Whats the difference between a mental health disorder and a mental illness?
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The way I see it, generally speaking even outside the field of mental conditions as a whole, illness is a general state of unwellness, while disorders actually impede your ability to function normally. For example, if you just have anxiety, that’s normal, everyone has it. If you have severe or chronic anxiety, then it becomes a mental illness. And if you have so much anxiety that it’s actually stopping you from interacting with others or going outside or eating, then it’s and anxiety disorder.
I think the term is used most often in the domain of mental illness though because unlike bodily issues which are most often acute, almost always impede your life in some way, and can very often be cured relatively quick with medication, mental illness is almost always chronic, and in most cases it is mild enough that it does not actually stop you from living and can usually only be controlled, not cured. So there, the distinction between illness and disorder is much more needed to disinguish between something you live with and something that stops you from actually living.
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