The Difference Between Physical Illness and Mental Illness.

Mental and physical illness are not the same thing.  A mental illness is a disease of the mind.  It's psychological. A physical illness is something wrong with your physical body, such as an injury, disease, sickness.  A mental illness can be caused by many things.  One thing it can be caused by is heredity.  A lot of times mental illnesses are passed down from generation to generation throughout the family.  Examples of this are stress, hyper active disorders, and abusive behavior.  Mental illness can also be caused by brain injuries or defects, infections, and substance abuse.  Physical illnesses are usually caused by bacteria or a disease.  But an interesting factor is that they can effect each other.  For example if some one is depressed, which is considered a mental illness, they may cause physical harm to themselves and become physically ill.  Or vise versa, say if someone is physically ill or sick they may become stressed or depressed.  So mental and physical illnesses are not the same thing at all by definition, but they do have an effect on each other.