What Is Mental Illness?

The actual dictionary definition of mental illness reads "Mental Illness refers to a wide range of mental health conditions -disorders that affect your mood, thinking and behavior."

NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) even states that "mental illnesses are medical conditions that often result in a diminished capacity for coping with the ordinary demands of life."

This is a vague topic. I won't deny it. Mental illness includes everything from schizophrenia, to A.D.D.

Despite the fact that psychology is a relatively new research program, medical professionals have not only helped classify the different types of mental illness:

Different Types of Mental Illnesses

They have also helped diagnose many around the world. In fact the understanding has gone so deep that they have even taken the bold strategy to diagnose the general population:

American Mental Illness Statistic Thingys

Now of course with any statistic this is not meant to be taken as 100% fact. This is a smaller ratio expanded to the population of the U.S. However when it comes to medical diagnoses they don't like to play around like you would expect from a food company or some sort of business looking to get maximum revenue. So we can take this information with a grain of salt, but don't expect to have to fill your mouth with salt.

Many people claim that mental illness is not a widely known topic. However research would suggest that this is not true. When looking at how widely these illnesses reach into the population it is hard to imagine that many people haven't been closely involved with someone who has or had some form of mental illness.

Just to argue my point more. Here are some more graphs and illustrations of Mental Illnesses in the U.S.

Demographics Associated with Mental Health (MH) Service Use:

• Females are 50 percent less likely than males to use MH services.
• 12–15 year olds are 90 percent more likely than 8–11 year olds to use MH services.
• No differences were found between races for mood, anxiety, or conduct disorders. Mexican Americans and other Hispanic youth had significantly lower 12-month rates of ADHD compared to non-Hispanic white youth.

This includes all adults who received care in inpatient or outpatient settings and/or used prescription medication for mental or emotional problems.

Mental Illness has definitely picked up steam as far as medical research is concerned. Most major findings of psychology were within the last century and many of those were within the last fifty years. However this in no way means that the studies have been small or that the department isn't promising.

This is all wonderful little explanations but this still doesn't tell us What is mental illness?

Many scientists believe it is a chemical imbalance in the brain and that every form of mental illness is possible to measure using different types of brain functionality scans.

Others will tell you it is an emotional issue feeding off of a person's character and thought processes therefore making it "all in their head".

If you ask me (who is by no means an expert) I believe it is a combination of both.

Now why would I say both? Normally I would just tell you that I don't like casting out ideas that are entirely plausible and logical simply because I don't agree with them. However in this case I can tell you from first hand experience that it is absolutely both.

When I was going through depression there were some days that I could not get out of a rut and looking back I can see that it was simply my personality being needy or my emotions getting the better of me. Something that if I really wanted to I could eliminate. Some days were not so easy though. I've always been a logical person and usually I can recognize when I am going through the stages of depression. Some days I was able to recognize it and stop myself from getting worse by continuing thought processes/actions that were harmful to my mental wellness. Other days I was a victim of my own illness. Try as I might I couldn't break free from the negative thoughts and anger or sadness that came with my depression.

The best way I can possibly describe it is that my depression was a black hole. I was always aware of it. Sucking away at things in my head and always there. It was usually pretty small and insignificant leaving me more than able to function. This wasn't always the case though. Once I fed the black hole, it got bigger. And bigger. The more I fed it the larger the mass got. The stronger the pull was. Eventually it would be so big that no matter how much I recognized it, I would have no control over which thoughts it ate and turned into twisted and horrid ideas.

So does this really help us understand what a mental illness is? Well if you have had no past experience with mental illness I hope this was enlightening to you. However if you are someone who has either had a mental illness or dealt with a loved one who suffered from mental illness you probably haven't learned anything brand new. I'm okay with this.

I don't want people to come here to look for science behind the mental illness.

Honestly I would need eight more years of school before I was able to comfortably say I can explain the processes and science of it all to people. Here I just want to talk about what is necessary to deal with mental illnesses and such.

