Mental Health

Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) is more than a body image issue. It is normal to feel a little conscientious about the way you look whether you wish you had a smaller nose, a tighter stomach, or have smooth, wavy locks. We may think about these things sometimes or when special occasions come up. People with BDD, on the other hand, think of real or imaginary flaws for hours daily, causing severe emotional distress. Distracting thoughts can leave those with BDD missing work or school, avoiding social situations, and isolating themselves because they are ashamed of letting their flaws go noticed. This can involve spending thousands of dollars in plastic surgeries and still never being satisfied with the results. BDD is not to be taken lightly as this disorder can ruin your health and your social life.

Discussions of anxiety and depression often go hand in hand. For example, symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder can include depression and anxiety. Bipolar disorder is characterized by alternating moods of depression, a bipolar-specific depression, and mania, which can include anxiety. Withdrawal from drugs and alcohol can include symptoms of both depression and anxiety. Signs and symptoms of any mental health disorder usually includes talks of either depression or anxiety, or both. Even more complicated is the fact that anxiety can be a symptom of depression and however closely related or closely discussed anxiety and depression might be, they are two completely different mental health disorders, symptomatic experiences, and diagnoses.

Social media has created a culture of voyeurism where we spend hours of our time examining the online lives of other people, wondering about their real lives on the other side of the screen. In the meantime, you are spending your real life on the other side of the screen, looking at the screen.

Psychopath raises a very particular kind of image in the mind. Thanks to the perpetuation of some very vivid, grotesque, and cruel stereotypes, we tend to think of psychopaths as clinically insane- there is a difference. We see them as murderers, thieves, and comic book story villains. There is a difference between the clinically insane- those who are completely and dangerously detached from the roots of humanity in reality, and those are living with a form of psychopathy, which is different.

Many of the world’s most famous creatives struggled with mental health issues. Often the existence of their mental health as a contributor to their creativity is overlooked because their struggles become just another part of the glamorized story of their lives. When they pass because of alcoholism, drug addiction, or suicide, they are immortalized through their memory as an artist. What people are quick to forget is the fact that behind the creativity and perhaps the fame was an individual, a human being like anyone else, who was struggling with mental illness. The Big Think examines the relationship between creativity and mental illness. A 1931 study, the article cites, interviewed over 800 well known creative “geniuses” at the time and found that a small percentage, the minority, of participants had no struggles with mental health. Recent research supports the finding. Bipolar disorder, for example, is highly correlated with high intelligence and creativity. A screening of over 700,000 teens in Sweden, the article explains, found that “exceptionally creative” teens were four times more likely to have bipolar. Other studies have found that people who are highly creative are highly likely to have bipolar disorder or another personality or mood disorder. Writers are the most likely to struggle with a severe mental illness like anxiety, depression, or schizophrenia. Additional research has found a scientific link through neuroscience. Though many of these studies point to a correlation, the article points out, none draw a definitive line of causation. Creativity and mental illness may be linked, which is why creative and expressive art therapies are helpful in mental health treatment. The mind is full of genius, finding ways to express itself other than words. Music therapy, art therapy, drama therapy, dance therapy, and other creative forms of therapy help clients express what they might not otherwise be able to express. Creatives in the spotlight who struggle with mental illness use their gift of creative talent to communicate a human experience that cannot be understand by anyone else other than those who also struggle. Yet, with their music, their art, their creativity, they are able to spread awareness, touch lives, and make an impact. Still beneath the surface they are people struggling with challenging symptoms in need of understanding, love, and care.

