Mental Sickness/Psychological disorder

This is one of my first posts on Counselling though I have much more interest in the subject than depicted on this blog.

Contrary to the popular belief, mental sickness troubles more people than any other physical illness. It is just that the symptoms are not openly visible. Also, the other misconception is that people who visit the psychologist or have been diagnosed with any mental illness are all mad.

What is mental sickness/Psychological disorder?
Mental sickness is just a state of mind, where people tend to show an uncommon behaviour at a given situation. There are many scientific definitions available for the same that are easily available on the internet. The common ones are Depression, over possessive, split personality etc.

What causes Mental Sickness?
Childhood. Any heart ache has its roots in childhood experiences and is very closely related to the family. The cause could be separation, or neglect or as silly as not been given with something. Most common cause is the feeling of “being neglected” and “not given due importance”. The child tries to do things to get attention. When s/he doesn’t get the due attention repeatedly, they start trying new means like shouting, screaming, self hurting to be noticed. Over a period of time when the child doesn’t get what he wants, he gradually finds out ways to ensure that s/he gets what is required.

Most of the time people around this troubled child ignore the symptoms as childhood pangs. And as child starts growing s/he gets used to the system and occasionally exhibits the symptoms or when provoked with a situation that warrants them to.

When is the mental sickness recognized?
There is no specific point at which the problem explodes or recognized. Generally it is some incident or reoccurrence of a similar situation that provokes suppressed behaviour to be exhibited.

For ex., if a child had been neglected in his childhood by his parents, such a child develops the habit of being extremely possessive. And any thing that is important to that child becomes a possession. The thing could be a toy or pet or someone as a close friend. The child will exhibit a completely different behaviour when separated from that important thing. Then for that child having that toy/friend/pet is the only primary aim. S/he can do anything to retain the target in his possession. The possessive behaviour can be in extremes (often exhibited as second personality) and they forget to see if the toy is broken or friend/pet is hurt due to their possession.


What is the cure?
Though there is no one particular cure for mental sickness, these days there are medical remedies available. One important factor in the cure is the Determination and Positive Attitude of the patient to cure himself from the problem. If a person has no determination the medical remedies either become a short term remedy or a quick fix solution that will not completely cure the illness.

Family Support
People suffering from such disorders need an extra ordinary amount of support from the family depending on the problem. In some cases, where the patient exhibits a severe kind of disorder, it becomes a highest degree of punishment to the family and most often the family gives up.

For ex., a person who is extremely possessive, life becomes hell for the person who is being possessed. Generally it is the person’s girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse and has to just do whatever is expected by the patient and nothing else. The patient will neither accept that he has a problem and get it cured nor will let the target/victim go easily. Finally, the victim will get so much troubled by the patient that s/he will not be able to support any more. They will be left with no choice but flee from that patient. This is just one example of an extreme case.

More will follow.