In mental health conditions, an individual's emotions, behaviours, actions, thoughts, and even bodily functions are affected. Mental health problems often require extra support, care, and treatment to feel better. Though people across backgrounds and with diverse lived experiences can experience mental health problems, people from marginalized genders, with low incomes, minority religions, and marginalised sexual orientations and disabilities are more likely to experience mental health conditions or problems. An individual is more likely to experience these conditions due to certain risk factors including biological, genetic, trauma, and social factors such as discrimination.
Our team of experts can support people experiencing mental health conditions, such as:
Anxiety disorders:
Anxiety is our body’s natural response to stress. However, sometimes worrying can be very disruptive to everyday functioning. Many who live with anxiety have incessant thoughts like - ‘Did I close the door?’, ‘Did I do that interview well?’, ‘Will I ever get another job?’, ‘I am sure they are angry because I misspoke. Maybe my boss will fire me today because I am worthless.’
These repetitive thoughts or doubts contribute to heightened or extreme tension and worry. This results in difficulty doing even simple tasks without intrusive and overwhelming fears. These anxious thoughts can consume and make it very difficult for an individual to engage in and complete tasks.
There are a range of anxiety disorders including Generalised Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder and more. One of the forms of anxiety disorders includes Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder where the person experiences continuous, repetitive thoughts and fears that often lead to compulsive behaviors like washing something over and over or repeating an action in a ritualized manner. An individual with OCD feels compelled to perform these tasks or fear dire consequences for not doing so.
Mood disorders:
Anyone can feel sad at times. It is a common part of our lives. Mood disorders however are more intense and more difficult to manage. In a mood disorder, your emotions can fluctuate a lot and often make everyday life harder to live. Getting out of bed in the mornings can be hard. Motivating oneself to work, cook, clean, or even have a bath can be a struggle. Concentrating on things to be done can seem impossible. Sometimes it can be difficult to eat and sleep regularly. You might not be able to do tasks you enjoyed previously. In simple terms, your emotional state or mood can prevent you from living your life the way you wish to.
Depression is a common mood disorder. Depression presents itself differently in different people. Some might not be able to sleep at all while others may sleep for extended periods of time. Some might find it difficult to eat any food while some others might binge eat. In mood disorders, these feelings and experiences can persist and result in people feeling worthless, hopeless, and even inadequate.
On the other hand, a person with Bipolar Disorder experiences unusual and severe mood changes. Sometimes they have a lot of energy and experience highs and other times they have intense feelings of sadness and depression. These mood changes can switch very suddenly, sometimes in the same week and other times with a gap in between. These sudden changes or continuous changes in moods can make it very difficult for a person to not feel the disruptions in their day-to-day lives. They might feel the need to ‘make up' for the depressive periods during their high moments.
For some people, the period after childbirth can be particularly rough. Following childbirth, the birthing individual can often struggle with a lot of anxiety, irritability, and can feel intense sadness that lasts for long periods of time. It usually sets in a week or so after childbirth and hence is called Postpartum Depression. Many birthing individuals experience postpartum depression that makes everyday functioning especially looking after the child very hard. The birthing individual can also have many intrusive thoughts, feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy, difficulty sleeping, and more. These changes can make the birthing individual feel dejected and unable to function or bond with their child.
Personality disorders:
Personality is a part of how an individual thinks, behaves and feels. This is influenced by many different things. Sometimes your personality may be severely affected by paranoia, intense anxiety and a lot of emotional reactions. Individuals with personality disorders might experience severe mood swings along with a changing understanding of how they see themselves and their role in the world.
When someone lives with a personality disorder, they struggle with unhealthy patterns of thinking and being. Many of them often participate in risky behaviours like reckless driving, spending sprees or even self-harming behaviours. They also experience difficulty in anger management or feel abandoned by those around them. These experiences make it difficult to function and deeply affect relationships with other people, especially friends, family and partners.
Eating disorders:
Eating disorders are conditions where individuals have a difficult relationship with eating and food. Struggling with body image, weight and self-esteem are a part of these conditions. Sometimes one eats a lot and cannot stop eating. Other times individuals find it very difficult to eat and can starve themselves. And in other conditions, individuals eat a lot of food but after this, they force themselves to eject it out. These conditions can be difficult to manage and cause a lot of distress in the individual. Though they seem to revolve around eating, eating disorders affect every aspect of the individual’s life and require care and treatment. Anorexia nervosa (obsessing about what you eat and your weight), bulimia nervosa (marked by binge eating and methods to avoid weight gain) are a few kinds of common eating disorders.
Trauma related disorders:
Sometimes, when people go through an accident or are victims of violence/ abuse of any kind - emotional, physical, economic, their body and mind react in different ways. Your body might freeze at that moment. You might break down and cry. You may also experience numbness or sensory overload. The traumatic event results in stress and heightened fear and anxiety. Our body reacts to protect itself. But sometimes, this safety response of the body can last long even after the traumatic event has ended. This can also be one of the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The trauma stays in the body and significantly affects mental health.
How people experience PTSD varies widely. Some might have difficulty concentrating, and sleeping. Some might have repetitive replaying of the unwanted memories. Some might sleep for extended periods of time whereas some might disengage from the world. One may feel stressed or frightened even after the event has passed. These experiences of the body and mind can result in long term changes in the body.
Psychotic disorders:
There are a few severe mental health conditions like schizophrenia where individuals tend to hear voices or experience hallucinations that appear very real. A person with schizophrenia when experiencing a hallucination can find it very difficult to tell the difference between what is real and what they are experiencing. This condition often results in other experiences of depression, low self-worth, interpersonal conflicts and high anxiety. It is a mental health condition that is often long term and can be better managed with therapy and medication.
Our AtEase experts are equipped to work with people experiencing a wide range of mental health conditions. We will support you in the process of understanding and managing the symptoms you are experiencing - whether you have a formal psychiatric diagnosis or not. Reach out to an expert if any of these symptoms seem familiar to you.
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