So today's entry is to tell people:

Mental illness is unique.

Each person suffering from a disorder of some kind is going to be different from everyone else. There may be similarities and processes that work for multiple people however no two people's histories, symptoms, or recovery times are ever going to be perfectly in sync. We are all different people. With different lives, emotions and experiences. To say one process works for all is to say that we are all the same. The biggest thing to remember when approaching mental illness from any point is that you can't expect things to always be the same as what you read. While there may be similarities we have to recognize that what works for one does not work for yours.

I hope this has at least helped a little to those in need of it. Please if you want to support my blog just please enter your e-mail at the top of the page and follow me. Support by following is more than I could ever ask for in just the hopes that this could be a place where people can go if they need help with understanding anything either about themselves or someone they love. Please feel more than free to send me messages with questions, stories, or ideas/opinions on anything I have said on this blog. I am more than happy to receive feedback. 

Please don't ever feel like you're alone in this fight. There are so many people who want to help if you would just give us the chance to.

Stay safe and smile!

-Riley Hoiem

My Survey

So an assignment we were given in the class for this blog was to create a survey! If you visit my blog I highly encourage you to take this. It's general information that helps me get a better understanding of those around me and what may be more relevant to my audience. It is completely anonymous so feel free to answer it as honestly as possible.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VVZL9BP

Thanks for at least reading this!

Stay safe and smile!

-Riley Hoiem

Welcome One Welcome All!

Well this is about the time where I should make an introduction as to what exactly this is. If we are being completely honest I have only slightly more idea of that than you. I know what the general idea of this blog is going to be. Anything after that is completely up to me and what I decide to post. I'd like to say you are at the mercy of my choices but honestly I feel like I'm stuck in this exact same boat you are.

So what is the whole point of this blog? Well as far as I have decided right now I'm going to be talking about mental illness. Specifically depression and anxiety. I may tackle a few eating disorders and maybe even delve into how the brain works and why it can get "ill" and what exactly that means. This will be a mixture of scientific explanation, social commentary, recovery processes, and my opinion or experiences with those around me or within myself pertaining to the topic.

Now some of you may be asking why I would want to talk about such a controversial and heavy topic. Well believe it or not I really do enjoy all the research I get to do on mental illness. The easiest reason to explain this is that I want to be a therapist when I grow-up (yes I still am not "grown-up" and have quite a few more years before I will even come close to consider myself an "adult"). Given my desire to be a therapist this research helps me better understand the reasoning and logic behind someone with a mental illness so it makes me feel like I am going to be more accomplished and successful when I reach my end career.

The less obvious and more personal reason why I would ever want to delve into such a heavy topic is that I myself have suffered from depression and dealt with suicidal/homicidal thoughts. Now this doesn't make me an expert on the subject however having first hand experience with such an issue really helps understand others going through a similar ordeal. I also feel that me being open about such a personal experience may help those that haven't reached out for help or are possibly in need of help again to feel encouraged and supported from reading that someone is taking an interest in helping them.

In reality I'm just another dumb kid with too much time on his hands who wants to talk about problems that are much too large to solve in any near future. However in the off chance that I actually can/do help someone I want to be able to do so. So I'm creating this blog to not only help those in need but perhaps those surrounding them who may need extra help to understand what their loved ones are going through. We all like to think we have all the answers yet deep down we know we can't possibly make this come true. Sometimes it's okay to not know the answer for what to do next. Hopefully having a place to pool knowledge and ideas will help us all solve this epidemic bit by bit.

If you have any questions feel free to message me somewhere (here or on any of my links) and I'll take all comments and criticism into consideration! Please do not feel like you are not allowed to have a say here. I want people to come here and feel like they are allowed to have a voice and say whatever they like (if I ever want to use your story or comment I will of course get permission from you and will leave you anonymous unless requested otherwise).

Until next time everyone: stay safe and smile!