In the outpatient clinic, I have encountered a lot of patients with mental illness who have been misdiagnosed, and some patients have even been misdiagnosed for more than ten years, only to find out that they have been misdiagnosed, so what they have always accepted is wrong.
As a doctor, I know that the misdiagnosis of people with mental illness can cause great harm to them, and that misdiagnosis can not only delay their condition, but even lead to worsening of their condition, deepening their suffering, and thus affecting their lives and psychology.
So here I would like to elaborate on the differences between several types of mental illness and depression that are very easily misdiagnosed in clinical practice, so that I can find the most suitable plan for myself.
1. Psychosis vs depression
Mental ** people may have depression, social withdrawal, loss of interest, insomnia, and changes in eating and Xi habits in the early stage, which are just manifestations of depression, so mental ** can easily be misdiagnosed. But there is still a big difference between psychosis and depression:
1. The primary symptoms are different.
Although mental illness and depression will have symptoms of low mood and apathy, there is a difference in one point, mental ** people will first have symptoms such as slow thinking, scatteredness, and then some symptoms similar to depression will appear, and depression is manifested by low mood, and then there will be auditory hallucinations, fantasies and other thinking disorders.
2. Emotional coordination is different.
The mental activities of mental ** people are uncoordinated, often manifested as speech confusion, strange behavior, etc., but the mental activities of depressed patients are often coordinated, and there will be some particularly strange behaviors.
2. Bipolar disorder vs depression
Patients with bipolar disorder often have alternating forms of depression and mania, most patients often start with depression, and the manic condition appears for a short time, and each state generally lasts for two months before switching, so patients with bipolar are also easily diagnosed with depression.
So it is necessary to dig from a deeper angle to make a judgment distinction:
1. Family history.
Bipolar disorder is hereditary as high as 80%, and depression is only 40% hereditary
2. Symptoms.
People with bipolar sleep longer, have an increased appetite, and gain weight, but people with depression tend to present in the opposite way.
3. ** times.
Bipolar disorder has a high probability, and more than five times of reversal is more likely to be bipolar disorder, and the rate of depression will be relatively small.
4. Drug reaction.
After using depression medication, patients with bipolar disease either get relief quickly or have no change or even worsen, but after the depression patient takes the medication, the symptom relief will not take effect until 2-4 weeks.
3. Anxiety vs. depression
It has been clinically found that many depressed patients will be mixed with a lot of anxiety, and anxiety disorders will also be accompanied by depression. Because they will have insomnia, loss of appetite, tiredness and other symptoms when they have an attack, many people can't tell which category they belong to, so how should they distinguish it?
1. Suicide risk.
Most patients with depression will be pessimistic and misanthropic, do not cherish themselves, self-harm or even suicidal behavior, on the contrary, anxiety disorders will care more about themselves, pay attention to their own physical health, fear of disease or death, and even have a situation of being a soldier.
2. Psychological performance.
The core of patients with anxiety is "fear", they will always worry about what will happen to them or their family and friends, and they will be accompanied by symptoms such as palpitation, palpitations, breathlessness, heart pain and tightness.
To sum up, there is still a certain difference between depressive symptoms and depression, what we need to know is that although some mental illnesses will show symptoms of depression, they will still be very different from depression, and it is not necessarily depression as long as there are depressive symptoms.
Finally, I have said so much to you, I hope it will help you, I am Wang Dongyang, a Chinese medicine practitioner, I hope I can help you.