Mood disorder is a category of mental health that affects children teenagers and adults. Coping with mood can become a challenge.
There are a number of causes for the disorder occurring in individuals. It could be genetic , environmental or a combination of both.
There are chemicals in our brain that are responsible for making us feel happy or sad.
The disorder is known to cause depression. If left unchecked an individual can suffer from it indefinitely. Teenagers have been found to indulge in drug abuse and violent behavior if they are affected with this disorder
Bipolar disorder risk increases if a relative suffers from the same condition. More women than men suffer from this condition.
There are different types of mood disorders and they can be classified as major depression, dysrythmic disorder, bipolar disorder, medical illness mood disorder and mood disorder caused due to substance abuse.
The symptoms of mood disorder may differ between a child and an adult. Some of the common symptoms include:
- Feeling sad all the time
- Feeling helpless
- Low self esteem
- Feeling inadequate
- Guilt feeling
- Wishing death
- Losing interest in activities that you used to enjoy
- Difficulty in starting and maintaining relationships
- Sleep disorders
- Lack of concentration
- Feeling tired and loss of energy
- Drastic changes in weight and appetite
- Inability to make correct decisions
- Suicide attempts
- Running away from work, home or situations
- Aggressive behavior, not accepting failure or rejection
- Physical ailments like headache and stomach ache.
Most of us when we read the symptoms listed above think that they too suffer from a mood disorder. The fact is that a vast majority of us suffer from some form of depression at a certain point of time in life.
Individuals with mood disorders have these symptoms over a prolonged period of time and this affects both their personal and professional life.
They are unable to get over their feeling of inadequacy and need help in the form of counseling, possible medication and support from family and friends.
The treatment varies from one individual to the other and a lot of factors that are specific to the patient should be taken into consideration before treatment is prescribed.
Psychotherapy, family therapy, sometimes combined with medication can work wonders for people afflicted with mood disorder.
The earlier the symptoms are found the better will be the success ratio of treatment.
Individuals with mood disorder need to get back the confidence in their ability to become winners and once this is achieved the path to recovery becomes easier.
Feel free to leave comments.
Thanks for such an informative post. I myself suffer from mood swings, often violent to the extent of hitting walls and screaming at people and am bipolar. It doesn’t take much to generate a depression cycle either and put me down in the dumps. If you can ease the tensions or defeat the onset you will live a far better life. For me, a big part of changing my mood is taking the bull by the horns, and being vocal about my problems so others can feel empowered to come forward and say I hurt inside.
Thanks Andy for sharing your own experience with us. I have no doubt that there are many people out there who can identify with what you have described.
Roland
Bipolar disorder as you have named it is really rampant and can really be detrimental over the time if not well treated. Thanks for sharing so much information on it. Mood is our body’s means of expressing what we are feeling at the moment and sometimes, it can get affected by so many factors such as this bipolar disorder. Thanks for enriching my knowledge more on it. Thumbs up
Thanks for your comments Rodarrick. If you care to check the list of articles on the left margin of my website you will find that I previously posted and article devoted specifically to bipolar.
Roland