Psychosis though a Debilitating Disease can be Cured via Proper Treatment

Psychotic depression is a branch of major depression, arising out of severe mental or depressive illness. Psychosis may lead to hallucinations or delusions or detachment from real world. It is a common phenomenon, encountered by 1 out of every 5 people admitted in hospital due to depression. Here in this page you will get some detailed idea about this depression to get enlightened about the same:

How psychosis is different from other non psychotic depression?

The person going through this psychotic problem experiences some typical symptoms which include the following:

•    The sufferers are not in touch of reality
•    They suffer from hallucinations
•    Irrelevant or disorganized thoughts
•    Staying awake at night (insomnia), while sleeping entire day
•    Gets angry every now and then
•    Certain child like behaviours which are not natural
•    Remains silent most of the time or barely cracks some speech. When in talking terms there is inconsistency

Few other symptoms of psychosis

Here are some other symptoms of this type of disorders:

•    Agitation
•    Anxiety
•    Constipation
•    Intellectual impairments
•    Hypochondria
•    Physical immobility

Treatment of Psychosis and what does it involve:

This kind of disease can only be effectively treated under the skilled and experienced psychiatrists. Some therapies and psychosis treatment procedures include:

•    Proper medication with opt antidepressant pills or other neuronal medicines (especially neurotransmitter drugs) or other desired anti psychotic medicines.
•    Proper meditation along with regular counseling.

Each drug comes up with its unique side effects and may sometimes differ in their clinical efficacy profile. But these drugs are far more advanced and are better tolerated than earlier antipsychotics.

Do this kind of psychotic treatments are actually helpful?

Treatments for this kind of psychic attacks are indeed very helpful. There are many reported cases of complete recovery of the person suffering from this. If treated at an early stage, people get cured within a few months. But some may require a periodic check up followed by medication, to prevent the re-occurrence of the disease. If meditation and medications fail to give compelling results then electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is employed.

Psychotic depressions are not a matter to neglect. It leads a complete detachment from reality along with frequent hallucination attacks. This is more critical than any another non-psychotic depression. If not treated on time, the affected person may become completely insane and may even attempt to suicide. So, a proper on time treatment is very much important as soon as the problem is diagnosed.

Hearing Auditory Voices from Inside: Reason and Type

Some hear voices from inside, a kind of exceptional event encountered under extreme circumstances, while others live with their “voices” like a family for a prolong period of time. Now what do these people mean when they complain that they hear certain unusual voices? Are these sounds always a definite symbol of severe mental distress? Some of the reasons behind this problem are detailed here in-order to understand or describe the reason behind these hallucinations. Go through this:

Inner thoughts replicated as inner voices

For some people who encounter this kind of voices, these sounds are nothing but their inner thoughts, hopes or unfulfilled, unconsciously nurtured dreams. They are basically imaginative persons living in a world of fantasy. We, the so called normal people, also have internal monologues and this inner call is like a form of inner realistic speech or dialogue we want to hear at times, especially when in dilemma. These kinds of thoughts are always personalized and vary from person to person, coming from deep inside and not from any external invisible source.

Stress related voice audition

Some times excessive stress or exhaustion may result certain kind of mental illusion, in which people come across several voices which have no materialistic explanation. These kinds of sounds are characterized as being inconsistent. But these are very much real for the person hearing them and he or she believes that these sounds are truly existent.

Voices due to mental illness

Voices may also take birth due to certain kind of mental imbalance (schizophrenia, bipolar mood disorder with psychosis). This can be of any type starting from clouding of consciousness (delirium). The person generally goes in a state of intoxication and starts hearing several sounds around him or her.

Possible treatments of this kind of disorder:

•    Periodic Counseling
•    Counseling after performing hypnotism
•    Meditation
•    Proper Yoga
•    Several neuronal medicines (should be taken strictly under the supervision of medical professionals)
•    Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) or Positron Emission Tomography (PET): Scans the brain and lights up the auditory cortex involved in the hallucination process.

If you too are the victim of this kind of disorder and often ask people ‘why there are so many voices in my head?’, then quickly consult a good physiatrist or a neuro surgeon to get yourself treated early as otherwise the things may turn worse.

Hearing Voices is Indicative of Several Types of Mental Illness

Voices when heard arbitrarily may be critical, a sort of warning system developed by the body to alarm the individual or they may be complimentary as well. It is difficult to understand the experience of hearing voices unless you have been through one yourself as this experience is not as rare as it is commonly thought to be.

Why do you have such feeling?

Are you wondering ‘why do I hear voices? Hearing voices or auditory hallucinations are a common symptom in severe mental disorders like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and anxiety disorder. Hallucination tends to occur because the affected person has lost all real-time connection with the surrounding environment and seeks several ways of escape. Some people also experience sensations of smell, touch, tastes, vision and abstract thoughts.

