcohol or drugs
we sometimes experience angry outbursts
The language we use when talking about mental health and wellbeing is critical to our understanding of people’s experience of mental illness. We often use labeling as a way of fitting people into boxes that we do not quite understand.

It’s all too easy to let mental health and wellbeing slip to the bottom of our ‘to-do’ lists, especially when we’re adapting to a period of change. But taking care of our bodies and minds is an important way to help manage stress and maintain our health, so whether you choose to meditate or work out in the comfort of your own home, go for a walk in nature, or simply read your favourite book, make sure you create time and space for yourself to unplug and decompress.

Health and wellbeing are unique to each individual, but we’ve pulled together a few resources which we’ve found useful, and hope that you find them helpful too. Depression can be a dangerous mental state. If someone you know is experiencing depression, it is important to report it to a counselor. Here are three ways to identify depression.

1. Sleeping habits – When someone is depressed, they usually sleep for extended periods of time, sometimes not leaving the bed for days, skipping activities such as work or social obligations. This lack of desire to get up can often be associated with depression.
2. Eating habits – Eating habits can increase or decrease during depression. They can either refuse to eat or use food as a substitute to compensate for the depression. This is usually an extreme case, in which binging or anorexia may be taking place.
3. Social habits – Participation in social activities is usually significantly reduced. Combined with excessive sleeping, a lack of activity with friends and family can be a strong sign of depression.

Source: Betterhelp.com
Life can be scary, confusing, or upsetting when you’re experiencing emotional, cognitive, and physical changes. You might even ask yourself, “Do I have a mental illness?” It’s a natural question, especially since, according to NAMI statistics, 1 in 5 American adults had some type of mental disorders in 2018. Getting a diagnosis from a professional is essential but learning about mental disorders may be an excellent first step towards improving your mental health. The following list contains many of the most common mental illnesses and their symptoms.

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Mood Disorders
The APA Dictionary of Psychology defines mood disorder as “a psychiatric condition in which the principal feature is a prolonged, pervasive emotional disturbance.” Mental disorders included in this mental health category affect not only your emotions but also your thoughts and your physical functioning.

Major Depression
Major depression is one of the mental disorders that is characterized by persistent sadness and other symptoms. However, you won’t have manic or hypomanic symptoms if you have this mental health condition.

Emotions – sad, hopeless, guilty, irritability, anxiety, emptiness, loss of interest in things once enjoyed

Thoughts – trouble concentrating and making decisions, suicidal thoughts

Physical – appetite and weight changes, unexplained aches and pains, insomnia or sleeping too much, fatigue

Persistent Depressive Disorder
Persistent depressive disorder is a mental health issue in which you experience symptoms of depression most days for at least two years.

Bipolar Disorder
Several mental disorders come under the umbrella of bipolar disorder. If you have one of these mental health conditions, you will have depressive episodes with any of the depression signs. You will also have manic or hypomanic symptoms. Manic symptoms include:

Emotions – upbeat, wired, expansive, euphoric

Thoughts – grandiose or racing thoughts, distractibility, excessive self-confidence, lack of judgment, extreme risk-taking

Physical – increased energy or agitation, needing less sleep or food

Postpartum Depression
You might have this mental disorder anytime from pregnancy to a year after your baby’s birth. In addition to other depression symptoms, you might experience excessive crying, withdrawing from family, difficulty bonding with the new baby, and feelings that you’re a bad mother. If the mental health condition is severe, you might even have trouble caring for your baby.

Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder
More severe than PMS, symptoms of this mental health condition include mood swings, irritability, and other signs of depression, along with cramps, bloating, pain, and headaches. The symptoms start about a week to ten days before your period and go away after your period begins.

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Anxiety Disorders
These mental disorders come with excessive worry, fear, and nervousness. Yet each mental health condition is unique, and often relatively easy to recognize once you know the symptoms.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder
GAD is one of the mental disorders marked by worry and tension. Its symptoms are often unrelated to what’s happening and seem to come out of nowhere to affect your mental health.

Feelings – restlessness, being on edge, irritability

Thoughts – excessive worry, unrealistic views, trouble concentrating

Physical – muscle tension, headaches, sweating, nausea, needing to go to the bathroom often, tiredness, sleep problems, trembling, startling easily

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Obsessive-compulsive disorder includes several mental disorders. Each of these mental health problems includes both obsessive and compulsive symptoms.

