Why is There Difficulty in Diagnosing a Mental Illness?
Being a carer for a person with a mental illness is difficult to deal with at the best of times, but when you don’t know what you are dealing with then it is even harder. Sometimes it is years before a person is given a diagnosis in regards to a mental illness they may be suffering. One of the problems a carer faces is trying to find out what type of mental illness they are dealing with. It can often be a very long period of time before a mental illness is diagnosed because so many symptoms can present the same and sometimes a person can suffer from several symptoms of several illnesses. Also, there are other issues, such as the person that is ill may not, at the time of assessment, be able to communicate that well, and therefore the doctor cannot get a clear picture of what is happening. Because of this it may take several psychiatrist visits, or hospitalisations, to fully understand what exactly is happening. Another situation which arises is that, the person with the illness may be
