Depression, Addiction, Substance Abuse, and Anxiety Treatment
Treatment available near Washington DC, Foggy Bottom, Bethesda, Downtown DC, Fairfax, Chevy Chase, and Georgetown
Depression:
Depression is a disorder characterized by extended periods of time in which the affected person is consistently down (having a low mood) and has recurring feelings of hopelessness. People with depression are prone to have insomnia or hypersomnia (an inability to stay awake in the day). In addition, persons with depression often have difficulty caring out everyday tasks, due to their feelings’ of hopelessness, loneliness, and a general lack of energy and motivation. There are three major types of depressive disorders: Major Depressive Disorder (either single or episodic), Dysthymic Disorder, and Postpartum Depression.* Major Depressive Disorder occurring as a singular episode is characterized by the fore-mentioned problems, as well as a low or extremely high level of appetite, resulting in weight gain or weight loss.
* Depressive Disorder that is recurrent or episodic has the same qualities as Major Depressive Disorder, however in this case the symptoms recur with frequency, usually with intervals lasting a few months, between.
* Dysthymic Disorder has the same characteristics as Major Depressive Disorder; however the symptoms persist for at least two years without any significant break in the symptoms.
* Postpartum Depression is similar to Major Depressive Disorder, but the onset is clearly caused by and/or related to giving birth to a child.
Anxiety:
Anxiety disorders are persistent conditions characterized by extreme fears, phobias, and obsessive concerns that make daily activities difficult to complete. Often persons with anxiety disorders suffer from panic attacks, in which they experience physical symptoms, resulting from their mental fears, including: heart palpitations, sweating, nausea, feeling disoriented and out of place, as well as dizziness. There are four major anxiety disorders: Agoraphobia, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder.* Agoraphobia is a type of anxiety disorder, which leads the sufferer to feel extreme panic and fear in situations where they feel overly confined or crowded. However, unlike claustrophobia, the person’s fear is centered more around the anxiety that they cannot escape or will have a panic attack and lose control, while someone with claustrophobia suffers from feelings of walls closing in upon them; clearly these two conditions are markedly different. Most people with this condition suffer from frequent panic attacks, and fear of these attacks often leads them to avoid situations that stimulate their anxiety, ultimately making the anxiety even stronger.
* Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a type of anxiety disorder characterized by urges to perform specific tasks repetitively in the hopes that it will relieve the sufferer of some of their overwhelming and totally consuming anxieties. Such obsessive behaviors often include: excessive hand washing, repetitive checking of something (i.e. if the door is locked), or compulsively organizing items. If the person does not do these things when anxious, their anxiety quickly worsens, often leading to panic attacks.
* Social Anxiety Disorder is characterized by extreme fears of being in any type of social situation. When exposed to a group of persons with which the sufferer is meant to engage, they experience severe anxiety and often panic attacks; resulting from fears of how one will be judged by the people around them. This disorder is highly concerning and needs to be dealt with quickly because the longer the person suffers from this disorder, the further they stray away from reality and the social interactions, the more prone they are to depression.
* Generalized Anxiety Disorder is characterized by continuous feelings of panic, fear, and worry, which the sufferer is unable to escape from. These fears are generally unrealistic, but to the sufferer they are completely real. Persons with this disorder are likely to suffer from panic attacks, and within a six month period more days will be spent with moderate to severe anxiety than without.
Substance Abuse:
Persons with substance abuse problems usually use these substances as a means of “coping” with overwhelming emotions and events. Such substances include: alcohol, nicotine, prescription medications, and illegal drugs (i.e. cocaine, methamphetamines, and marijuana). People who abuse these items quickly become dependent on them in order to perform basic functions of daily living. However, abusing any substance quickly leads to negative effects on the users’ body and mind.Consistent abuse of any substance will lead to bodily harm. People abusing drugs and alcohol often experience strong shifts in mood and behavior as the drugs move through their systems. Once the drug is expelled from their body, the body and mind quickly demand more. Overtime, larger and larger amounts of the drug are needed to achieve the desired effect, whether it is a black-out or just the loss of a sense of reality. Although the abuse of substances does provide momentary relief from the sufferer’s problems and concerns, it is really an imperfect solution that causes many more problems than it resolves.
Eating Disorders:
Eating disorders are a type of mental illness in which the sufferer has an unhealthy preoccupation with his/her weight, and a poor relationship with food. People with this disease have very low self-esteem and distorted body-image. In other words, the sufferer usually believes that they are significantly larger than their actual size, this is particularly true in Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa. There are three main types of eating disorders, including: Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, and Binge-Eating Disorder.* Anorexia Nervosa is a disease in which (in addition to the above characteristics) the sufferer is severely underweight --- having a body mass index (BMI) that is 15% below the lowest healthy weight for someone of a given height. For example, this would mean that a person who is 5 feet, 4 inches tall, and would ideally weigh between 108 and 145 pounds, would weigh 91.8 pounds if they were 15% below their lowest ideal BMI.
In later stages of Anorexia, the sufferer will begin to grow hair all over their skin as the body attempts to heat itself without the body-fat it so badly needs (during Anorexia, as the body is starved, it consumes its own body fat to survive). In addition, in menstruating females they may lose their menstrual cycle; this is known as amenorrhea. There are two sub-categories of Anorexia: a restrictive anorexic tightly controls the amount of food that he/she eats; while a binge-purge anorexic will restrict food intake, then consume a large amount of food, and expel it from the body by inducing vomiting, or misusing laxatives, diuretics, and/or enemas.
* Bulimia Nervosa is an eating disorder in which the afflicted is obsessed with their weight, has low self-esteem, distorted body-image, and unhealthy eating patterns. Unlike Anorexia Nervosa, however, someone with bulimia may be of average, low, or slightly high weight. This can often make it more difficult for those around a bulimic to realize that the person is sick, because his/her weight may not make it readily apparent.
Someone who is bulimic will binge eat with frequency (usually at least twice a week). A binge is defined as the consumption of a large quantity of food in an abnormally short period of time. An applicable example would be a person eating two whole pizzas in a two-hour window of time. Following a binge, a bulimic will involve in some type of behavior to compensate for the large consumption of food. There are two main types of bulimics: purging type bulimics will either induce vomiting, abuse laxatives, diuretics, and/or enemas; however a non-purging type bulimic will use other methods to “make amends” following a binge, this can encompass restricting further food intake or exercising obsessively.
* Binge-Eating Disorder is an illness in which a person will binge eat without performing a compensating behavior following the event. A person with this disorder is most often overweight, if not obese. Similar to Bulimia, someone with Binge-Eating Disorder will consume copious amounts of food in short periods of time, at least twice a week on average. However, persons with Binge-Eating Disorder, do not purge in anyway. People with this disorder often feel very guilty and depressed after a binge, resulting in very low self-esteem and poor body image.