What is the relationship between mental illness and substance abuse ?

Addictions can also be a significant cause of mental illness. This addictions produce changes in normal behavior , desires, priorities and abilities.

The consumption of this substances, such as alcohol or other drugs, may originate symptoms of anxiety, depression or even paranoia. For example, people under the effect of marijuana can experience delusions and develop psychosis. Also when they have a lack of the drug they are using, they may behave aggressively or in an anxious way.

As a matter of fact, those who suffer a mental illness are more likely to take drugs. For example, people with depression may "self-medicate" themselves with alcohol or other drugs.

How do changes in life affect mental illness?

Some things in our daily activities can produce a large amount of stress; for example, work or school, can increase the stress we suffer. Sometimes this can increase the risk of suffering mental illness.

Other things that can increase stress or produce symptoms of a mental illness are family problems. People who come for a dysfunctional family or who is suffering from a familiar problem may experience signs of trauma or depression.

Also, people who have recently experienced death or divorce may also experience symptoms related to depression.This and other changes may be the origin of feelings like loneliness, anxiety or loss of self-esteem.

All of this problems may also be associated with substance abuse.

Can infections produce mental illness ?

 As all of us may already know, infections are produce by virus or bacteria when the body is not able to produce an adequate response against them. This infections can affect multiple areas of the body, including the brain.

For example, studies have demonstrate that an infection called PANDA, produced by the streptococcus bacteria, may produce OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). Also, infections that affect the amygdala* can produce permanent changes in the individual's behavior.

Infections can produce damage to the brain even before birth. Actually, sometimes schizophrenia can be produced by an infection produced this way.

However, in some cases, the symptoms of the mental illness can disappear once the infection has been fixed.

* Amygdala: structure of the brain that controls emotions

How does trauma affect mental illness?

Those who suffer traumatic event are likely to develop a mental disease, known as PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).This trauma might create an emotional response to something that caused damage, either physical or emotional.

Those events may produce loss of confidence and can also make the individual become a more introverted, shy and distrustful person.

As stated before, PTSD is one of the more common consequences of trauma, this can produce depression, a lack of emotion and episode of fear and anxiety in the individual.

One interesting thing about trauma is that people who have suffered it must have forgotten what happened but the memory is still in their brains. Therefore, although they might not remember it while doing their normal activities, they may see something that their brain can link to the grounded memories it has about the trauma so it can produce a shocking response in the individual, such as panic attacks, aggressiveness...

How do genetics affect mental illness?

One of the major causes of mental illness is genetics. In other words, mental illness can be hereditary, therefore if a family member suffers one, you'll have a predisposition to that illness.

Mental illness can  be caused by an abnormality in some genes. For example, schizophrenia has been related to abnormalities in a sever number of genes. Also, this kind of illnesses can be caused for a wrong interaction between genes .
In a recent research, it has been shown that two of our genes,that codify to cells to regulate the amount of Calcium that goes into our neurons,  also affect other parts of our brain system. That will explain why an abnormality in these genes may cause problems related to emotions, thinking, attention or memory,  increasing the risk of mental illness.

DATA REVEAL EXTENT OF GENETIC OVERLAP
 BETWEEN MAJOR MENTAL DISORDERS

Mental disease can also be developed because of a negative environmental exposure before or after birth. Those environmental threats are an early exposure to drugs, both consumed by the parents or introduced in the child body, or psycho-social conditions that can affect the perceptions the individual may have of the world in the future.

Actually, there are some disease that have shared symptoms, what can possible mean that they have similarities in a biological level. An example of illnesses that may be caused by this similarities are: autism, ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), bipolar disorder, major depression and schizophrenia.

What is the major cause of mental illness?

The causes of the mental illnesses remain a mystery. However they are associated to a combination of biological, psychological and environmental factors.

Biology is involved because some disease are caused because of a chemical imbalance in the body. For example, researchers have discovered that schizophrenia is related to a failure in specific neurotransmitters* of the brain, like dopamine. Also, some disease might also be related to brain structure. Some people who suffers from some diseases can have a different brain structure to others
that don´t have the illness. Mental illness is also related to heredity, if a member of a family has suffered from a mental illness, then people in that family may have a major risk to suffer it too.

Mental illness can also be the result of stress or trauma. For example, a PTSD can occur after a big, horrible event in someone's life or a Major Depression can appear after a trauma and a period of intense stress.

