Mental health conditions

Anxiety disorder can be ongoing and impact the ability to live your life as you want to.

Everyone experiences changes in their mood but bipolar disorder can change your mood dramatically, affecting every part of your life. You will feel extreme highs and lows sometimes lasting for months at a time. You may feel well between these times.

BPD is an illness that affects the way you think and feel about yourself, as well as your emotions and relationships with other people. Sometimes called emotionally unstable personality disorder (EUPD).

Depression is a long-lasting low mood disorder. It affects your ability to do everyday things, feel pleasure or take interest in activities. It’s different from feeling sad or down, but anyone can experience depression.

An eating disorder is any difficult relationship with food. This may be eating too much or too little. You may become obsessed with food and your eating patterns if you have an eating disorder.

Our personalities are made up of the way we think, feel and act. A personality disorder might be diagnosed when parts of our personality cause problems in our lives.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder you might develop after a serious and frightening experience such as violence or war. The condition was first recognised in war veterans, but a wide range of traumatic experiences can cause PTSD.

If you are experiencing psychosis, you might see or hear or believe things that others may not. You may believe your experiences are real. Some people describe it as a ‘break from reality’.

You may be diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder if you experience psychotic symptoms as well as the mood symptoms of bipolar disorder. Schizoaffective disorder affects your thoughts, feelings and behaviour.

Schizophrenia affects the way you think and cope with daily life. Someone experiencing schizophrenia may have hallucinations, delusions, disorganised thinking and lack motivation for daily activities.