13 Powerful Drawings Showing The Dark Side Of Mental Disorders!
Inktober is a yearly tradition where artists put themselves into a drawing challenge for 31 consecutive days in October. Talented artist Shawn Coss turned this challenge into a conceptual series where he graphically illustrates a mental disorder each day. His illustrations are powerful and vivid, each of them represents the individual mental states in a unique, dark way.
Here are 13 of those powerful illustrations accompanied by the description of the mental disorders.
Shawn Coss on Facebook.
Descriptions of the illnesses and disorders were taken from Web MD and Wikipedia.
1. Insomnia
Insomnia is a sleep disorder that is characterized by difficulty falling and/or staying asleep. People with insomnia have one or more of the following symptoms:
Difficulty falling asleep
Waking up often during the night and having trouble going back to sleep
Waking up too early in the morning
Feeling tired upon waking
2. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder, also known as PTSD, is among only a few mental illnesses that are triggered by a disturbing outside event, unlike other psychiatric disorders such as clinical depression.
Many Americans experience individual traumatic events ranging from car and airplane accidents to sexual assault and domestic violence. Other experiences, including those associated with natural disasters, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornadoes, affect multiple people simultaneously. Simply put, PTSD is a state in which you 'can't stop remembering.'
3. Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar disorder was formerly called manic depression. It is a form of major affective disorder, or mood disorder, defined by manic or hypomanic episodes (changes from one's normal mood accompanied by high energy states). Bipolar disorder is a serious condition. Mania often involves sleeplessness, sometimes for days, along with hallucinations, psychosis, grandiose delusions, or paranoid rage. In addition, depressive episodes can be more devastating and harder to treat than in people who never have manias or hypomanias.
4. Autism Spectrum
There is considerable overlap among the different forms of autism. The wide variation in symptoms among children with autism, however, has led to the concept of autism spectrum disorder, or ASD.
ASDs affect one out of every 68 children in the U.S. They occur more often among boys than girls. While autism appears to be on the rise, it's unclear whether the growing number of diagnoses shows a real increase or comes from improved detection.
Autism spectrum disorders affect three different areas of a child's life:
Social interaction
Communication -- both verbal and nonverbal
Behaviors and interests
Each child with an ASD will have his or her own pattern of autism.
5. Paranoid Schizophrenia
Paranoid schizophrenia, or schizophrenia with paranoia, as doctors now call it, is the most common example of this mental illness.
Schizophrenia is a kind of psychosis, which means your mind doesn't agree with reality. It affects how you think and behave. This can show up in different ways and at different times, even in the same person. The illness usually starts in late adolescence or young adulthood.
People with paranoid delusions are unreasonably suspicious of others. This can make it hard for them to hold a job, run errands, have friendships, and even go to the doctor.
6. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), formerly considered a type of anxiety disorder, is now regarded as a unique condition. It is a potentially disabling illness that traps people in endless cycles of repetitive thoughts and behaviors. People with OCD are plagued by recurring and distressing thoughts, fears, or images (obsessions) they cannot control. The anxiety (nervousness) produced by these thoughts leads to an urgent need to perform certain rituals or routines (compulsions). The compulsive rituals are performed in an attempt to prevent the obsessive thoughts or make them go away.
Although the ritual may temporarily alleviate anxiety, the person must perform the ritual again when the obsessive thoughts return. This OCD cycle can progress to the point of taking up hours of the person's day and significantly interfering with normal activities. People with OCD may be aware that their obsessions and compulsions are senseless or unrealistic, but they cannot stop them.
7. Social Anxiety Disorder
Social anxiety disorder, also called social phobia, is an anxiety disorder in which a person has an excessive and unreasonable fear of social situations. Anxiety (intense nervousness) and self-consciousness arise from a fear of being closely watched, judged, and criticized by others.
A person with social anxiety disorder is afraid that he or she will make mistakes, look bad, and be embarrassed or humiliated in front of others. The fear may be made worse by a lack of social skills or experience in social situations. The anxiety can build into a panic attack. As a result of the fear, the person endures certain social situations in extreme distress or may avoid them altogether. In addition, people with social anxiety disorder often suffer 'anticipatory' anxiety -- the fear of a situation before it even happens -- for days or weeks before the event. In many cases, the person is aware that the fear is unreasonable, yet is unable to overcome it.
8. Cotard's Delusion
Cotard delusion is a rare mental illness in which the affected person holds the delusional belief that he or she is already dead, does not exist, is putrefying, or has lost his or her blood or internal organs. Statistical analysis of a one-hundred-patient cohort indicates that the denial of self-existence is a symptom present in 69% of the cases of Cotard's syndrome; yet, paradoxically, 55% of the patients present delusions of immortality.
9. Dependant Personality Disorder
Dependent personality disorder (DPD) is one of the most frequently diagnosed personality disorders. It occurs equally in men and women, usually becoming apparent in young adulthood or later as important adult relationships form.
People with DPD become emotionally dependent on other people and spend great effort trying to please others. People with DPD tend to display needy, passive, and clinging behavior, and have a fear of separation.
10. Major Depressive Disorder
A constant sense of hopelessness and despair is a sign you may have major depression, also known as clinical depression.
With major depression, it may be difficult to work, study, sleep, eat, and enjoy friends and activities. Some people have clinical depression only once in their life, while others have it several times in a lifetime.
Major depression can sometimes occur from one generation to the next in families but may affect people with no family history of the illness.
11. Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a serious brain disorder that distorts the way a person thinks, acts, expresses emotions, perceives reality, and relates to others. People with schizophrenia -- the most chronic and disabling of the major mental illnesses -- often have problems functioning in society, at work, at school, and in relationships. Schizophrenia can leave its sufferer frightened and withdrawn. It is a life-long disease that cannot be cured but can be controlled with proper treatment.
Contrary to popular belief, schizophrenia is not a split or multiple personalities. Schizophrenia is a psychosis, a type of mental illness in which a person cannot tell what is real from what is imagined. At times, people with psychotic disorders lose touch with reality.
12. Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder
Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder (DSED) or Disinhibited Attachment Disorder of Childhood is an attachment disorder that consists of 'a pattern of behavior in which a child actively approaches and interacts with unfamiliar adults.' and which '...significantly impairs young children’s abilities to relate interpersonally to adults and peers.'[1] For example, sitting on the lap of a stranger or peer, or leaving with a stranger. DSED is exclusively a childhood disorder and is not diagnosed before the age of nine months or after the age of five. Infants and very young children are at risk if they receive inconsistent or insufficient care from a primary caregiver.
13. Anorexia Nervosa
Anorexia nervosa, also called anorexia, is a potentially life-threatening eating disorder that is characterized by self-starvation and excessive weight loss. The disorder is diagnosed when a person weighs at least 15% less than his or her normal/ideal body weight. Extreme weight loss in people with anorexia nervosa can lead to dangerous health problems and even death.
The term anorexia literally means 'loss of appetite.' However, this definition is misleading as people with anorexia nervosa are often hungry but refuse food anyway. People with anorexia nervosa have intense fears of becoming fat and see themselves as fat even when they are very thin. These individuals may try to correct this perceived 'flaw' by strictly limiting food intake and exercising excessively in order to lose weight.
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