Various Mood Disorders and How They can be Handled?

A mood disorder is a mental health condition that primarily affects the emotional state. It’s a disorder in which the person will experience long periods of extreme happiness, extreme sadness or both. Certain mood disorders involve other persistent emotions, such as anger and irritability.

Mood disorders are the only conditions that exist in both realms, physical and spiritual. There is no doubt that the chemical imbalance is a physical condition that is biologically inherited. It should be treated medically. At the same time, Satan loves to harass those with mood disorders and he attacks families that are affected by depression because they are more vulnerable. This attack needs to be dealt with spiritually.

It’s normal for our mood to change, depending on the situation. However, for a mood disorder diagnosis, symptoms must be present for several weeks or longer. Mood disorders can cause changes in behaviour and can affect the ability to perform routine activities, such as work or school.

A study of a few major mental illness symptoms follows:

Depression

Depression (major or clinical depression) is a common mental health condition. Depressive symptoms include feeling sad or hopeless. The condition can also cause difficulty with thinking, memory, eating and sleeping. For a person to receive a diagnosis of clinical depression, symptoms must last for at least two weeks.

There are several different types of depression, including:

• Postpartum depression (peripartum depression): This type of depression occurs during pregnancy or after the end of a pregnancy in women. Women experience hormonal, physical, emotional, financial and social changes after having a baby. These changes can cause symptoms of postpartum depression.

• Persistent depressive disorder: This is a chronic form of depression that must last for at least two years. Symptoms may occasionally lessen in severity during this time. It’s less severe than major depressive disorder, but it’s ongoing.

• Seasonal affective disorder (SAD): This type of depression occurs during certain seasons of the year. It typically starts in the late autumn or early winter and lasts until spring or summer. Less commonly, SAD episodes may also begin during the late spring or summer. Symptoms of winter seasonal affective disorder may resemble those of major depression. They tend to disappear or lessen during spring and summer.

• Depression with psychosis: This is a type of severe depression combined with psychotic episodes, such as hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that others don’t) or delusions (having fixed but false beliefs). People who experience depression with psychosis have an increased risk of thinking about suicide.

Bipolar Disorder

Depression is the most common form of mood disorder. Bipolar disorder is the next most common. It is characterized by wide mood fluctuations ranging from deep depression and despair to extreme happiness, euphoria and mania.

During a depressed phase, bipolar depression is indistinguishable from the more common unipolar depression. If a person is having their first episode of depression, it is not possible to tell which type of depression is present. People with depression are actually experiencing the early onset of bipolar disorder. Because the elevated mood pattern has not yet emerged, it’s impossible to distinguish from unipolar depression.

During a high or manic phase, a person will talk excessively and loudly with words pouring out in an animated continuous stream, interspersed with wit and humour. They will be unable to sit still or relax, and there is continuous agitation. They will be distractible, changing topics rapidly, never totally finishing one thought and overcommitting to any task.

They show endless energy, developing grandiose plans based on gross overestimations of their own ability. Their thoughts are continuously racing with exciting plans or jobs that demand immediate attention. When opposed, they may show intense rage and irritability. They have poor judgment, especially when spending money. They need very little sleep and consider rest and eating to be a waste of time, only for the weak. Lack of sleep can trigger a manic phase, and then continuing lack of sleep will fuel and intensify a manic episode.

The usual age of onset of bipolar depression is in late adolescence and the early twenties, the same as in other mood disorders. It is usually not recognized until symptoms have been present for, on average, ten years.

Bipolar mood swings can easily become so severe that they slip into what is known as psychosis. Psychotic thinking means that a person has lost touch with reality. It can happen at the extremes of depression or elation. A person in psychosis may hear voices when there is no one around, may feel that they are being watched or followed by strangers or may feel that others can read their mind. They may also develop strange, delusional beliefs that they have superhuman abilities.

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a very misunderstood condition, and it is not a “split personality.” It is a psychotic disorder rather than a mood disorder, which means that there is a loss of contact with reality. It is caused by a different type of chemical imbalance than a mood disorder.

Schizophrenia is a thought disorder in which a person loses the ability to tell what is real and what is imaginary. This disorder is a chemical imbalance in the orientation part of the brain, but it can also affect the mood-control centre to cause mood symptoms as well.

Schizophrenia usually begins in young adults, like the other mood disorders. It affects two percent of the population, which makes it more common and far more disabling than diabetes.

Schizophrenics often feel that they are being watched, followed or persecuted. They may hear voices and see things that no one else can. They often have peculiar beliefs that have no basis in reality, and their thoughts seem very scattered and disorganized. They are commonly very withdrawn, emotionless and suspicious.

Anxiety Disorder

Anxiety disorders are conditions that interfere with the ability to control or stop a sense of continuous worry or fear. Anxiety disorders are commonly found with depression, since the continuous anxious thoughts are just another form of negative clutter and racing thoughts that can’t be shut off.

There are several types of anxiety disorders.

1. Panic disorder is the most severe and disabling of these conditions. In this disorder, panic attacks will start with no obvious trigger. There will be sudden, unexplained terror and a sense of impending doom. There will be many physical symptoms that occur simultaneously, for example, a pounding heart, sweating, chest pain and lightheadedness. 

2. Phobic disorder is when a person will become very fearful or even panic over a well-defined object or situation like heights, snakes or crowds. 

3. Generalized anxiety disorder is when a person is worried all the time about everything. 

OCD

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is quite a common disabling disorder that is closely related to anxiety. It is more common than schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, but it is well concealed and rarely diagnosed. 