Obsessive – fear of dirt or contamination, doubting, uncertainty, needing things to be symmetrical, thoughts of losing control or harming yourself, unwanted aggressive, sexual, or religious thoughts.

Compulsive – excessive washing and cleaning, checking, counting, strict adherence to a routine, needing constant reassurance.

Panic Disorder
Panic attacks are the main feature of this mental health condition. Many of the symptoms seem physical, yet the state isn’t physically dangerous.

Thoughts and Feelings – sense of impending doom, fear of death, feeling of unreality

Physical – nausea, chest pain, headache, lightheadedness, numbness or tingling, shortness of breath, rapid heart rate, trembling, chills, sweating, abdominal cramping

Phobias
Phobias are mental disorders in which you feel extreme fear when something triggers the phobia. The trigger could be heights, snakes, closed-in spaces, or a range of other possibilities. Symptoms include:

Feelings – fear of dying, losing control, or fainting, sense of being detached from your body

Physical – unsteadiness, lightheadedness, dizziness, choking sensation, pounding heart or fast heartbeat, chest pain or tightness, sweating, hot or cold flushes, shortness of breath, nausea, tingling, trembling

Agoraphobia
Agoraphobia is a mental health challenge in which you have such intense anxiety symptoms that you avoid going to or even thinking about places and situations that bring up feelings like helplessness, embarrassment, or a sense of being threatened.

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Social Anxiety
Social anxiety is a frustrating mental health problem for anyone who would like to or needs to interact with people socially. Symptoms include:

Fears – of being judged, embarrassed, or humiliated, of strangers, that others will notice you look anxious, of physical symptoms others might notice

Behaviors – avoiding speaking to others or being the center of attention, analyzing your social performance after the fact

Physical – blushing, trembling, sweating, fast heartbeat, nausea, breathlessness, dizziness, blank mind, muscle tension

Eating Disorders
Eating disorders are mental disorders that affect both your physical and psychological health. They all include intense feelings and behaviors related to eating.

Anorexia Nervosa
Anorexia nervosa is one of these mental disorders. It is a mental health problem in which you eat very little and typically lose weight at a rate that is alarming to your friends and family. You can find a full list of symptoms at the National Eating Disorder Association. Here are a few of the most common.

Feelings and Behaviors – preoccupied with food, dieting, and weight; talking about being fat and needing to diet, saying you’re not hungry, having food rituals, unrealistic body image, wearing multi-layered baggy clothes

Physical Signs – dramatic weight loss, stomach cramps, menstrual irregularities, sleep problems, feeling cold constantly, dry skin and nails, cavities, thinning hair, muscle weakness, and poor wound healing and immune response

Bulimia
Another of these mental disorders is bulimia, in which you eat and sometimes binge on food but then purge in an attempt to get rid of the calories you consumed. If you have this mental health problem, you might have an intense fear of gaining weight, be worried about your body shape and size, eat large amounts of food at one time, force yourself to vomit and fast between binges.

Binge Eating
Another mental health issue people sometimes have is binge eating. In this disorder, you eat large amounts of food in a short time, but there are other signs as well.

Feelings – that you’re out of control, depressed, disgusted with yourself, ashamed, or upset

Behaviors – eating when you’re full, eating fast while binging, eating alone or secretly, dieting without weight loss

Trauma-Related Disorders
When something extremely distressing happens to you, you might have mental health problems in this category. Trauma-related mental disorders are reactions to terrifying, disturbing, or life-threatening events.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Stressful events, like being in combat or being assaulted, can trigger PTSD. This mental health condition can last for months or years if left untreated. Symptoms include intrusive memories, nightmares, avoiding anything that reminds you of the event, negative thoughts and feelings, being easily startled, trouble sleeping, irritability, anger, aggression, and feeling emotionally disconnected or numb.

Acute Stress Disorder
Acute stress disorder is one of the mental health conditions in which you feel symptoms of anxiety. Signs usually come up after a traumatic event and last for up to a month. In addition to anxiety symptoms, you might also feel numb or a sense of unreality, or have vivid flashbacks or difficulty remembering the event.

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Impulse Control Disorders
If you have these mental disorders, your behavior is so out of control that you can cause harm to yourself and others. These behaviors go against laws, societal norms, and best practices, yet you engage in them without thinking.

