• Question: What makes people have mental disorders?

    Asked by anon-297723 on 16 Jul 2021.
    • Photo: Jennifer Deane

      Jennifer Deane answered on 5 Jul 2021:

      There are lots of potential reasons, we don’t always understand why some people have mental disorders and others don’t. Within my area the stress of being told you have a potentially life changing illness can be a trigger for things like anxiety and depression. The stress of going through cancer and the various treatments can be hard. It can change friendships and relationships and cause pain, tiredness and sometimes the treatments mean you have to change the way you live. For example some people who have head and neck cancer treatments sometimes lose their ability to swallow or stop them tasting things well. This can be hard as we like to socialise and chat over food and drink so you can feel left out and this can impact your wellbeing.

      There are lots of potential causes of mental disorders; trauma, a difficult childhood, abuse, a stressful event, an illness or some people are never able to say what the trigger was/is

    • Photo: Lisa Newson

      Lisa Newson answered on 5 Jul 2021:

      good question. This is tricky to answer,

      1 in 4 people will suffer with mental illness during their life.
      But actually we all have mental wellbeing and are on a scale.

      Some types of disorder are biologically driven and others contributed by the environment (e.g. stress/trauma etc).
      There are some risk factors which increase the changes of developing certain mental illnesses, in the same way that some risk factors increase physical illness (such as heart disease)

    • Photo: Samantha Harrison

      Samantha Harrison answered on 6 Jul 2021:

      There can be a whole host of reasons, from experiences (eg trauma) to chemical imbalances. Genetic factors can play a role, making people more/less susceptible to particular mental illnesses. Unfortunately there is no straight answer.

Comments