What is it like?

Voices listened by the person are akin to normal listening of sounds, though these sounds have no physical source and often tend to enter a person's mind as if they were thoughts. People sometimes claim to hear tone of people who have died long ago. There are various ways in which these voices can be listened. Some people listen them within the head or outside it and even inside the body. The sounds may range from one to many and may either talk to you directly or talk about you. For intensive hearers, these sounds are present all throughout the day and hamper their daily activities. These tones also sometimes threaten to harm them and demand to be obeyed.

Getting Help

Hearing unknown voices every day may be a daunting experience, but there are quite a few ways to nip it in the bud and prevent this symptom from growing into a more severe case of psychotic disorder. One way is to seek the counsel of a medical practitioner who possesses expertise in mental health. Cognitive behavioural therapy, psychotherapy, hypnosis and counselling are common tools that allow effective prognosis and cure. Also sharing experiences with other voice hearers or trusted friends or a family member enhances self-esteem and makes it easier to cope up with the condition. Sometimes counselling of family members is also done to broaden their minds and teach them to render support and acceptance to the sufferer.

Benefits of Open Discussions on Hearing Voices

Talking about hearing voices can help to a great extent. It is but the norms of the society to shun people who seem to suffer from mental disorders like schizophrenia, yet talking about it enhances acceptance of the condition, frees them from isolation and reaffirms their sense of belonging in the society. Even mental health practitioners are of the view that talking about it is the most powerful form of mental counseling and boosts the efficacy of drugs taken to mitigate the disorder.

The following points elaborate the benefits of open discussions on hearing voices and recommends the same.

• Uncovering plausible interpretations: Voices often express deep-seated emotions of the hearer, such as fear regarding a relationship or an event, or a back-off signal. When voices provide this sort of information, the trouble posed by their occurrence becomes less significant the nature of the messages they carry. When hearers express themselves to others regarding this experience, they find it valuable to interpret the nature of these messages and the reason behind their presence.

• Structuring firm contact: Many voice hearers feel threatened by the voices they hear and fear being controlled or overpowered by them. Open discussion about this condition with others enables voice hearers to establish a relationship with those voices and thus minimize feelings of victimization. It can also be valuable in helping them to set safe limits and prevent voices from excess intrusion.

• Realizing positive aspects: Voice hearers when faced with prejudice and lack of sympathy tend to become malicious with time and even driven to hurt themselves at times. This is often because they fear the negative vibes underlying the voices and have no idea that positive voices exist too. Contact with other people can lead to surprising revelations of positive voices and that they can arise once the hearers accept their negative side wholly.

• Effective form of medication: By sharing experiences on voice hearing with similar sufferers or licensed practitioners, people gain better knowledge of the various medicines, their efficacy, availability and side effects, if any. It is essential to understand whether a certain drug reduces the tendency of hearing voices or simply eases associated emotions of anxiety and palpitation.

• Personal Growth: Several voice hearers when interviewed admitted that by talking about this condition, they adjusted to this phenomenon with more ease and that this process itself has contributed to improving their self-confidence and personal growth. Personal growth may be described as understanding one's personal requirements and working gradually to achieve those ends. Indeed, by indulging in open discussions about their experiences, they felt a sense of emancipation.

•  Family support: Sharing incidents and experiences of hearing voices with families and trusted friends can go a long way in hurling the afflicted person to the path of irreversible healing. Family can support them and make life easier for the hearer, by backing them up and improving their self-esteem in social events.

Mutual communication between the voice hearers not only enables sharing of experiences, but also allows them to learn from each other and heal faster. Even when healing is far from possible, communication does help to accept this condition and lead a productive life nonetheless. If you are thinking to yourself, "how do I cope up with lots of voices my head", then don't worry because communication is the key.

The Untold Connection between Nightmares and Delusional Disorders

“Mom! Can I sleep with you?” This is the most often asked question by a six to eight year old child. Many parents initially give in to their child’s request as they feel the child needs more time to understand the importance of sleeping alone. But one among ten mothers may try to find the real reason of their child’s fear. Most commonly children have fear of dark. Some frequently get nightmares where they visualize green eyed monsters or a giant dragon that is running behind them to gobble them up in one go. Some do not like loneliness. When the first and third reasons are somewhat acceptable and does not associate any medical symptom with itself, the second condition of regular fretful nightmares needs a serious watch. Here are some common patterns that can develop into a serious mental block in the future years of the child.

