Mental illness vs behavioral disorder.

[Slammed Vdub]

I bet this has been covered before but im just curious. Is anxiety (my case hypochondriac) considered a mental illness or a behavioral disorder. I personally dont like having the title or being considered mentally ill. I feel that is a more serious issue than anxiety on its own. I was reading little debate here: https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080702124401AASqyMB. And i found that to be interesting. Personally i dont consider myself mentally ill. But for someone to consider me mentally ill i feel alot less of myself and like im going crazy.. I just dont like the wording because the majority of people consider someone who is mentally ill to be in a hospital or under watch, or to be "crazy." I dont like the wording at all and i know i have an issue (anxiety) which is possessively what separates someone with anxiety and someone with a real mental condition.

[surpassit]

Bro I totally understand you! I myself am a hypochondriac, which sucks lol. I personally hate the words ,"disorder" and "mental illness." I think just hearing those words gives me anxiety. But personally I would call it a behavioral "condition" because the only reason I am a hypochondriac is because I google every little symptom I have. Its not really a mental thing because I choose to look up things.

So yeah theres my opinion.

[Slammed Vdub]

Yeah for sure. Luckily i no longer look up sypmtoms. I have always feared throwing up. Yes its dumb i know haha. But anyttime i feel weird or not normal, im automatically like OMG imma throw up and get sick. So dumb i know, but its has always been my biggest fear. Me looking up anything anxiety or mental gives me anxiety, even writing about this can give me anxiety haha. As sad as it is, you saying you look up symptoms which is different than what i do, could easily set off my anxiety because it means maybe i am going mental because i dont have the same symptom as you. As sad as that is, its true and i hate it. As long as i stay distracted im fine and no anxiety. Its when i start to think that i feel it all coming on.

[surpassit]

Dont worry about it dude. We all have different symptoms. No two people are the same. And same here. As long as I am distracted I am perfectly fine. It only when im alone and have the time to actually think of everything is wrong with me that I get anxiety. We can pull through though. Best of luck bro.

Ps: how did you get yourself to stop looking up symptoms? I need help lol

[Slammed Vdub]

Honestly i just realized that everything symptom can pretty much be a symptom from and illness. A headache can mean anything from weather, cold, flu, stress, lack of sleep, lack of food, etc.. What im getting at is its impossible to ever pinpoint whats wrong with looking up symptoms. And i had a laugh when i realized how ridiculous some of the results were. I rememeber i had an injured arms once and i looked up like a discolored vein and it said i was basically slowly dying and turning into a zombie. I couldnt help but laugh at it and i just kept laughing at everything else. No reason to add fuel to the fire if you catch my drift. Good luck man!

[Pumpkin]

I hate the fact that people always associate being "mentally ill" with craziness. I have a OCD/an anxiety disorder and i'm aware of it and it's not something that I or anyone else can control. People who are mentally ill aren't any less of a person than those who are not suffering with a disorder. In my opinion, we're all equal and if anyone thinks otherwise they can go screw themselves :)

[Fourteen14]

I personally don't think the terminology or labelling used is the real issue.

If we think about mental health in terms of general health, there is a wide spectrum of general "ill" health, ranging from head colds to cancers.

Mental health is no different, ranging from temporary low mood/mild anxiety up to severe and untreatable conditions.

The problem with mental health is the stigma that is still attached to it even in this day and age, also it is a subject many people are afraid of and misunderstand.

Something to also consider is, if someone suffering with a low level condition such as anxiety feels that they are viewed negatively, imagine how someone living with a managed condition such as schizophrenia feels.

The people so often referred to as "crazy" are people too, still have feelings, often afraid to tell people about their condition because of the public perception driven by the media portrayal of "crazed and dangerous lunatics".