A person who is thinking or talking about suicide or homicide should seek help immediately.

Children
About 20 percent of children suffer from diagnosable mental, emotional or behavioral disorders. About five to nine percent of children ages 6 - 18 suffer from a serious emotional disturbance.

The following symptoms are flags that potential serious problems may exist:

The child seems overwhelmed and troubled by his or her feelings and unable to cope with them.

The child seems constantly preoccupied, worried, anxious and intense.

The child has fears or phobias that are unreasonable or interfere with normal activities.

The child’s school performance declines and doesn’t pick up again.

The child has sleep difficulties, such as refusing to be separated from one or both parents at bedtime, inability to sleep, sleeping too much, nightmares and night terrors.

The child begins to act in a provocatively sexual manner.

Some symptoms or reactions are so serious that a pediatrician or a psychiatrist should be consulted immediately:

The child talks about suicide. Children don’t talk idly about suicide to get attention. Once they have begun to talk about it, they also may have begun to plan a way to do it.

The child appears to be accident-prone. In younger children, a succession of accidents can become the equivalent of suicide attempts.

The child mutilates himself or herself in some way-cutting or scarring, pulling out hair, or biting fingernails until nail beds bleed.

The child is using alcohol or drugs.

Types of Mental Illness
There are three types of major mental illness: major depression, bipolar disorder (manic depression) and schizophrenia. A mental health professional usually can determine whether a person has one of these illnesses, or is experiencing difficulties for other reasons.

Major Depression
Major depression is characterized by a depressed mood that can range from feelings of dullness or apathy to total despair. Anxiety, crying, difficulty in concentrating, low self-esteem and thoughts of suicide may occur. Changes in body functioning also are common: sleep disturbances, eating problems, energy loss or agitation.

The most typical and obvious symptom, however, is a loss of interest in people, events, activities and things that the person formerly enjoyed. In major depression, the symptoms interfere with, or can actually prevent, the person from leading his or her usual life.

Major depression can occur at any age. It has been diagnosed in all age groups, from infants to the elderly. About one in four women and one in ten men will report experiencing it during their lifetime.

Bipolar Disorder (Manic Depression)
Bipolar disorder is characterized by episodes of mania alternating with episodes of depression. During the manic episode, the individual experiences rapid, unpredictable emotional changes; he or she may be both euphoric and irritable. Energy level is high and the person can get by on very little sleep.

They may speak very rapidly as their thoughts race from one idea to another, and they are easily distracted. They may have grandiose ideas or delusions, and they often show uncharacteristically poor judgment-spending money wildly or engaging in indiscreet sexual activity, for example.

Bipolar disorder occurs with equal frequency in men and women, and it generally strikes before the age of 35. This disorder occurs less frequently than major depression, affecting about one in 100 people.

People who have depressive disorders (major depression or bipolar disorder) typically respond well to treatment. In fact, medications and psychological treatments, alone or in combination, can help 80 percent of those with these disorders. With adequate treatment, future episodes may be prevented or reduced in severity.

Schizophrenic Disorders
Schizophrenic disorders are chronic, severe and disabling brain diseases. Approximately one person out of every one hundred develops a schizophrenic disorder during their lifetime - more than two million Americans experience a schizophrenic disorder in a given year. Although schizophrenic disorders affect men and women with equal frequency, the disorders often appear earlier in men, usually in the late teens or early twenties, than in women, who are generally affected in the twenties to early thirties.

Treatment, typically a combination of medication and other therapies, can relieve many symptoms of schizophrenia. An estimated one in five persons recovers completely.

Health insurance. Most health care plans now require people to designate a primary care physician. Many initial health consultations are obtained through the primary care physician, who can make referrals to specialized care, including mental health professionals. However, some health care plans do not require members to go through their primary care physicians to get referrals to mental health care. Check with your health care provider.

Local mental health authority (provider of publicly funded mental health services). If you do not know the name of your local mental health authority, contact the Office of Consumer Services/Rights Protection (CS/RP) at the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation (TDMHMR) at 1-800-252-8154. CS/RP staff can help people get into their local mental health system.