Mental Illness: Causes, Types & Effects - Essay Sample

Introduction

The mental disorder comes from a wide range of mental health condition such as disorders that affect someone's mood, behavior, and thinking. Suitable examples of mental illness are schizophrenia, anxiety disorder, addictive behaviors, depression, and eating disorders (Surendran & Chakrabarti, 2016). Most people develop mental health challenges from time to time but turn out to be a mental illness when the signs and symptoms turn out to cause stress and affect the ability of normal functioning. When one develops mental illness, they can have trouble in life, work or school. Usually, not all mental cases are that severe as some can be managed with a combination of talk therapy and medications. The essay will, therefore, review the case of Kathy Bates and how her mental challenge affected both her career and life.

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Signs and symptoms of mental sickness vary based on the circumstances, factors, and causes. Most signs usually affect the behaviors, thoughts, and emotions of the individual. The signs and symptoms of mental illness include reduced ability to think, having irregular mood change, feeling down or sad, changes in eating habits, inability to cope with challenges and withdrawal from friends. While these challenges develop based on the condition and other factors, some of them are easily treated while other takes a longer time.

One individual that had a mental challenge during her career was Kathy Bates. Annie Wilkes who was her acting name was a character that developed an aggressive, bipolar, sophisticated and dynamic personality. While acting the movie Misery, the director Rob Reiner had omitted some version due to the character of Bates (Grace, 2018). However, the portrayal of Bates is sublime because she managed to take the role of Annie Wilkes.

Besides being the first person to be given an award for the Best actress in thriller movies, she also received excellent reviews both from the film critics and public. Even though 'Misery' also came out as a novel the only way people detected Bates character was through the movie (Grace, 2018). This is because people could see how she was disturbed. Her condition began when she heard that Paul Sheldon (a writer) got an accident and since Bates was her number one fun, she went to the rescue. In Bates dark place, the atrocious and suffocation real horror began.

Background

Bates was a very simple and a heavy built middle-aged woman that was very conservative. Most of the times she never wore make-up but had a simple hairstyle that balanced with her clothing since she is used to putting on a small gold chain that hanged form her neck. These were the only clues that were seen several times that revealed her personality (Grace, 2018). However, Bates personality was also associated with religion in particular Catholicism. This showed that she was a calm and straightforward person. The weird thing about her is that she loved collecting the porcelain figures. She even noted any time they were changed in the market. This was a clear indication that she had an obsessive personality.

The Beginning of the Ordeal

At first, Sheldon bought the idea that he was alright after he survived the accident. One day when he woke up and found himself in the house of a retired nurse but also a fan of his works. Kathy Bate promised to take care of him until he recovered fully. She even offered to take him to the nearest hospital whenever he showed bad health signs. Since nothing can be hidden from the truth, Bates began showing signs of bipolar disorder from her tone, aggressiveness attacks, and excessive kindness (Grace, 2018).

Signs of bipolar began increasing when Bates discovered through Paul Sheldon's novel that he had murdered Chastain before he was involved in an accident. Form her reactions; it was predicted that her obsessive and aggressive personality existed ever since she was a small child. Since childhood, Bates a huge childish child that portrayed fictional traits (Grace, 2018). This means that every time she wanted to avoid bad times, she used to read Sheldon's novel. This is why she ended up kidnapping the author in the name of taking care of him, but when she realized that the main character was killed, she turned out to be cold.

The Exposure to Fame

Fame can sometimes turn out to be dangerous for some people. When one becomes a public figure, their private life becomes an open debate, criticism, and discussion. A single mistake, a wrong answer, simple reaction, and a bad comment can turn out to spoil people lives (Grace, 2018). Those who become obsessed with famous people also turn out to be dangerously similar to how its seen to how Kathy Bates loved Paul Sheldon. Her mental problems and obsessions to Paul Sheldon made her develop metal problems that ended up torturing her.

The Impact of the Mental Conditions to Bates

The terms of Bates made her stay at home because she was unable to move around. Her later age reminded her how vulnerable she was to the point that people used to steal shoes from her (Grace, 2018). It is evident that television has become a disease to many people and not many people can overcome the fight. This is why many people still fight to become celebrities. The question of whether films have created diseases of made people knowledgeable is always the same question Ms. Bates questioned herself when she was diagnosed on bipolar disorder.

Every time Bates met the psychiatrist she always got frustrated because every time she wondered if the work of the consultant is to decide the type of medicine a patient will take (Grace, 2018). Since she was always in the dark about that question, she ended up concluding that it was the nature of her disease. Most of the time, Bates used to have hallucinations both visual and auditory to the point that she stated that people ought to be open-minded and liberal to avoid having a stigma against mental illness.

