How aware are you?

From simple peasents to leaders of men, from deranged killers to gentle souls everyone is affected by the ability to suffer a mental illness in their life.

How aware are you of mental illnesses? How many can you name off the top of your head? And how much do you really know about them?

Just how aware or unaware are you?

 

It really, REALLY depends on how you define a mental illness. If you mean any kind of disorder, I can name quite a few off the top of my head and I even know personally the person after whom one of them was named (Prader Foster, named after Pat Foster).

However, if you're only referring to things that severely impair a person's ability to function properly in society (think schizophrenia, mental ******ation (slowness for those of you who think the word ******ed means stupid), etcetera, that's far different. Could you reword your question?

 

I browse about three or four separate mental health forums. Does that answer your inquiry?

 

Most of my family have some kind of "mental issue" and my mums job is caring for people with so called "special needs".
Happy?

 

My point to this is to find out whether people are well aware of the facts of mental illnesses or the common misconceptions.
For example most people believe that schizophrenia is a split personality disorder, whilst it is the inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality. Are people aware of this fact?
Are people also aware that the Jamie Bulger murderer suffered from mental illness symptoms both with chracteristics of autism and schizophrenia, and that this heartless killer may have been suffering with something that caused him to commit such a thing?

I thought it went, mental disorders are mental problems that the sufferer is able to cope with effectively whilst mental illnesses are mental problems that are debilitating and mean you fail to function adequetly, like eating and dressing yourself.
I was talking of the later.

 

I am part of this forum.

I think that is enough of a mental illness.

And yes, I am aware of it.

 

If I'm not aware, I supposed that's a bad thing... I really only know of a few...

 

I am so aware that it's crazy. The crazy gene runs in my family, so I've done plenty of research and I know a lot of neurological disorders and their symptoms and how prone I may be to them. I have a mild case of paranoia, myself.

EDIT: I did not mean to make a pun in that first sentence.

 

Alright in that case I know slightly less. Even though I have a LOT of experience with people who have problems, even knowing many on a personal level (see Pat Foster, above), I still don't completely grasp many of them. For example, when I was first learning about Mental ******ation, I had problems understanding that it went far beyond simply being mentally slow, as the name suggests. All in all though I do understand a lot of it. Off the top of my head I can name:
Schizophrenia
Prader Foster
Prader Willi
Low Functioning Autism
Mental ******ation
And Pervasive Developmental Disability Not Otherwise Specified

And on Schizophrenia, even though it isn't a split personality disorder in and of itself, doesn't it have potential to cause development of such a disorder if left unchecked? Same for paranoia causing disorders. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Well,
Downs Syndrome
Cerebral palsy
Autism
Alzheimer's Disease which might lead to Dementia
are the ones that come to mind.
I'd like to add Obsessive Compulsive Disorder though, because even though it's treatable, if you don't treat it, you'll have serious problems functioning properly in a society, depending on how obsessive it is.

I know there are many more, but the ones I know about I guess are more disorders than illnesses.

 

And correct you I will, this being one of the few fields of expertise I have. Btw, paranoia is a symptom of a disiorder not a cause. And it can be symptom of schizophrenia.
Media portrayals have always made it seem like a split personality disorder, but a split personality disorder is called: Dissociative Identity Disorder, where a person suffers from a various number of alter egos that are distinct from one another, depending on the person.


However, schizophrenia is seen akin to DID because of the possibility of 'hearing voices' called audiotory hallucinations, which to uninformed people must mean a different personality speaking to you in your own mind. However, you may not hear voices but still suffer from schizophrenia since there are tons of different symptoms that people can experience, such as delusions of grandeur (believing you're Jesus or that you have magical powers), flat emotions, disorganised speech, disorganised behaviour and a lot of others.

If you look on the internet for videos that puts you in the point of view of a schizophrenic and shows you what they can experience, you'll probably get a better understanding for it than me explaining it as well as how difficult it can be to have it

 

It really depends on how you want to define it. If we're speaking purely as something that minimizes your awareness, laziness could fall into this category pretty well.

Personally, I'm aware of a few. Laziness and apathy are certainly things that affect me to a degree (thankfully not dreadfully).

 

I said paranoia causing disorders, not disorders caused by paranoia I also made it clear that I am aware that schizophrenia is not DID (thanks for reminding me of the name by the way), but can, in some rare cases, cause it to develop. Being a cause and being synonymous are not at all the same thing.

@Noroz: Dagummit, how could I forget Downs? Yeah, I know about that one too. Just not off my head.

 

The only two I can safely say I am aware of is Autism and Downs, since I know people with both and I myself have a form of Autism

 

I've known quite a few people who have had Autism, Downs Syndrome and a couple of people with Dyslexia. My little cousin and boyfriend have got Aspergers.

 

I know next to nothing about any of them.

 

I know 4 people who have autism,and 3 with dyslexia if that counts.Does bi-polar count?

 

Anxiety is huge for this. It literally can affect your perception of things and therefore things just plain don't make sense. I'm referring to the disorders of course.

 

In case you weren't aware, Aspergers is a form of Autism.

 

Oh yeah, kinda forgot about that. >__>;