While depression is statistically the most common mental health conditions that people around the world have experience with, and when we talk to mental health, there is an underlying understanding that yes, we are referring to depression, or anxiety. A lot of celebrities are talking about their struggles with depression, or suicidality. There is a lot of awareness and information on social media and the internet around depression and anxiety to the point that these are synonymous with “mental wellness”.

But they are not the only ones.

Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar is characterised as having alternating experiences of depressive episodes with periods of manic episodes. There are different types of Bipolar depending on whether the person experiences a manic episode or hypomania and a depressive episode. During a depressive episode, the person will experience feelings of sadness and hopelessness, fatigue, memory loss, changes in appetite or difficulty concentrating. An episode of mania or hypomania, by contrast, is characterised by excessive talking, racing thoughts, hostility, little sleep, overconfidence in abilities and risky behaviour, including excessive spending and risky sexual behaviour.

Bipolar does need to be diagnosed by a medical professional, and there is no cure, but it can be managed with medication. It can be quite a difficult experience for the person experiencing these episodes for the first time, and it can be very confusing.

Schizophrenia

Commonly misunderstood as a person who has “multiple personalities”, and colloquially, people refer to poor decision-making as “being schizophrenic” as a result of this.

What Schizophrenia is actually characterised as, is a person has thoughts and experiences that seem out of touch with reality, coupled with disorganised speech, thoughts or behaviour and then also the person starts to show a disinterest in day-to-day life. Other symptoms and signs can include feelings of paranoia, suspicion or fear, unusually slow movements or speech, emotionless facial expressions or speech and isolating behaviours.

This is one of those mental health conditions that needs to be diagnosed and managed with a healthcare professional. There is a high risk of suicide with this group, and a high percentage of homelessness and drug abuse amongst people who struggle with Schizophrenia. It can be very challenging to manage, and while I don’t know many people who are able to live full lives with Schizophrenia, I do know that it is possible.

Obsessive-compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Another mental health condition that gets a bad rap in the media, and everyone who thinks that they are incredibly neat and organised refer to themselves as “OCD”, meanwhile the actual condition is actually quite difficult to live with and is not a cute minimalist way of living.

To actually be diagnosed with OCD, a person needs to struggle with intrusive thoughts which are defined as obsessions, and these thoughts need to lead repetitive behaviours, which are the compulsions. The person feels that they need to perform these behaviours and if not, then something bad will happen – which is part of the intrusive thoughts.

Also something that needs to be diagnosed and managed with a healthcare professional to be able to live a full life, despite these intrusive thoughts.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

There is a misconception that only soldiers experience PTSD, however, any experience of trauma can result in PTSD. Secondly, the definition of trauma is a lot broader than we typically understand. Trauma can be a family home where parents fight a lot, lack of emotional connection with family, moving house, surgery, racism etc. While not a formally a DSM-V diagnosis, complex PTSD is a consistent experience of emotional neglect and other similar experiences and the symptoms are the same as PTSD as a result of a singular traumatic event.

Dissociative identity disorder (DID)

Not only has this been misdiagnosed amongst society as Schizophrenia, but also there have been many movies that have demonised people who struggle with DID. In all these Hollywood imaginings of DID, there is always a serial killer hiding in the mind of a mild mannered man, who is responsible for killing or kidnapping innocent victims. But in reality, any person who needs to dissociate has very real trauma that they need to protect themselves from experiencing, which is the basis of DID. When a person experiences a severe trauma, that they cannot emotionally manage without falling apart completely, so they develop different identities to hide behind, to avoid experiencing trauma in its entirety. It’s a protective mechanism, not a mode of taking out a violent tendencies on the world.

Autism

A couple of years ago, I was reading that infamous article which tried to convince people to not vaccinate their children, because vaccinations cause Autism… but you know what’s worse than Autism? Death. The fact that this article managed to scare people into not vaccinating showed the poor understanding that the world had of people who have Autism.

Autism is characterised by differences in how the brain is structured, which shows up in differences in socialisation and interactions with other people and the world at large. They can still have a quality of life if they receive societal understanding, educational and employment support.

If Autism is diagnosed early, the child can receive the right supports that they need to live a full life. Parenting is significantly more difficult, but as society at large we need to understand that Autism is a form of neurodivergence and learn to appreciate that anyone with Autism just has a different way of viewing and interacting with the world.

Overall, when we speak about mental health, and mental health conditions, we need to remember that there are people who are experiencing different types of struggles, and to learn to be supportive and non-judgemental. Even if someone is struggling with something other than depression and anxiety.