Is Anxiety a Mood Disorder or Thought Disorder? Know All!

Both mood disorders and thought disorders are mental health problems that affect the emotional state of the afflicted individual.

While there is a slight difference between the two disorders, understanding their definitions will shade more light on their causes, symptoms, treatments, and how they’re related to anxiety.

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In this article, you’ll learn more about mood disorders and thought disorders, so you can be in a better situation to help yourself, or a loved one affected by the disorder.

What Is a Mood Disorder?

Mood disorder is a mental health condition that affects a person’s emotional state leading to long periods of sadness, happiness, or both.

The affected individual is likely to exhibit certain abnormal behaviors when extremely sad or extremely happy. It’s normal for anyone to experience mood changes depending on what they are going through at the moment.

However, for a trained medical practitioner to diagnose someone with a mood disorder, they need to show certain symptoms for a few weeks. Mood disorders often affect how people deal with routine activities associated with school or work.

But, is anxiety a mood disorder?

In general, experiencing some apprehension about what could happen is being anxious. But, when the apprehension is so extreme and is experienced for several weeks or longer, the troubled individual can be diagnosed with anxiety disorders, which directly affects their current mood.

Mood Disorder Symptoms

Common types and symptoms of mood disorders include:

• Dysthymia

This is a low-grade mood disorder that can last for even up to two years. When an individual is suffering from Dysthymia [1*] , they seem irritated or depressed at all times.

• Major Depression 

This is a condition where an individual seems lazy, sad, hopeless, or not interested in being active even in their favorite daily routines. The disorder may not seem acute as it lasts for around two weeks.

• Bipolar Disorder 

This is a disorder that usually happens when an individual has certain mental health problems such as mania and depression alternating with each other.

• Substance-Induced Mood Disorder 

When a person is afflicted by exposure to certain toxins, forms of treatment, or an addiction to alcohol and drugs, they may likely experience this type of mood disorder.

• Mood Disorder Related to Other Health Problems 

Some medical conditions or illnesses such as chronic diseases, cancer, bacterial infections, and physical injuries can trigger mood disorder symptoms.

What Is A Thought Disorder?

A thought disorder is when a person is not capable of creating logical sentences in speech and writing.

People who are suffering from other disorders such as the following often display thought disorder symptoms: 

• Depression
• Mania
• Schizophrenia 

If a person suffering from a thought disorder doesn’t get the right mental health treatment, the situation can quickly escalate and become frustrating to everyone involved. 

The general feeling that characterizes anxiety is having extreme thoughts of worry by somehow believing that something will go wrong in the future.

Anxiety affects the thoughts of an afflicted individual and is actually a behavioral disorder with elements of mood and thought disorder.

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Types of Thought Disorders

Here are the types of thought disorders: 

• Perseveration 

This is a condition where an individual seems to obsessively keep repeating certain words.

A person suffering from this type of thought disorder will always seem to think they’re perfectly right by repeating the words compulsively.

• Neologism 

A person affected with neologism is likely to introduce new expressions or words into their speech, creating confusion. The disorder is likened to circumstantiality, which is a mental health condition associated with sounding irrelevant while speaking before coming back to the main story.

• Echolalia 

A person suffering from Echolalia will keep repeating the words or phrases of the person they’re listening to at the moment.

• Word Approximations 

A person suffering from this condition is likely to use certain words incorrectly and abnormally in the middle of his or her sentences.

• Incoherence 

This type of thought disorder is also referred to as Salad. It’s characterized by a disorganized way of arranging words and semantics in a person’s speech. Therefore, an affected person will find it hard to create consistent speech.

• Blocking 

This thought disorder makes it hard for an affected individual to complete their thoughts because they keep pausing too many times as they speak.

• The pressure of Speech 

In most cases, it’s even hard to clearly understand a person suffering from this thought disorder. The individual will tend to speak too fast, in a high volume, and somewhat incoherently.

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Wrapping Up

While it’s not very clear what causes mood disorders, chemical imbalances in the brain and lifestyle changes can lead to certain types of mental health problems.

At EZCare Clinic, we often come across people with different types of thought, mood, and behavioral disorders.

If you want to get your loved one the proper care necessary for treating mental health disorders, contact our experienced team of licensed professionals who can help you get the medical assistance you need from the comfort of your own home.

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