Social pressure can also be a cause of mental illness. For example, eating disorder, such as anorexia or bulimia, may appear. mostly among teenagers, because of the constant pressure they experience
 given the standards, sometimes unattainable, that society marks.

*neurotransmitter: substances the brain cells use to communicate with each others.

What is the impact of mental illness in daily life?

People with mental illness have a mental disability and, as people with physical disabilities, they must face some problems during their lives in order to accomplish life demands.

People with mental illness might find some difficulties while communicating with others. For example, those who suffer from schizophrenia, might talk about strange and irrational topics, what might complicate the communication of schizophrenic people with others.

Other difficulty they might have to face can be financial troubles. To be honest, although society today accepts mental illnesses better than before, there are still bias against some of these diseases that are harmless and should not be a problem for society. This prejudices may lead these people with mental illness to loose their jobs or being unable to find another one; what can also lead them to become homeless people and this can worsen their illness.

What are the consequences of mental illness?

Most of the time, the consequences of mental illnesses are shown as emotional, behavioral, physical or heath problems. Those may produce a decline of mental health in the individual affected.

As symptoms, the consequences of mental illnesses also vary from one to another. However, the repercussion of the illness can become more critical if the disease remains untreated. For example, in a disease as Depression, the initial "weak" aspects of the illness can complicate if the disease is not well-treated, leading to a Major Depression case.

Even thought, this kind of illnesses majority affect a person's minds, the consequences of it might also be notified as a physical problem. For example, a person with a high level of stress, it is most likely to suffer a stroke or premature death than one with a better mental health.

One of the most common mistakes people do while thinking about mental illness is assume that everyone who suffers a mental disease problem is aggressive. Aggressiveness is NOT a consequence of mental illness. People with mental problems can have problems with specific norms in society but that doesn't mean they are violent. In most of the cases, people who suffer of mental illness experience an aggressive behavior because of PTSD (Post-traumatic Stress  Disorder) . A Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is a disorder developed in people who have experiences a shocking or dangerous event. Therefore, people with PTSD may suffer "flashbacks" of an aggressive event that happened in their lives,what can produce a change in their behavior, that can incite them to violence.

One of the most dangerous consequences for people with mental illness is suicide. A lot of people with mental problems end up committing suicide because they don't feel good with their lives. For example,people with PTSD may decide to kill themselves because the past events they have suffered don't allow them to think rationally.

What are the symptoms of mental illness ?

The symptoms of mental illnesses can vary depending on the disorder, circumstances and factors that affect a person's life.

In a mental illness symptoms can appear as :
 -Physical Symptoms.
- Psychological Symptoms.

PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS.

Those physical problem are indirectly caused by the disease, but they can be consider symptoms too, because they allow us to see that something with our body is not going on well.

For example, in diseases, such as depression, we can observe some physical changes like weight loss, fatigue, etc. However one of the mental illnesses that can be discovered in someone because of the physical problems that they involve are eating disorders. The physical problems in this disease are more significant because it is directly related with eating habits and behaviors, those symptoms are weight loss, hair loss, malnutrition, electrolyte imbalance...

PSYCHOLOGICAL SYMPTOMS.

The psychological symptoms can be recognized as mood, personality, habits and social withdraw changes. Those, can be both sudden or gradual changes.

Although, as stated before, the symptoms vary from one disease to another, the most common ones are :

-Sadness
-Confused thinking
-Excessive fears
-eEtreme mood changes
-Delusions
-Suicidal thinking






As there are a big diversity of symptoms related to mental illness, it can be really difficult to diagnose.

What is mental illness?

Mental illness can be defined as the illness that affect a person's mind. They are mostly characterized by changes in mood, thinking and behavior. They also damage the cognitive, affective and relational abilities of a person. (Cognitive abilities are the ones related to the perception we have of things; affective abilities are the ones related to feelings and emotions and relational abilities are the ones involved in how we interact with others.)

We must consider that mental illness is not the same as mental health, although they are sometimes confused. Mental health  is considered a state of well-being, in which every aspect of life is balanced. One of the easiest ways to define mental health is as the absence of mental illness. Everyone has mental health and sometimes we can also have a lack of it. But having a "poor" mental health doesn't mean that we have a mental illness.

This days, mental illnesses have been medically recognize and it is treatable.