• Repeating patterns in nightmare

If the child is frequently seeing the same dream sequence, it definitely means some serious trouble in the brewing. The parent needs to observe the child’s behavioral pattern, the books he reads, the TV programmes that he watches and the friends he moves out with. If the reason for the nightmare is resultant of either of the above reasons, the child is just affected on the periphery. Unfortunately, if the child has a constrained and depressed mind set and is highly sensitive by nature, it is a must for the parent to connect to a child psychiatrist for further help.

• Delusional disorders

Delusions definition is simple. It is another variant of schizophrenia where the affected person hears voices that are inaudible to others. With delusion the person firmly believes the unreal exists and remains confused. Some common types of delusional disorders that will reflect in early child hood are through hallucinations and frequent terrors in the form of nightmares. Hence if these dream patterns continues above the age of 12, the child needs psychotic treatments to channelize their thoughts and get back to normalcy.

• How to help the child?

The children are parent’s treasure. Rather than forcing them to sleep alone and overcome the fear themselves as they have become “of age”, parents must step into the child’s shoes and find out what is disturbing them. Parents must help their child to understand what is real and what is non-existent and indulge the child into real world sports or games that makes the children grow physically and mentally strong.

Do Mentally Unstable Cause Violence out of Their Will?

Mental instability of a person is most unfortunate for him as well as his family. When a subject is diagnosed with mental in stable condition like madness, delusions, psychic disorders, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia etc, in most prevalent cases he will be lonely supported only by his family or close friends. He is seen as a tormentor by the neighbors in general. But statistics has a different say in this regards. It has been observed in a survey that mentally unstable people experience more violence and wrath of people in comparison to the violence they inflict on them. Astonishing is it not? Unfortunately this is true.

• Reasons behind the Violence

A mentally unstable person bears the brunt of brutal violence as he does not know how to react. When he tries to voice his defense, people hardly take him seriously and this irritates them further. As a result they try to harm the ones who caused physical or mental assault upon them. In some other scenarios where the subject suffers from delusion he tends to see things which others do not see and he also hears sounds which others cannot hear. When people blame or make fun of him for his erratic actions these people tend to get violent. Thus the ultimate reason for a mentally unstable person to get harmful is the unaccountable physical and mental torture that has been inflicted upon them.

• Prevention of Unstability

Preventing a severely mentally unstable person to cause violence is easy. All one needs to do is to keep them indoor or admit them to an asylum where he can be taken care of under medical supervision. But people with bipolar disorders, delusional disorders, depression or schizophrenia will look very natural and normal in general circumstances. These people should realize their self and their state of mind and preempt themselves with anti-depressant so that they can still be counted safe.

Mental health and violence are interconnected as violence is defined as a result of mental aggressiveness. A healthy person too can turn violent when his mind stops to guide him in the right path. There are numerous societies and non-profitable organization networks who work seamlessly to explain common people about the mental makeup of such pitiable souls so that the world can perceive their goodness and help these people live a better life to enjoy the bounties of nature.

What Are Types Of Delusional Disorder

There are many people who face the problem of delusion, but it is difficult to identify the person with this mental sickness because they normally socialize and do the work, apart from the respective area of their delusion. The delusions definition can be understood, as a firm and unshakeable belief in something which does not exist. 

Patient’s suffering from delusion experiences the incidents which can happen in real like too, such as conspiracy against the patient, accident, being followed, deceived, falling in love and poisoned. These situations are created inside the mind of patient which he believes with full convection, but in reality either the situations are not present or they are highly amplified.

This mental illness usually happens during the period of middle to late lifespan of patient, and women’s are more affected by this illness as compared with the men’s.

Following are the types of delusional disorder:

• Bizarre delusion:

In this situation the patient tends to imagine things and situations which are not possible to happen in real life.

For example: The patient has a strong belief that the internal organ of one person is exchanged with the internal organs of another person without any surgery and scar.

• Non-bizarre delusion:

In this type of delusion, the patient creates the situations in his mind which are possible in the existing life.

For example: The patient has a firm belief that someone is behind him everywhere.

• Mood-congruent delusion:

In mood-congruent delusion, the delusions are dependent or related to the patient’s mood or emotional state.
For example: The patient believes, that commentators of cricket match disapproves him or he firmly believes that he will fly and he will reach the top of the sky.

• Mood-neutral delusion:

In this type of delusion, the emotional state or mood of the patient doesn’t create any difference.

For example: The patient can have a belief that, an extra head is growing out from the side of his head. In this type of situation, the mood of patient is usually natural; they are not feeling depressive or manic.

The doctors have still not found the exact cause of delusion disorder, but there are few symptoms which help in identifying the mental sickness in patient. These symptoms include low mood, hallucinations, getting angry and getting irritated. With the help of early identification of illness, medications, psychotherapy a patient can be cured, but the most important is the love and support of family members and friends.