Hi rose,
In chemistry and physics class in high school, did you look at prisms and shine light through gases ? Well when white light is broken up the rainbow is a spectrum ...
keep these images in mind.
When we excited gases with a current and shone light through them, only parts of the specturm were visible right? Helium (He) had lots of ... say reds a bar of green and maybe a bit of dark blue (OK- i do not really remember- but lets pretend). Hydrogen (H) had bits and pieces of colour appear ar different points. ....
So doctors took this image and applied it to mental disorders. Several disorders have the same Colour or main symptom like Anxiety or Fatigue. Several disorders will affect a common area of the brain (memory) or common protein (serotonin). So if we are looking at a rainbow of related disorders bright red might be where we could put several Anxiety disorders then in the yellows maybe Depressions and so on to the blues and the 6 Bipolars and in the dark purples the schizophenics?
So my bipolar might light up a bit of anxiety's cardinal reds and several bars of orange!!! with a concentration of a rainbow in the blues. Someone else's panic disorder will have a rainbow of red to orange with bars of yellow and a hint or two of green and purple.
Now the next question Rose.
Depression is thought to have two aspects, a genetic factor and and environmental one. Genetic is what you inherit, it is you chemical balance ... or imbalance and the predisposition you might have towards an illness.
Environmental is the aspect of the illness that you are taught ... we are taught to think a certain way, accept certain life conditions, live a certain way -eat, exercise, sleep- In my case the doctors thought my depression was caused by low self esteem, poor/no parental support, few peer connections. I was taught by my father and kids at school that i was a worthless piece of s*** and I believed it. I had no other experience as a child so this was all i knew. The task of the doctors was to wash from my head these erroneous ideas and reprogramme a new basic me. The doctors were to give me a new srtucture to build me on.
"Minimal meds" at 21 was a liquid dose of prozac that did nothing to tell you the truth. After 6 months, the doctor and I just gave the meds up and went with talks.
At 27, I had a miscarrage and tried art-therapiessss rather than medications. I did not know I was depressed at the time. I was sad and greiving - normal. But I should have sought serious help then... but I wanted to hide. I was ashamed and I was in pain and I sad. I had just killed my tiny baby (it was a spontanious abortion - the embryo died at 8 weeks and my body ejected the corpse at 12 weeks). ( Again, Doctor thought I was creating my depression with a cyclical and negative thought pattern that talking would fix. no meds.)
so Rose see a light
go on some where?