What is mental illness?

By Grace Irwin ’18

Mental illness refers collectively to all diagnosable mental disorders. Varying from minor to dangerously unsafe, mental illnesses can be managed with therapy and medication if recommended by a doctor.

A mental illness is a condition that affects a person’s thinking, feeling or mood. Such conditions may affect someone’s ability to relate to others and function each day. How each person responds to these feelings ranges depending on the severity of the situation.

According to the American Psychiatric Association, the most common mental illnesses among people include depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, dementia, attention deficit/hyperactive disorder, schizophrenia, OCD, autism and PTSD.

One in five adults has some form of a mental illness and one in twenty four has a serious mental illness according to the APA.

Although mental illness is hard to recognize due to the lack of exterior symptoms, it holds equally as serious reparations on the human body as a physical injury and needs to be treated as so according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness .

The APA has conducted extensive research on what causes mental illnesses and whether or not they are genetic. According to these studies, mental illness is acquired through genetic makeup and environmental factors. Mental illness is found to be more common in those who have blood relatives who have also battled the same condition.

For those who acquire a mental illness without the gene tend to be recipients due to a stressful job or home life or traumatic life events. Biochemical processes and circuits and basic brain structure may play a role, too.