When you are given a mental health diagnosis you gain a new part of your identity. There is specific parts of that language to pay attention to. You gain a new part of your identity. When you are given a mental health diagnosis you do not gain a new identity. Often in mental health treatment and recovery we encourage people to work against the shame and stigma that comes from mental illness by telling them, “You are not your diagnosis”. Some people, however, embrace that identity. After struggling for years of their lives to understand what is going on with the state of their mental health, they are relieved to have a title. These individuals beat themselves up, shame themselves, and live by the stigma they have been given just for being different. Whatever shame and stigma comes with their specific mental health diagnosis, it doesn’t matter to them. Within the community of having a mental illness, being mentally ill, and meeting people with their specific diagnosis, they find belonging. The identity doesn’t wear them down, it helps build them back up. It’s a matter of person-first or identity-first language. Person-first language is saying “I have mental illness”. Identity-first language is saying “I am mental illness.” However, the language and name of mental health disorders complicates this. For example, you might say “I have narcissistic personality disorder” or “I am narcissistic”. Most often, however, the title appropriated is “They are a narcissist.” Yet, in comparison, someone with an anxiety disorder it wouldn’t make sense to say “I am anxious” because anyone can be anxious. They can say “I have anxiety disorder”. In further comparison- “I am bipolar” versus “I have bipolar”, “I am depressed” versus “I have depression”. Part of the reason this language dichotomy falls short, like in the case of depression, is that mental illness can be remitting. People can and with treatment often do fall into remission from depression.

The brain has things happen within it and the brain has things happen to it. Every second of every day the brain is working tirelessly to perform thousands of functions. Synapses are firing and refiring, behaviors are being ingrained into our system, thousands of stimuli are coming in and being processed- the brain is absolutely remarkable. However, the brain is also incredibly vulnerable. Vulnerable to both physical and emotional impact, the brain can be injured. When we experience trauma, abuse, or mental illness, it changes our brain. We have memories that cannot be erased, we learn lessons that could take years to unlearn and learn differently. New studies show that mental illnesses like depression structurally change the brain on the inside. Published in Scientific Reports, the study used a new form of imaging to map white matter in the brain. Talking about brain matter, we often talk about grey matter in the brain. For example, mindfulness and meditation are common practices proven to reduce the symptoms of depression and even help some people achieve remission from depression. Both mindfulness and meditation have been proven to increase grey matter in the brain, which is raw brain tissue upon which knowledge and information can be imprinted. White matter, on the other hand, is what connects one area of grey matter to the next area. Wiring together clusters of synapses and everything that lives in the grey matter of the brain, white matter is critical to brain function. Compromises in white matter can mean compromises in emotions, thinking, and other human functions. The study found that patients with depression had “alterations” in their white matter. Additionally, white matter in the brain of patients with depression did not have as high a quality compared to patients who did not have depression. Brain imaging studies are essential for gaining a deeper understanding of complicated mental illness like depression. Mental illnesses are not just feelings. They are complex systems of brain reactions which take on a physical form. Ongoing research enlightens the treatment process while also validating many of the treatments already in place.

Ghosting is a modern term for a peculiar occasion which happens in dating. Someone who “ghosts” someone else completely cuts off communication without warning. Often, to the person who is being “ghosted” it can feel like there is also no cause for the sudden disappearance. Ghosting could be a symptom of a mental health condition which complicates the ability to maintain healthy relationships. Mental Illness deeply fears invalidation Some mental health conditions have a deep issue with the perceived offense of invalidation. Invalidation is a way of making someone feel as though they are not valid to you, or as a person. People who have a mental illness which distorts their perception of self and their ego can take real or perceived signals of invalidation very personally and feel the need to retaliate in response. Ghosting is the way that they hurt you while simultaneously protecting themselves, though they hurt themselves in the process. Mental Illness deeply fears abandonment Abandonment issues can inspire long term mental health issues of all kinds to cope with the intense fear of being abandoned, neglected, or rejected. Trauma from childhood and adolescence can cause these deep fears of abandonment which do not go away until they are thoroughly confronted in therapy. Instead of having to face abandonment, someone who has to avoid any threat of abandonment will abandon the situation entirely, causing them to ghost the person they are seeing. Mental Illness creates fact from feeling Delusional thinking run entirely on feeling is a common experience in many different mental illnesses. Rather than see an objective fact, they only see their feelings and run entirely on how they feel. The feelings of abandonment and the feelings of invalidation discard the necessity of knowing whether or not they are real or perceived. All that matters is that the person feeling them feels them and that is reality enough. They act on their feelings instead of acting on a conversation or understanding what is really going on. That is why they turn to ghosting instead of having an emotionally honest conversation. Mental Illness takes everything personally Mental health conditions can create a heightened sensitivity to the actions- real or perceived- from others. Taking things personally is also acting on feelings because someone feels that what they have experienced is personal. They take feelings of abandonment and feelings of invalidation very personally. Coping with a personal offense is not easy for people with mental health conditions because coping with the pain underneath them- like feelings of abandonment and invalidation- is not easy for them. To avoid the personal commentary which could trigger feelings of low-self worth, they will turn to ghosting to eliminate the relationship entirely.

