The most important thing is to seek professional advice and guidance, says Dr Vasilios Silivistris

The stigma and taboo of mental illness across cultures is profound especially here in Cyprus. Prejudice and discrimination can prevent us from knowing about or seeking help. With the right help, many people with serious enduring psychological problems or illnesses can live and work successfully well within the community.

Approximately, one in four adults in Europe experience mental health issues or are affected by someone’s mental health issues in the course of their lives. At work, one in three are likely to have some mental problem in any given year. Mental health issues can affect relationships, work and quality of life. Problems can range from serious life-long illnesses affecting mood and perception (for example, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder) to less serious emotional distress.

Mental illnesses can affect persons of any age, race, religion, or income. Mental illnesses do not result from personal weakness, lack of character or poor upbringing. Mental illnesses are treatable. Most people diagnosed with a serious mental illness can experience relief from their symptoms by actively participating in an individual treatment plan.

Medication is a common form of treatment; it is helpful for some things but may not be the best or only treatment for some problems. Non-medical interventions, such as; psychotherapy and counselling may be a more effective approach to dealing with deep-rooted issues that might stem from childhood.

The most important thing is to seek professional advice and guidance. Mental and emotional distress is a normal response to life events, for example, bereavement and relationship breakdown, a life-threatening or serious illness.

Getting support is an important first step in managing these responses and is NOT a sign of weakness or failure to cope.

Mental distress

Terms like depression and anxiety are used freely in conversation so we underestimate the distressing impact they have. The terms describe a range of familiar states diagnosed by mental health professionals that include:

  • Depression may be described as feeling sad, blue, unhappy, miserable, or down in the dumps. Most of us feel this way at one time or another for short periods. True clinical depression is a mood disorder in which feelings of sadness, loss, anger, or frustration interfere with everyday life for weeks or longer.
  • Anxiety is a general term for several disorders that cause nervousness, fear, apprehension and uneasiness. These disorders affect how we feel and behave, and they can manifest real physical symptoms. Mild anxiety is vague and unsettling, while severe anxiety can be extremely debilitating, having a serious impact on daily life.
  • Panic attacks are a sudden episode of intense fear that develops for no apparent reason and that triggers severe physical reactions. Panic attacks can be very frightening. When panic attacks occur, you might think you are losing control, having a heart attack or even dying.
  • Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is an anxiety disorder in which people have unwanted and repeated thoughts, feelings, ideas, sensations (obsessions), or behaviours that drive them to do something (compulsions). Often the person carries out the behaviours to get rid of the obsessive thoughts, but this only provides temporary relief. Not performing obsessive rituals can cause great anxiety.

  • Phobias are an intense fear of something that, in reality, poses little or no actual danger. Common phobias and fears include closed-in places, heights, flying insects, snakes and needles. Nevertheless, we can develop phobias of virtually anything. Most phobias develop in childhood, but they can also develop in adults.

  • Borderline personality disorder is a condition in which people have long-term patterns of unstable or turbulent emotions, such as feelings about themselves and others. These inner experiences often cause them to take impulsive actions and have chaotic relationships.

Some disorders include:

Bipolar disorder

A mood disorder often vacillates between two extremes of mania and depression. The mania phase means the person is likely to behave in a hyperactive, uninhibited, reckless way perhaps showing grandiose schemes and scattered ideas. They may go without sleep or rest for long periods and can spend wildly, running into vast debts. In the opposite phase, they may experience long periods of being totally incapacitated by depression, negative thoughts and feelings. Not everyone experiences both these extremes.

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a broad term for a spectrum of symptoms.

Reaching a definite diagnosis is difficult and takes time.

Schizophrenia can be a most debilitating mental illness and can severely interfere with a person’s inability to perform everyday tasks and activities. Symptoms may include experiencing an altered state of reality, paranoia, delusions, hearing (often destructive) voices and seeing things that other people cannot.

Someone with these problems may become confused, extremely fearful and withdrawn. Each person’s experience will be different and some people with corrective treatment can continue to hold down jobs and relationships and rarely experience recurrence of their symptoms.

What are the causes of mental distress?

Opinions vary about what causes mental distress and there are no clear answers. Some people seem to be more vulnerable to mental health problems, which could be triggered by stressful or traumatic events.

Even people who had abused drugs in their youth are also prone to develop mental health issues in later life.

Causes seem to be any one of these factors or a combination of them: difficult family background; difficulty in expressing and dealing with hidden feelings; stressful and traumatic events; biochemistry of fear and trauma and genetics and inherited characteristics.

Mental health problems in the family.

Many people will have a partner or a relative or a child who has had mental problems at some time in their lives, some will have chronic and enduring conditions. Supporting and caring for someone with mental health problems can also take its toll on their carers. It is also important for carers to seek support to enable them to cope with the difficulties that might arise caring for someone with mental health issues.

Dr Vasilios Silivistris is a psychotherapist and counselling practitioner, and an associate professor of psychotherapy and counselling