Reflection Paper On Mood Disorders

B110 Final Reflection Paper

Rachel Renfrow (rrenfrow)

Instructor – Kelsey Bonfils

July 30, 2014

What are mood disorders? At a young age, I’ve witnessed strange behaviors in my family, and even in myself. I noticed through observational learning (Chapter 7) that my mother and uncle, who both grew up and terrible homes, had these symptoms as well. My mother, who has bipolar disorder (Chapter 10) would wake up some morning ecstatic and in a very happy mood, but soon she would have mood swings and become angry very quickly. There would also be days where she was too depressed to even talk to or look at me and my siblings. My uncle, who has schizophrenia would have similar symptoms, but they were much more violent. Other than mood

I feel that part of my disorder comes from my shy and introverted personality (P variable). I was unable to fend for myself and express myself so I accepted negativity. This made me feel weaker as a person and I felt as if I was a target. Growing up in a home with a low socioeconomic status (Chapter 10) is also a reason for depression, and poverty in my family led to me being bullied in school and behavioral issues at home (E variable). At times, I felt that I needed to be like others in order to be liked, led to social comparisons (Chapter 8). I felt that the bullying would stop if I became like my peers, and my behavior became more negative through this time As I grew older I realized it wasn’t helpful to me emotionally, and I realized that the more I compared myself to others who I felt were better than me, the worse I would feel about myself (P

I feel that if I do nothing, I will ultimately grow worse inside and become helpless as a person. In the past, I’ve had episodes of helplessness and have succumbed to self-harm, and I feel that if nothing changes now, then that could unfortunately begin again. With depression, my risk of suicide is already higher than the norm, but since I’ve been exposed to suicide and warning signs for suicide, I feel that if I ignore it I could eventually fall down the same