Mood disorders

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"Over the course of a lifetime, more than 20 percent of us will experience a mood disorder" --psych book

This is the kind of comment I've always a little bit of a hard time understanding. What is meant by mood disorder, and does that infer that those who have them have some sort of minor mental disability--not to think outside of their pessimism?

Who is susceptible to mood disorders and why do they occur to only about 20 percent of us? If so many of us have a chance to be effected by a mood disorder, then it can't be the lack of something crucial in the brain: at least not a chronic shortage. So then what causes a mood disorder?

I've never fully trusted statistics like the one above because the concept of a "mood disorder" a bit vague, and because it's a bit vague I wouldn't even trust someone to be able to discern whether they've really had a mood disorder or not.

Many people are put through all kinds of stress. Different kinds of stress can have different kinds of effects on different people. This stress, whether it be to get good grades in school, how attractive someone wished they were, what type of guy/girl/friend someone wishes they would meet, or something else entirely I forgot to mention, one thing is the same: whatever stresses someone out, they must value. To be stressed out be something one must value something, because if someone didn't care about what they were stressing about, why would they be stressing about it?

I see mood disorders as a byproduct of this concept of values versus conflict with those values. At least, this kind of statistic would have to support mood disorders coming from someone having some kind of dissatisfaction in their life.

Where I'm going with all this is perhaps mood disorders are actually some sort of defense mechanism--that since some sort of conflict is coming between a person and what would satisfy them, they might as well give up? Is it a fear of hopelessness that can cause mood disorders?

The definition of mood disorder, to me, is much to vague.

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I don't think mood disorders are specific enough, and they are not as severe as many disorders. I think I agree with you that mood disorders are sometimes defense mechanisms. I believe there are other explanations.

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This page contains a single entry by kell1072 published on April 26, 2012 2:43 PM.

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