Mental Illness: Bipolar Disorder in Adults Essay

Submitted By jaymelee83
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Mental Health Issues
I feel that there is a horrible label put on mental illness, as I have Bipolar Disorder (Cyclothymia). I am viewed as “crazy” by many. People don’t want to get to know the person behind the disorder. Instead they want to categorize me along with people that they see in movies, worst case scenarios, or put me under the stereotype that they have embedded in their head. So, I have learned to not tell people of my disorder until they have seen me for who I really am. I feel that I am able to work with people with mental illnesses very well, as I can empathize with them, and not label them from the get go. Mental illness is rampant in my family, and I have seen and dealt with it all of my life. I have been through it all, the ups and the downs, as well as the good and the bad. I have been on a roller coaster in my life trying to cope with my disorder, as I used to try to escape reality rather than face it. I found that that was more detrimental to me than facing it, and that I was gaining nothing, only losing what I did have. I have also been medicated, but found that it had a negative impact on me. I could either not function, or it seemed as if the symptoms got worse. I now feel that I am able to manage it on my own. As long as I am able to vent, reduce stressors by meditating, and other stress relieving strategies. I have found that I have more hypomania episodes than anything. I have also seen a trend that it takes a life altering event to trigger a depressive episode. All and all, I feel that I now cope pretty well with my disorder, and feel that I can positively impact someone else with a mental illness.
The main cause of mental illness has been confusing because there are multiple components of causes with various correlates. In order to make clear of this confusion, the causes of mental illness is a combination of factors both inside and outside of the individual.
Mental illness is the condition that significantly impede with an individual’s emotional, cognitive or social abilities. Neurological, metabolic, genetic and psychological causes are contributing factors for various types of mental illness like depression, schizophrenia, substance abuse and progression of condition. An elaborate system known as DSM-IV-TR gives a classification system that acts to separate mental illness into diagnostic categories based on the description of symptoms of illness. The exact primarily causes of mental illness are complicated; however, it seems to occur in a psychologically and biologically prone individual, in the trigger of environmental and social stress.
In some cases the causes of mental illness primarily found inside the individual. Some of them have been associated with an abnormal balance of neurotransmitters in the brain. If they are out of balance the communication between nerve cells in the brain that are disrupted. Hence, leading to symptoms of mental illness like depression, schizophrenia. On the other hand, genetics also plays a significant role to acquire mental disorder, which is passed on in families through genes. The interaction of multiple genes and other factors like abuse, stress or a traumatic event also causes mental illness. Consequently, such an alteration makes an individual almost a different species, reducing their hope of regaining a normal status because of the problem in their genes. Similarly, some infections have been connected to brain damage and the development of mental disorder. For example, streptococcus bacteria cause pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder which has also been linked to the development of obsessive-compulsive disorder and other type of mental illness in children. Beside this, maternal exposure to severe psychological trauma or stress, complication during childbirth, and gestational exposure to substance abuse like alcohol or cocaine have been anticipated to affect specific areas of neurodevelopment and to limit neuroplasticity. Disorders like
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