Mood Disorder

Mood Disorders

Have you ever asked yourself why do I feel so bad, why cannot I get enough sleep, why do I get a bad relationship with my family, or why things do not turn out how I would expected? Those questionnaires seem to be a part of being human. It is understandable that almost everyone experiences at least brief periods of sadness, being upbeat or downbeat at various points in their lifetime. Just as Kay Redfield Jamison used to say: “If I can't feel, if I can't move, if I can't think, and I can't care, then what conceivable point is there in living?”, the feelings of sadness or discouragement are normal emotional reactions to difficult circumstances. However, there is a significant point that if these feelings keep happening more than a few weeks or take control of a person’s life, it could be a sign of mood disorders. According to William, mood disorder is a disturbances of a normal mood (“Mood Disorders and Suicide,” n.d.). Throughout the paper will be including some types of mood disorders, what the causes are, the symptoms, treatments, and the effective in an individual’s ability in a daily life.

What can be defined as mood disorders? Many people probably use the term “mood” to express their feelings at many moments in their lives. For example: I am in a merry mood today or you are a man of moods. As going beyond, mental health professors use that term a bit differently to describe insistent emotional state that affects human perception of the issue. In other words, it is called “ Mood Disorders”. In general, mood disorders are something every one experiences even occasional strong or even irritable. However, when moods go out of control, go through the extreme emotion like deep depression, the diagnosis will end up one of the mood disorders. In fact, mood disorders fall into two basic categories such as unipolar and bipolar disorder. Unipolar disorder, known as depression, is one of the most common disorders nowadays and can range from low to high depending on certain circumstances. It envolves low mood or loss of interest in usual activities, as well as other symptoms.The other one is bipolar disorder, known as manic-depressive illness which means emotional highs. It causes serious changes in mood, thinking or behavior from the highs of one extreme to the lows of depression on the other. (Kaur, 2003 ).

Symptoms of mood disorders are related to people’s feeling. Normally, mood disorders will start out as a mild stage of your feeling such as sadness or insufficiency. It is common sense that wild negative feelings are normal. However, if people keep these feelings for a long time, they will be able to have a mood disorder.  In fact, people can experience mood disorders symptoms very often or at least once in a while. For example: people may feel difficulty in concentrating or sleeping. Also, some of them may get irritated and mood swings through some situations including sadness, hopelessness, hostility or aggressive. Moreover, in some cases, mood disorders can be life- threatening symptoms if the person does not treat them acutely. It can be a dangerous action to yourself or others like suicidal thoughts or expression of suicidal thoughts.

Many years ago, mental health professionals began to recognize the symptoms of mood disorders in children, adolescents, as well as adults. In overall, they concluded that mood disorders could happen at every age, even from an junior year age to an adult. However, children and adolescents did not show up the same symptoms as adults. In fact, it is more complicated to diagnose mood disorders in children anyway. That may be because children or teens are not always able to express how they feel. According to the National Institute of Health, 20% of the U.S adults population will suffer a mood disorders over the lifetime. Practically, women are 50% more likely than men to experience a mood disorder. (Dr. Cheryl Lane, 2015).

So what are the main reasons to pinpoint the causes of the mood disorders? The question seems to understand easily, but it is hard to point out the exactly answers. Particularly, many clinical psychologists state that the exact cause of mood disorders is not known. However, most of them guess that the illnesses are likely caused by an imbalance of brain chemicals which control moods, feelings, and behaviors (“Overview of Mood Disorders”, 2016). Life events including stressful life changes may lead to a depressed mood. In fact, mood disorders are more intense and harder to manage than normal feelings of sadness. It is also thought that mood disorders almost tend to run in families. In some cases, heredity may contribute to mood disorders also. Once a person in a family has diagnostic, brothers, sisters or even adults have a greater chance of having the same diagnostic. In addition, relatives of people being psychotic disorders are also at increased risk for the others to get the same illness. Sometimes, mood disorders may be triggered by life’s problems. Being fired a job, getting divorced, losing a one loved, death in a family, and financial troubles can be difficult and coping with pressure may be troublesome. These life events and stress can make a mood disorder harder to manage. Besides that, alcohol or drug use are considered to be caused mood disorders symptoms. According to many researchers, alcohol or drug is a depressant, which can interrupt the balance in the brain, affecting our thoughts, feelings, actions, and long-term mental health (“Alcohol and Mental Health”, 2016). For many of us, alcohols can help us feel more relaxed and less nervous. However, when high levels of alcohols are involved too much, instead of pleasurable effects increasing, it is possible that a negative emotional response will take over.

Mood disorders affect not only individual’s life, but also the entire social setting including marriage, family, job or social relationships. All of these impacts of mood disorders may degrade the ability of one’s performance. Thus, a seriously depressed person may become more incommunicative, unable to participate actively or become a “wet blanket”. What it means is he or she becomes gradually sapping out whatever joy there may be in any occasion or does not enjoy having other people around. In the family setting a manic person is often rocking the boat. For example, he or she will be aggressive, argumentative or making irresponsible commitment to others. As the illness becomes more intensive, the loss of performance or well-paying job is one of the worst intensive things to mood disorders person. The depressive will linger over one’s routine. In fact, that person begins to be routinely late for work or becomes unable to make decisions or handle the workload on the job, and eventually will be perceived as an unsatisfactory employee. In such family cases, the illness may cause a bad relationship between each member in the family. Spouse or parents erodes quickly and a separation or divorce often ensures happen. In other cases, those with depression have a high risk of suicide. They may have some dangerous behavior to themselves or even to other people.

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