DSM 5 Diagnosis Assessment

Any person that has bipolar usually goes through intense emotional changes which vary from their normal behavior and mood. Such changes also affect their daily lives. Using the DSM 5 method to diagnose bi-polar means taking several choice tests such as taking the blood sample to the laboratory (Legg, 2017). Before the diagnosis, the DSM 5 process ensures that the patient does not have emotional periods from time to time because they usually get stressed. When emotional lows and highs are associated with bipolar disorder, the situation becomes extreme. The method also gathers information from the family members in cases whether the patient changed their behavior. This means that testing bipolar is not as simple as taking blood samples for testing but also be sure whether there are distinct symptoms so that to make treatment effective.

Before diagnosis, the client is advised that they may experience difficult emotions and changing moods. Most of them will also be confused but will be aware that something is not right. A patient like Kathy Bates may go through bouts of hopelessness because of how she was drawn to the writer. Therefore the DSM defines bipolar as a period of abnormality that elevates irritable and expansive mood (Legg, 2017). Since the episode lasts for one week, the DSM ensures that the patient develops three symptoms; increased rate of speech, high-self-esteem, psychomotor agitation and increased pursuit of activities.

With depression, DSM states that the major depressive episode develops four symptoms. Most of them can either be worse or new, but they must be visible for two weeks (Legg, 2017). The patient must have changes in weight, sleep, psychomotor activates and appetite, decreased energy, trouble thinking in decision making and concentration as well as feelings of guilt or worthinesses.

One condition that was not taken severely for Kathy Bates was the obsessive personality disorder because her personality was characterized by a preoccupation of perfectionism, distraction, and kindness. With this condition, Bates was unable to dictate correct answers, and this made her consume more time. Research has proven that people with obsessive-compulsive usually have a hard time making choices because their personality disorder makes them prone to anger (Legg, 2017). The same case is also seen in Bates when she chose to take care of Sheldon. Individuals that have this type of disorder are always attentive with the status to the point where they become excessive resistance or deference to others.

Most of them usually develop express affection in a highly stilted or controlled fashion because most of the time they are uncomfortable. Every day their relationships either have serious or formal equality, especially in tense situations so that they make others happy or smile. Similar to Bates, most of them hold themselves back and hold on to positions until it becomes better. When Bates took Sheldon to live with her, she took care of her until he was well.

In other words, the personality disorder is a pattern of inner behavior and experience derived from the norm of the culture of people. In most circumstances, the models are calculated into the impulse, interpersonal functioning and cognition control (Legg, 2017). The pattern is also pervasive and inflexible across the range of social and personal situations. Typically it leads to significant impairment or distress in social work and other functioning areas. Since this condition is never severe, it is usually stable, and the onset is generally seen back to adolescence or adulthood.

Treatment Plan of Bipolar Disease

The treatment of Bipolar is based on several factors. Medicine itself is not sufficient and so educating oneself about the ailment will make it easier for the patient to communicate with the therapists and doctors (Bowden & Singh, 2012). This also ensures that one gains a robust support system that guides them make healthy lifestyle choices to reduce the need for taking medication. Once the patient is under treatment, it is vital to make sure that they communicate with their doctors to ensure that all changes are revealed to the doctor.

Giving the patient accurate diagnosis is not always easy because of the differences in the mood swings and how difficult it can become when problems such as ADHD, personality disorder and depression. Most patients that have bipolar disorder visit the doctor a couple of times before the situation is correctly treated. While treating bipolar is complicated and tricky the best way is to visit the psychiatrist rather physicians or a family doctor (Bowden & Singh, 2012). This because the psychiatrist is a professional that specializes in mental health and also knows about the latest treatment option

Diagnostic Exam

Generally, the diagnostic exam for people with bipolar disorder involves:

• Psychological evaluation- in this case, the specialists conducts a psychiatric history by asking questions concerning the history of the problem, symptoms and the treatment previously used to determine whether there are mood disorders in the family.
• Physical and Medical History- the identification of bipolar diseases does not require one to have lab tests rather the doctor does a physical exam and medical history to rule out medications or illnesses that might be causing the symptoms (Surendran & Chakrabarti, 2016). However, the specialist goes an extra mile and screens for thyroid disorder because they are also known for causing mood swings which facilitate bipolar disorder. Moreover, the specialist prefers the patient to go with the friends and family members to tell more about their behaviors and moods to give more objective and accurate picture of the patient.

Treatment Options of Bipolar

The moment the disease is detected the doctor is the only person that can offer treatment options. So...