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When people think of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), soldiers with traumatic experiences of war and people who have lived through disasters often come to mind.
However, trauma can arise from a variety of situations, such as neglect, abuse, domestic violence or abandonment by the primary caregiver.
Awareness of Obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, is certainly growing.
The term is now commonplace in the Australian vernacular and characters with the disorder are regularly depicted on television and in the movies.
But do these adjectives, analogies and representations come close to depicting the experiences of people living with the disorder?
At SANE we receive many calls from people concerned that a loved one may be displaying symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD).
It's common for someone concerned about a family member or friend to want to learn as much as possible about BPD and confirm what is happening to their loved one.
On first impression bipolar disorder is easy to understand. It’s a disorder where a person experiences extreme mood changes, highs and lows, with periods of normality in between.
But, when we look further into the disorder, or we hear people talk about their experiences, it starts to get a little more complex, and the terms bipolar I and bipolar II emerge.
It’s common to label people considered self-centred or egotistical as a narcissist. But what exactly is narcissism? How common is narcissism? And how do we know when someone is living with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD)?
Simon Champ is a pioneer for the rights of people with mental illness in Australia. He believes that one of these fundamental rights is to be recognised and respected as human beings like anyone else — a simple yet distressingly difficult right to achieve, as the battle against stigma continues to this day.
When Barbara Hocking first worked with Marg Leggatt in 1989, she had no idea that six years later she would go on to become the CEO of one of Australia’s leading mental health charities — a role she held for 17 years.
Her eyes sparkling with intelligence and good humour, Marg Leggatt is as full of energy today as she was in the 1980s, when she founded SANE.
Anne Deveson was a familiar face on television screens in the 1980s. An established journalist, broadcaster and filmmaker, she was appointed Director of the Australian Film, Television, and Radio School in 1985. What television audiences didn't know however, was that Anne was caring for one of her children, Jonathan, who had developed schizophrenia in his late teens.
Caroline Storm began supporting SANE almost 20 years ago after the tragic loss of her daughter, Ann, to mental illness.
'It was really the care and compassion of Barbara that sparked my relationship with SANE. She was a wonderful comfort to me during such a dark period,' says Caroline.
'To this day, it means so much to me to be able to support a cause that works so hard to make a meaningful difference to the lives of people affected by complex mental illness.'