If you ever thought that people in the psychiatric hospital and those walking around naked or in rugs are the only mentally ill persons, then reconsider your thoughts. Every Ghanaian suffers at least one form of mental illness.
Psychologists have identified various kinds of mental illness that affect every individual at a point in time. These include anxiety, mood, eating, impulse control and addiction disorders. Others are sexual and gender, personality and dissociative disorders.
One of the very common mental illnesses is mood disorders. These disorders involve persistent feelings of sadness or feeling overly happy or fluctuations from extreme sadness to extreme happiness and vice versa. Research has shown that depression, maniac and bipolar disorders are the very common mood disorders affecting many people.
In spite of the many less serious effects that some forms of mental illness offer to patients, depressive disorder becomes an exception. A depressive disorder is more than a passing mood. It is not a sign of personal weakness and it cannot be willed or wished away. It involves the body, mood and thoughts. People who are depressed cannot “snap out of it” and simply get better. Without treatment, symptoms can last for months or even years.
Symptoms related to depression are persistent sadness, anxiety, “emptiness”, feelings of hopelessness, pessimism, worthlessness, guilt, lost of interest in hobbies that were once enjoyed. Decreased energy, fatigue, difficulty in concentrating, remembering and even making decisions are all symptoms of depression.
It is not all a gloomy situation. Antidepressant medication can be a sure way of getting out of the troubles of depression. But first, seek advice from a qualified psychologist or a psychotherapist to diagnose and treat you whenever you start experiencing the symptoms If you don’t, you could end up on the streets in rugs, or even naked.
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