Personality disorders can make life unmanageable.The presence of a personality disorder affects more than someone’s personality. It affects the way they see and relate to the world, as well as how the world sees and relates to them.

Mental health disorders are typically misinformed. People do not fully understand the reality of what mental health disorders are, the effect they have on someone’s life, and the severity in which they can occur. Obsessive compulsive disorder is used in popular culture to reference an “obsession” with being organized, clean and making sure everything is perfect. Perfectionism and obsessive compulsive disorder are two different things. Being obsessed with everything being just so is a focus on the outcome, of things being just so. Sometimes people will obsess about the consequences if they lack perfection. Mostly, it's personal irritation because of a commitment to make things just so. The intrusive thoughts which come with obsessive compulsive disorder are not about perfection. They aren’t about personal interest or a desire to make things perfect. Often, the obsessive thinking of OCD is disruptive and shocking. Building up a pressure, the brain resorts to compulsive thinking. If someone with OCD can act on their compulsive behavior, it will make the obsessive, intrusive thinking go away. This is different from wanting to be a perfectionist about an activity in order to let go of the stress of something not being perfect. The thought processes of obsessive compulsive disorder aren’t rational. The relationship between the obsessive thoughts and the compulsive behaviors often don’t match. For example, a perfectionist might obsess about the ribbon tied on a package being crooked. It will drive them to irritability if they don’t fix that ribbon. Someone with obsessive compulsive disorder might believe that if they don’t untie and retie the ribbon five times, they might be the cause of a train accident four states away. That’s different from perfectionism. People who have perfectionist tendencies seem to revel in labeling themselves obsessive compulsive. People call themselves OCD when they aren’t OCD because, simply stated, they aren’t informed about what OCD really is. Today, the conversation regarding mental health and mental illness is growing. With an opening dialogue, the conversation is shifting from misinformation to information, breaking down the stigmas and stereotypes one at a time. Individuals living with real, diagnosed OCD are speaking up against the tide of stereotype and changing the way people talk about mental health.

Personality disorders like avoidant personality, dependent personality, obsessive compulsive, histrionic, narcissistic, and paranoid personality disorders are all challenging to treat with traditional therapy. It is widely understood that mental health disorders of many kinds can arise out of experiences in childhood. For personality disorders this is most often true. Treating the core of personality disorders means needing to treat the childhood from which they stem. Traditional psychotherapeutic methods don’t always go back to the core issues and rectify them. Of course, there is no going back in time and changing the past. Through schema therapy, however, there is a way to meet the part of the past that is still alive in an adult, and heal that living part. The more that the inner child, or Vulnerable Child can be healed, the less need for maladaptive coping behaviors. The American Journal of Psychiatry released a large control trial in 2014 which suggested Schema Therapy had a greater success in the treatment of personality disorders than popular forms of therapy treatments commonly used. Schema Therapy saw higher rates of recovery as well as a great reduction in depression and other symptoms. In addition, patients who regularly received Schema Therapy were less likely to drop out of their therapy. Statistically, 80% of the patients in Schema Therapy were considered “recovered” while the numbers for other kinds of therapy didn’t reach beyond 60%. Through therapy and treatment, patients become aware of their different forms of self, or the different narratives in their head, for example, the critical parent. It is most challenging to get into the mode of the vulnerable child because that is where the core existence of hurt and pain, and often trauma, exist. Maladaptive behaviors and beliefs form around protecting or even ignoring the vulnerable child because confronting or living in those vulnerable feelings threatens the protections which have been set up. However, as Science Daily reported, “Direct access to the Vulnerable Child is the key to the therapist being able to meet these needs and is the cornerstone of treatment.” Treating personality disorders includes a combination of adulthood skills for coping as well as inner child work to heal the wounds of the past. Without treatment and therapy, personality disorders can worsen overtime and complicate adult relationships. To cope with childhood pain and the pain of living with an unmanaged personality disorder, many turn to substance abuse.