Obsessive thoughts are recurrent, intrusive, unwanted ideas, images, impulses or worries that are often senseless but can’t be shut off. They will often take the form of swear words, repetitive phrases, violent thoughts that are totally out of character or feelings of being dirty or contaminated. 

This is very disturbing for the victim, who feels powerless to control the thoughts. The anxiety associated with OCD can be overwhelming.

The most common obsessions are fear of contamination by dirt or germs, fear of harm to self or others, fear of illness, fear of sexual thoughts and fear of committing sins. The most common repetitive rituals in an effort to suppress the fearful thoughts are repetitive cleaning, recitation of a phrase or number, touching, checking of locks, excessive orderliness and hoarding. It is not uncommon for someone with OCD to wash their hands thirty times a day to stop the fear of contamination. 

ADD

Attention deficit disorder (ADD) simply means that a person has a chronic inability to concentrate or focus his mind. It usually presents in one of two ways – with hyperactivity (ADHD) or without. This is the most common thinking problem in children. It is a leading cause of school failure and underachievement.

It is very much like being in a small room with many loudspeakers all shouting instructions and not being able to tell which voice is the important one. These children find that their brains tell them too many things at once and they don’t know how to process all the commands.

This inability to concentrate is caused by an inherited chemical imbalance in the brain, just like the one that causes adult mood disorders.

Children may have any of the following symptoms: unable to finish what they start, fidgety, distractible, hearing but not listening, unable to concentrate on school work, making noises in class, falling grades, acting like they are driven by a motor, unable to sit still, loud, always talking and impulsive.

The medications will reduce impulsivity and hyperactivity by slowing down the speed of their thoughts. At a more normal thought speed, it is easier to control thoughts and behaviour. Concentration, learning, self-confidence and mood will improve as thought control increases. Treatment can release children from the prison of thought bombardment so that they are able to choose their own thoughts at their own speed and focus their attention at will.

When children with ADD go untreated, they may become sullen, with low self-esteem, withdrawn, irritable, rebellious and conditioned for failure. They then associate with other kids with the same disability, since they are rejected by their peers who can’t tolerate their impulsive behaviour. In their teens, they may become rebellious, defiant and often have trouble with the law.

It’s an Illness, Treat It!

It is important to realize that since depression is an illness, the patient cannot fight it alone. It can’t be wished away. Specific medical treatment is needed to correct the imbalance just like insulin is used to treat diabetes. The most important first step is for the patient and the caregivers or parents to accept the diagnosis and consent to treatment. Even mild chemical depressions can be cleared with medications, so there is no need to wait until a person is suicidal to begin treatment. 

There are many impediments to treatment. Patients and their families are often afraid of mental health professionals, so they won’t come for help. They refuse to accept the diagnosis due to the stigma and stereotypes surrounding mental illnesses and psychiatric treatment. 

What do the Drugs Do?

The medical treatment of mood disorders involves the use of drugs that are extremely effective in restoring the normal balance of neurotransmitter chemicals, mostly serotonin. For depression, there are nearly forty medications known as antidepressants. They restore brain serotonin levels and correct the imbalance. Concentration, mood and thought control will then be restored, and the racing thoughts will stop.

It is not possible to know in advance which antidepressant medication will work for any given person. The patient may have to try many before finding the right one. It can take six weeks to feel the benefit of a pill, which is frustratingly slow. We need to be warnedthat it may take six to eight months to find the right medication that will give maximum benefit with the least side effects.

Once the correct medicine is found, the person must stay on it for at least a year after the end of depressive symptoms. This long period lessens the chance of relapse after the medication has been stopped.

According to the Clinical Psychological Review, 2007, after one episode of depressive illness, fifty percent of recovered and untreated people will suffer from another episode within five years. After having two episodes, the risk of relapse increases to eighty percent. It’s important that patients recognize the symptoms of relapse early and start treatment as soon as possible. 

What about the Families?

One very often overlooked part of the treatment of depression is the support that is needed for the families of depressed people. These families are living under severe relationship stress and need to understand the illness and how it is treated. They must be helped with the guilt that they carry for having this problem in their families.  

Personal and family counselling is a very important part of the treatment. There are usually many scars to heal as a result of psychological trauma and conflict. Counselling works best after the depressed person has regained control of their thoughts and concentration. Friends and counsellors can be very helpful in supporting the person while they are waiting for the medications to work. 

What can you do?

If you are a friend or loved one of someone suffering from a mental illness, you can play a pivotal role in your loved one’s recovery. The most important way you can help is by encouraging the person to get help and to stay in treatment even during the frustrating weeks needed to find the right medications. 

You can be a constant encouragement for them to go on. You can keep reminding them that this is a medical problem, that it’s not their fault. Prayer is a very important part of recovery. It is also very helpful if you can take the person to counselling or prayer for the sick. We are to pray constantly for physical healing of these conditions. 

Many patients are supernaturally healed from their imbalances through the prayers of believers. After prayer, their minds cleared and medications were no longer necessary. So never stop praying for healing.

The treatment of depression and any emotional bondage involves treating all the links in the chain. Medication is one of the links. Counselling, emotional healing and deliverance are the remaining links that need to be considered.

All those involved in treatment should work together and support the efforts of the others. Competition between treatment modalities is unhealthy and has caused many to remain in their chains, since they did not participate in the other treatments. 

With correct treatment, a supportive family and church, depressed people can become relaxed, content, optimistic and in full control of their thoughts and behaviours.

Source: Emotionally Free by Dr. Grant Mullen