Long work hours are grueling. Every weekend, you’re drained of energy, want to be alone, and have trouble eating. If any of this sounds familiar, it may not just be a case of anxiety or sadness. Prolonged symptoms like irritability and anger could indicate something else, possibly a mood disorder.
What are Mood Disorders?
According to Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Medicine experts, a “mood disorder is a mental health class that health professionals use to describe all types of depression and bipolar disorders broadly.
“Children, teens, and adults can have mood disorders. However, children and teens don’t always have the same symptoms as adults. It’s harder to diagnose mood disorders in children because they aren’t always able to express how they feel.” But the symptoms can be treated.
What Causes Mood Disorders?
As is the case with many kinds of mental illnesses, we really don’t know the exact cause for a mood disorder, whether it’s depression or bipolar disorder. There could be numerous underlying issues, depending on the kind of disorder. Different biological, environmental, genetic, and other influences have been linked to mood disorders.
- Family history
- Previous diagnosis
- Trauma, stress, or big life changes
- Physical ailments or using certain medicine. Depression, for instance, has been linked to serious diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and Parkinson’s disease
- Brain function and structure in the instance of bipolar disorder
Symptoms
The most common symptoms include:
- Sadness most of the day or almost every day
- Low energy or feeling lethargic
- Feeling useless or hopeless
- Lack of appetite or binge eating
- Weight gain or weight loss
- Lack of interest in something you used to enjoy doing
- Sleeping problems
- Repeated thoughts about death or committing suicide
- Trouble thinking or focusing
- Feeling very energized or exhilarated
- Fast speech or bodily movement
- Agitation, impatience, or irritability
Common Mood Disorders
Everyone responds to mood disorders differently. The most common mood disorders include:
- Major depressive disorder, featuring prolonged and relentless episodes of extreme sadness
- Bipolar disorder, once known as manic depression, is a kind of depression that includes rotating periods of depression and mania
- Seasonal affective disorder is a kind of depression closely linked to fewer hours of daylight, particularly in far northern and southern latitudes, between late fall to early spring
- Persistent depressive disorder is a long-term or chronic form of depression
- Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder, characterized mainly by chronic, acute, and constant irritability in kids that regularly includes repeated temper tantrums inconsistent with the kid’s developmental age
- Depression related to the physical effects of another medical condition
- Another kind of mood disorder is depression which is stimulated by substance use or medicine ― with symptoms that happen during or right after substance use, withdrawal, or exposure to a medication
How Can You Treat Mood Disorders?
Mood disorders can be treated, but usually not successfully until you’ve been diagnosed. Your doctor may perform a physical exam to exclude physiological triggers for symptoms, like a thyroid problem, another illness, or even a vitamin deficiency. You’ll need to provide details about your personal and family medical history, and medicine you might be taking. A mental health specialist will know about your personal and family history of depression or mental illness and ask questions about feelings, symptoms, sleeping and eating habits, thoughts, and behavior.
The chance of developing depression for women is nearly twice as high compared to men. While anyone can feel down or sad, mood disorders are more extreme and harder to handle than ordinary feelings of sadness.
Treatment will be designed for the specific illness and symptoms that are shown. Normally, therapy involves a mixture of medicine and psychotherapy (also referred to as “talk therapy”). Your sessions could be run by different health professionals (such as a psychologist, psychiatrist, or another health specialist).
There are many potentially successful forms of treatment, which may include:
- Ketamine infusion. The medicine was once used solely for anesthesia but is known to reduce symptoms of depression, bipolar disorder, and other mood disorders.
- Antidepressants and certain other medicines
- Different kinds of psychotherapy, which try to focus on changing someone’s distorted views of themself and their environment. This may foster interpersonal relationship skills and teach how to recognize stressors and avoid them.
- Family therapy
- Other therapies
Final Thoughts
If you’re experiencing depression or other mood disorder symptoms, you may start to get better by following a treatment plan recommended by a medical doctor or mental health specialist. One possibility is ketamine infusion therapy, known to reduce the pain and distress caused by mental illness and chronic pain. Contact us today to learn more.