Mood Disorders Are A Category Of Psychiatric Conditions

It’s easy to understand depression as an illness when you’re distanced from it. It is much more difficult to keep that in mind when you’re living with someone day to day who has depression. Just try to be aware of these thoughts, and recognize that such thoughts are not helpful and only contribute to the stress of caring for your family member. Be aware, too, that mistaken beliefs about depression often complicate its treatment. Most of us would encourage someone to take prescribed medications for diabetes, high blood pressure, or bronchitis. Even if you realize the errors in these statements, you know that others may wonder whether your family member really needs to be taking those drugs. They may even urge him to stop taking them, against all medical advice. Gaining the support of these family members and friends can be difficult. This makes it harder for you and your family member to stick with the recommended treatment. Confidentiality and sharing information. Current federal regulations address the privacy of health information. These regulations are stricter for mental health disorders than for other medical conditions.

No More Tears

This means that your family member’s doctors or counselors are not allowed to share information with you without her explicit permission. This applies even if she is hospitalized in a psychiatric unit. As a result, you may feel shut out from her evaluation and treatment. You may also wonder whether the treatment team thinks you caused or contributed to your family member’s depression. However, in an emergency you can speak with her doctors. You can contribute valuable information about her, particularly when she can’t communicate clearly herself. The treatment provider can receive this information without violating her privacy concerns. Mental health professionals will welcome your support and the perspective you provide as an ally in treatment. Although the treatment and outcome for medical problems such as a knee replacement or strep throat varies, there are still reliable guidelines and expectations for these conditions. Doctors can usually provide helpful guidance about the recovery time in days, weeks, or months. If you are helping a family member through one of these conditions, you can usually plan your life around it. However, this is much more difficult to do with depression or bipolar disorder.

A Personal Failure

Some people respond to the first treatment and are back to their old selves in a few months. Others don’t respond as readily and have a more complicated treatment course. They may need to try many different medications and treatments. Their diagnosis may need refining over time, as more information becomes available. Lack of established routines. We usually know how to respond when a friend or family member has a serious medical problem like cancer, a heart attack, or other medical problem. We organize rides to appointments, accompany her to chemotherapy, and sit with her for hours as she recovers from its side effects. We bring casseroles and funny movies and organize fundraising walks. Now that we’ve looked at who gets depression and bipolar disorder and how they affect the person and his family and friends, it’s time to look at what we can do and say, as family members and friends, to help the person get better. We begin with the symptoms of depression and how they vary among people. We’ll begin our journey with a review of mood disorders. Having background information about depression and bipolar disorder will help you better understand the condition.

The Darkest Hour Is Just Before Down

You’ll have an idea of what your family member or friend is experiencing and feeling. That understanding, in turn, will help you say and do what will be most helpful. Many people like you have found this to be true. As mentioned earlier, mood disorders are a category of psychiatric conditions that include both major depression and bipolar disorder. Normally, our mood changes over time and across a broad range of emotions. When we’re depressed, our mood is persistently very down, and our mental and physical functioning is not as sharp as usual. We don’t think as clearly, organize ourselves, or do things as well as before. A negative mood may be related to external or internal events in our lives. External events are things that happen to us. Internal events include thoughts and feelings inside us, like believing we are unlovable or undesirable. External and internal events can act as triggers to cause a change in our mood. Triggers are events or circumstances that may cause a person distress and increase his depression symptoms. Sometimes we cannot identify the trigger that happens before an episode of depression. A dark mood may come on gradually, or it may feel rather sudden after a period of subtle life events. Each person has his own set of unique triggers. It is helpful for you to become familiar with those events that cause your family member distress. Major depression is also called depression, major depressive disorder, or unipolar depression. A person with depression often has difficulty with basic everyday functioning, doing things for himself, or concentrating and making decisions. These are symptoms of the illness and are not signs of laziness. They are not intentional. You may be familiar with the image of a depressed person feeling sad and losing interest in activities. Rather, depression is a biologically based medical condition whose symptoms run deeper and last longer than you might expect. Your family member or friend may not feel well or like himself at the start of his illness but may be able to carry on with his usual daily activities. For example, he may wake up and get dressed and go through the motions of his day, without much interest or energy. He might not fully understand what is happening to him. The person who has depression is often the last one to realize what is going on. He may deny that he’s even experiencing depression. This means that it can come and go over time. That is often very frustrating for you and your family member or a friend.