Depression is one of the most common and widely known mental disorders. Major depressive disorder affects approximately 6.7 percent of the US population age 18 and older, in a given year. Yes, depression is a disorder and it is one that can cripple the quality of one’s life in a concerning way. It can make a person fall out of love with the things they were once most interested in. Affecting the way we think, feel, and act in any given situation, depression can cause someone to have a sense of hopelessness.

When we first think of depression, we think of overwhelming sadness, but it’s important to know that depression can disguise itself. Some of the common symptoms caused by depression can be:

• Trouble getting out of bed
• Disrupted eating patterns
• Disrupted sleeping patterns
• Oversleeping
• Thoughts of suicide or death   

Anxiety is another illness with an umbrella of disorders under it that affect the majority of the population. It is one of the most common disorders, affecting adults more than any other mental illness. In fact, it affects 40 million adults 18 years and older every year in the US. This disorder causes fear, worry, and stress.

Yes, we all have these feelings from time to time, however with anxiety, this is a heightened and persistent state of the mind. It can truly affect the productiveness in someone’s life by hindering all capabilities of being able to function ‘normally’. It disallows people to go somewhere or to be involved with something due to the fact they have an over-rationalized fear of things going terribly wrong. Some different forms of anxiety can be presented as Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), social anxiety, and panic attacks.

Bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression, is another very common disorder that affects approximately 2.6 percent of the U.S. population age 18 and older every year. It causes one to have constant changes in mood, energy, and activity levels. This is a serious mental brain illness. It can cause a person to act without rash decision making due to their extreme manic state or extreme depressive state.

A manic state can be noticed by someone acting more energetic than usual. Someone in a manic state can show signs of extreme happiness with an increased state of activity levels. A manic state can be followed by a depressive state- this usually consists of someone feeling very down, depressed, or empty. Someone in a depressive state has a lot less energy and seems like they don’t enjoy anything.