Kleptomania
Kleptomania is a mental health problem in which you steal things you don’t need. You might have increasing tension just before you take something and feel a sense of relief afterward.

Pyromania
If you have pyromania, you’re fascinated with fire and may set things on fire, often harming others or destroying property in the process.

Intermittent Explosive Disorder
Mental disorders like intermittent explosive disorder can cause harm to others as well as impact your mental health. Brief flashes of anger and violence characterize this mental health issue. Additionally, these outbursts are all out of proportion to the events that trigger them. An everyday annoyance can set off a fit of rage.

Psychotic Disorders
Mental health conditions in the psychotic category are mental disorders in which you have a break with reality. Some of these mental health problems are chronic, while others are short-lived.

Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is one of the severe chronic psychiatric disorders. Symptoms usually start between the ages of 16 and 30. They include positive signs (things that happen) and negative symptoms (things that are absent or decreased).

Positive Symptoms – hallucinations, delusions, dysfunctional ways of thinking, movement disorders

Negative Symptoms – reduced facial expressions, decreased feelings of pleasure in the everyday, trouble starting or continuing with activities, speaking very little

Schizoaffective Disorder
This mental health condition is a mix of schizophrenic disorder and mood disorder. The two types of schizoaffective disorder are manic type and depressive type. In addition to manic or depressed, and schizophrenic symptoms, someone with this mental health issue might have incoherent speech, bizarre behavior, trouble functioning at work, school, or in social situations, and problems with grooming.

Brief Psychotic Disorder
If you’re under extreme stress, you might develop brief psychotic disorder very rapidly. This temporary mental health problem can have intense symptoms, including hallucinations and delusions. Although you return to your normal functioning shortly afterward, the time when you’re having psychotic symptoms can be dangerous to you and others around you.

Personality Disorders

Personality disorders are mental health problems that last for many years or even for your entire life. When you have one of these mental health disorders, your thoughts, emotions, and actions are dysfunctional and may bring harm to your relationship and other aspects of your life. Here are some of those mental health disorders.

Narcissistic
Those with narcissistic personality disorder have little empathy for others. They’re self-centered and have an excessively elevated self-image. You might think you have extraordinary powers, talents, and beauty. You might expect others to praise you continually if you have this mental health issue.

Borderline
People with borderline personality disorder tend to be impulsive, have unstable self-image and intense relationships, have mood swings and suicidal behavior, fear to be alone, and may have transitory paranoia. This mental health problem can make your life feel like a whirlwind of emotion.

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Avoidant
People with this mental health condition are extremely sensitive to rejection and criticism. They avoid interpersonal contact and new activities. They may be very shy and feel inferior to others. Their mental health suffers, partly because they become so isolated from others.

Paranoid
If you have a paranoid personality disorder, you distrust and are suspicious of others. You erroneously think that others are trying to hurt you or that they’re untrustworthy. You hear innocent remarks and view them as personal attacks. You hold grudges and may become hostile when you believe others have insulted you. When others suggest you might need mental health treatment, you might be suspicious of their motives.

Dependent
When you have a dependent personality disorder, you might feel excessively dependent on others. You might be clingy or submissive. You might fear to be on your own, having to take care of yourself, disagreeing with others, or disapproval. You might have low self-confidence and difficulty doing activities on your own. Even if your relationship partner abuses you, you might put up with it rather than going out on your own. And if the relationship ends despite this, you might feel the need to jump into another relationship immediately.

Addiction and Substance Abuse Disorders

Substance abuse disorders can be very distressing and can impact your life in profound ways. These conditions aren’t merely due to a lack of willpower or not trying. They are significant mental health diseases.

Alcohol, Illegal or Prescription Drugs
Sometimes it’s hard to tell if you have a mental health problem when you use alcohol or other addictive substances. After all, many people drink socially and harmlessly. However, there are several signs that you might need help with substance abuse disorder.

You might feel you need to use the substance many times every day. You need more overtime to achieve the same effects. You might steal to get the substance and always be concerned about keeping a supply of it on hand. You try to quit using it, but you are unsuccessful. And, anytime you do stop using it, you have withdrawal symptoms.

What to Do If You Think You Might Have a Mental Disorder

If you recognize any of these mental health symptoms in yourself, you might wonder, “What now?” First, think about how these mental health problems are affecting your life and the lives of those around you.

Then look for a counselor or therapist to help you. We are always available @ TheSolaceZone.com