When to Seek Help? 21 Mental Health Warning Signs

A few days ago, a woman asked me for help for her father, telling me that he doesn’t want to see a psychiatrist because he isn’t crazy, even though he needs this kind of help. After all, what is a mental disorder? There are different types of mental diseases, better known as mental disorders. First of all, we need to distinguish between what is a mental illness and what is not. That is, how to determine if a person’s behavior is psychologically wrong or unhealthy.

How do you decide what is normal and what is abnormal in human behavior? You may ask what symptoms characterize a mental disorder. The most common ones I can mention are: excessive anxiety, changes in appetite, changes in behavior, mood swings, sexual behavior disorders, delusions, hallucinations, difficulty perceiving reality, constant sadness, drug use and abuse or dependence on alcohol or other medications, significant loss of energy, irritability, loss of interest in things you used to enjoy, social isolation, difficulty concentrating, suicidal thoughts, self-harm, feelings of guilt, self-deprecation, agitation, violence, disorientation in time and space, and other symptoms.

How are mental health treatments diagnosed? We use the ICD, International Classification of Diseases, to determine whether a set of symptoms or behaviors fit a diagnosis as a mental disorder.

To say that a person has a psychological or mental disorder, and what is that disorder? They need to be evaluated by a health professional with experience in mental health, such as a psychiatrist or psychologist, although doctors from other specialties may also know how to diagnose a mental disorder. In order to reach a diagnosis, the professional interviews the person and takes their medical history, which involves asking questions about the person’s life history, illnesses they have had, illnesses in the family, and the type, duration, and severity of the symptoms they are experiencing. During the consultation, the professional will see if the patient is connected to reality or not. If not, then the family member accompanying them will provide the information.

There are no lab tests to diagnose a mental disorder. However, your doctor may perform a physical exam, order lab tests to rule out different medical diagnoses that can cause psychological symptoms. It is important to rule out any physical causes before diagnosing someone with a mental disorder. This is because there are physical illnesses that produce mental symptoms, such as hypothyroidism and brain tumors, as well as side effects from certain medications that cause agitation, insomnia, anxiety, and energy loss. Even in the 21st century, there is still prejudice against people who seek treatment from a psychologist or psychiatrist.

And there is misinformation about the role of the psychiatrist, perhaps more so than the psychologist. First of all, let’s look at the difference between a psychologist, a psychiatrist, and a neurologist. A psychologist is a mental health professional who graduates from college with a degree in psychology, while psychiatrists and neurologists graduate from medical school.

There are different specialties in psychology. Psychologists can specialize in human resources, working in the personnel or HR departments of companies. They can become school psychologists, working in educational institutions. They can work in traffic psychology, sports psychology, legal psychology, hospital psychology, social psychology, psychopedagogy, neuropsychology, and clinical psychology, which involves treating patients in an office or online using psychotherapy.

A psychiatrist is a doctor who specializes in treating mental illness. They can prescribe medication and admit patients to clinics and hospitals because they are doctors, things that psychologists cannot do. Some psychiatrists also work with psychotherapy, while others work only with psychiatric medication.

A clinical neurologist is also a doctor who specializes in neurological diseases such as epilepsy, paralysis, stroke, meningitis, encephalitis, Parkinson’s disease, brain and spinal tumors, multiple sclerosis, migraine, headache, among other problems.

It is important to have a diagnosis so that the treatment is correct. If a professional makes a mistake in the diagnosis, that is, if he concludes that the patient has a disorder and begins to treat that disorder with medication, but in fact the patient has another problem, the treatment becomes ineffective and can be harmful.

Finding a diagnosis is not about labeling a person, but about finding solutions, treatments, and information related to their problem. Types of behavior that disrupt social and family relationships, cause personal suffering, and interfere with daily professional activities are considered mental health disorders.

There are different concepts of mental health. For example, Freud said that mental health has to do with the ability to love and work. A professor of psychiatry at Harvard University said that mental health has to do with a person’s ability to express and experience feelings in a balanced way and to have emotions without letting those emotions take over. We can use the term mental disorder as a synonym for psychological disorder, psychiatric disorder, or mental illness. In general, the word disorder is used for cases where the cause of the suffering is unknown, while the word illness is used in psychiatry when the agent causing the behavioral change is known.

Scientifically, the approved name is mental disorder for mental health problems classified in the ICD, International Classification of Diseases, now in version 11, or the DSM, which is used in the United States and stands for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Now in its fifth version, mental disorder is a set of symptoms that impair a person’s behavior, feelings, and thinking, with negative repercussions on their social and family relationships, studies, and work. Mental disorders are classified into categories such as eating disorders, which include anorexia nervosa and bulimia. There are mood disorders, including depression and bipolar disorder.

Another group is anxiety disorders, which include panic attacks, phobias, and generalized anxiety. There is schizophrenia, which is a psychosis. Substance use disorder is another that involves chemical dependency. There is ADHD, which is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and others. Regarding how mental disorders affect the population, the World Health Organization predicts that by 2030, depression will be the number one disease in the world. Brazil is the country with the highest anxiety rate in the world, with about 9% of the population suffering from some type of excessive anxiety.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health in the United States, about 23% of American adults over the age of 18, or nearly 60 million people in that first world country, have some diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. Six percent of American adults have a serious mental illness, or more than 20 million people. Is that a lot? Treatment for a mental disorder varies depending on the patient’s behavior and social situation. Mental health issues are usually treated with psychotherapy, medication, occupational therapy, and family support.

There are support groups that help with many types of mental suffering, such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) or Narcotics Anonymous (NA). Lifestyle changes are also important for treating mental disorders, such as switching to a vegetarian diet, eliminating alcohol and tobacco, exercising, eliminating caffeinated beverages, getting exposure to sunlight, drinking plenty of water to stay hydrated, among other procedures.

Psychotherapy is a psychological treatment in which conversation with a professional is used to seek mental health recovery. It can be individual or group psychotherapy, with several techniques such as CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, analytical psychotherapy, or psychodynamic psychotherapy, among several types. In CBT, for example, one of the goals is to evaluate the person’s thoughts to see if there is a predominance of distorted, catastrophic, pessimistic thoughts, which consequently produce unpleasant feelings that disturb behavior.

CBT and behavioral therapy seek to help the person begin to correct these distortions in thinking, also called cognitive distortions. The most commonly used medications to treat mental disorders are tranquilizers, also called sedatives or anxiolytics. There are antidepressants and antipsychotics used, for example, for patients with schizophrenia. There are also sleep inducers and mood stabilizers. These medications, popularly known as controlled substances (with the black box warning), should be used under a doctor’s supervision and can produce significant side effects, some of which can be addictive.

Therefore, do not use these medications on your own because someone else used them and felt better. The truth is that the same medications produce different results in different people. In most psychiatric cases where prescription drugs are necessary, it is possible to discontinue the medication, perhaps by gradually weaning off it after some time of use in which the symptoms have improved or disappeared. But it is important to understand that medications act on the symptoms and not on the cause. Therefore, it is important to have psychological or psychotherapeutic treatment so that the person can learn to better deal with their painful feelings, distorted thoughts, and dysfunctional behaviors, and thus achieve mental health recovery.