What are the Most Common Mental Disorders?

Usually someone that suffers from a mental disorder goes through many tests and ups and downs before they are correctly diagnosed.

There is quite a long list of mental disorders and many of the symptoms of one disorder are similar to, but not the same as another disorder. This is one reason they can be so difficult to diagnose.

It usually takes a lot of patience and trial and error of medications before things get better. That can be a problem in itself, because once they start feeling better they don't think they need their medication, and the symptoms return again.

It requires patience and persistence for all family members involved and can be quite a load on everyone. We have seen this process with my grandmother and it is hard to see her go through all the ups and downs of her mental disorder.

Mental disorders can be such strange and complex issues. When my brother was in high school he was involved in a very bad car accident. Because of this accident he was in a coma for a few weeks and suffered some brain damage.

Many of his problems did not appear until about 30 years later. He began exhibiting symptoms that were similar to schizophrenia. This can be very scary for both the person experiencing them and the family members that live with them.

He is now able to keep his symptoms under control with medication, but the trauma that he suffered to his brain many years ago is part of the underlying cause of his mental disorder.

@alfredo - I liked how you noted that autism disorder is not one specific disorder but includes an entire spectrum of variations of the disorder.

That is why I am impressed they have done such a good job on coming up with a specific mental disorder test for autism. I feel children in my area are accurately diagnosed because professionals use a battery of tests to come up with this diagnosis.

And the tests involve using a variety of professionals from speech language pathologists to psychologists, with each professional having a unique insight into components of the disorder.

Also for those who know someone with a disorder, please remember this rule - they are a person first - therefore, always say they are a child with autism not a autistic child or say they are a person struggling with schizophrenia not a schizophrenic person.

By using this phrasing those involved will feel you see them as individuals not as disorders!

@alfredo - I am not sure if this coincided with the labeling of autism disorders as a spectrum, but I have noticed there is a better variety of labels for depression.

I also feel like other disorders that you do not have to have the most severe form of depression before you can get help as milder forms of depression are recognized as depression and therefore a mental illness not just something you can simply get over because you decide you want to feel better.

Which gets me to one of the most inaccurate stigmas of depression: that someone can simply get over it by "thinking happy thoughts."

I think with better information people are beginning to see that is not the cure for depression (even the milder forms of depression)!

One thing that I think has changed in the field of mental health disorders since autism has become more prelevant is that more and more disorders are thought of as on a spectrum.

Before autism, in my opinion, the thought on disorders was either you only have it if it is a severe case of the disorder or you did not have the disorder at all. Now they are recognizing that you do not have to have the most severe form of a disorder to have the disorder.

I think this occurred with autism because the experts found that if you try to compare one child with autism to another child with autism you would see the core similarities but the range of characteristics was expansive! So you could not say that the child does not have the disorder just because they did not have the full list of autism characteristics.

Since they have started discussing autism as being a spectrum disorder, I have seen other disorders such as bipolar disorder being described in the same way. Has anyone seen this change in other descriptions of mental health disorders?

@Crispety - Wow what a sad story. I know that some developmental disorders like attention deficit disorder or ADD is also considered a mental disorder in children.

I think that many people live with this condition and are very successful because of their ADD. They can usually multitask really well and have more than enough energy to get any job done. I know that children do have difficulty in school because the educational system usually does not accommodate the learning styles of someone with ADD.

Most schools are on a schedule and these children need breaks in order to be able to focus.

@Sunny27 - That could be really hard on a person. I know that there are other types of mental disorders that involve memory loss like dementia or even amnesia.

I was reading about a story involving a man that had no short term memory or long term memory because he was mugged and hit over the head so hard that he completely lost his memory.

Since he didn’t have any identification because his wallet was stolen he didn’t even know who he was. It was really sad that his entire life could be wiped from his memory like that.

He is working with a psychiatrist who is trying to use hypnosis to try to delve into the man’s past to see if it can shed some light on his identity.

@GreenWeaver -T here are a lot of anxiety related psychological disorders that are really common. I know that people that experience anxiety can’t really relax because they are constantly worrying about something.

But sometimes the sense of stress or dread is so great that they can’t really function or think about anything else. A lot of times the fear is not real but for the person suffering from anxiety they don’t feel that way.

It really robs you of any happiness because you’re constantly expecting doom. It is really hard to live like that. This is a common mental illness that gets better with therapy and medication.

Post traumatic stress disorder is also an anxiety induced disorder but this usually has triggers that cause flashbacks to when someone suffered the trauma in the first place.

For example, my friend’s husband suffered a brain injury from a bad accident as a result they had to move to a totally part of town because he no longer wanted to drive and wanted to be as far away from the accident scene as possible because he sometimes has post traumatic flashbacks that cause him to panic.

I read that psychological disorders like schizophrenia are often based on environmental factors like severe childhood trauma. This mental disorder in children is said to develop because the child is trying to block out traumatic and painful experiences and uses fantasy personalities to escape the pain.

They say that people that experience the murder of a family member for example might resort to this type of behavior to escape the harsh reality of the murder. I think that this makes a lot of sense because the condition is a form of coping mechanism in order to be able to survive.