Mental Illness: A Disease That Overlaps Normality

I have read an article called "Mental Illness: The New Cancer." this articles the writer told us three sad stories about how Mental Illness has killed people he loved.

Allen Frances was on the task force that led to the development of the DSM-IV, served as the Department Chair of Psychiatry at the University of Duke, and a notary author of numerous books and research. His experiences and education allowed him to observe and draw a conclusion that society was creating an inflation of mental health disorders that could be evaluated as normal. After his early retirement, he decided to write about those experiences, in a book called, Saving normal: An insider 's revolt against out-of-control psychiatric diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the medicalization of ordinary life, and bring awareness to the Diagnostic Statistical Manuel’s (2015) inflation of mental health disorders. The book focuses on the history of mental health and Frances’s perspective on what is normal and abnormal mental health disorders.

Today, mental disorders are ubiquitous and can be highly detrimental to a person’s physical and emotional well-being. Many individuals who struggle with mental disorders share a background of traumatic events as well as a genetic transfer from another relative. For instance, victims of sexual assault can become very ill in terms of their mental stability. Likewise, environmental causes play a vital role in a person’s psychological patterns. According to the American Psychological Association, too much emphasis is put on the study of mental illness rather than the brain itself.

Suicide rates have skyrocketed in the last few years due in part to the lack of access to mental healthcare caused by the stigma that surrounds seeking treatment. An estimated 15% of people diagnosed with depression and approximately 20% of those diagnosed with bipolar disorder take their own life according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHA) fact sheet. While these numbers are shocking, the statistics do not include the many suicide attempts among those with a mental illness or those that go unreported. SAMHA also claims that one-third of the 15.7 million adults who reported having a major depressive episode in the

The article addresses multiple interpretations of the mental disorder: schizophrenia. One of which, characterizes the mental disorder as a disorder that impairs an individual’s perception of reality; leading to significant cognitive and social impairment. Other opinions argue that the disorder should be separated into several different ones; stating that it’s a very serious group of disorders that make the patient experience vivid delusions, hallucinations and on top of other types, states of psychosis. Additionally, schizophrenic patients suffer ongoing side effects such as absence of movement,

In 1961 Thomas Szasz penned a book by the title The Myth of Mental Illness that would go on to cause quite the stir in the world of psychiatry. In the book, Szasz stated his belief that what most psychiatrists would label as mental illnesses are in fact not illnesses at all, but instead what he would go on to call “problems in living.” This article will take a critical approach at Szasz reasons for his belief in these “problems in living” including an objective outline of his argument, a discussion on the validity of the argument and its’ premises, and finally the strongest objections to the argument. Szasz is an important figure in modern psychiatry and his opinions are very divisive but certainly worth discussing.

Another issue people with mental illness face is comorbidity of illnesses. Due to the fact that mental health and physical health are conjoined, comorbidity of other illnesses tends to occur when mental illness goes untreated, or vice versa. One study estimates 25 years of life are lost for each person with a serious mental illness, which is commonly attributed to illnesses like cardiovascular disease and diabetes (Shim & Rust, 2013). On top of that, further data shows that when compared to people without a mental illness, people who are mentally ill receive less attention to comorbid issues, and an overall lower quality of care (Smith et al., 2016). One example of receiving an abnormal level of attention during a doctor visit could be referred to as diagnostic overshadowing, which is when a person’s mental disorder diagnosis overshadows physical ailments (Kassam, Papish, Modgill, & Patten, 2012).

[b]" [i] God loves all creatures.[/i] Can you honestly say you believe that?"[/b] If god loved humans as the Priest thought the celestial being did why would he create monsters capable of devouring them? It was a nice theory it really was and who was she to pop his bubble. People regardless of species would always choose the path that got them further in life and that path was littered with violence and corruption especially now that the world's power had gone from human to vampire. Violence and power went hand in hand and she would have gotten nowhere without either of them if it was her lot in life to continue that never-ending loop of bloodshed then she would proudly do so.

What is the dance of Mental Illness? It is not surprising that with tragic events like ongoing wars, terrorist threats, and an uncertain economy that Americans are experiencing powerful emotions. It is appropriate and healthy for most people to have feelings of anxiety, sadness, anger, and grief. Some people however are having debilitating reactions to life. This is especially true for those who live with serious mental disorders like bipolar disorder, depression, substance abuse, anxiety, and or PTSD. Some of these people are disabled and caught in the Dance of Mental Illness. This paper will make known the Dance of Mental Illness, and will show that it is treatable through a biblical approach. The mental illness dance is a person who is

7). People who suffer from mental illness have different behaviors than others. Therefore, people in society are often concerned and seek to learn what the problem is. However, they aren’t as concerned on the validity of the information. Consequently it is important how mental illnesses are defined because that is what society will use to base their actions off of (Hinshaw, 2007, p. 8).

Mental illness is becoming an increasing issue in peoples lives around the world. There are many different types of mental illnesses that affect people on daily basis and sometimes ends up totally turning an individual’s life upside down and changing it for the worse especially schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a type of psychotic disorder in which multiple parts of a person’s life starts to deteriorate such as personal, social and occupational functioning as a result of unusual thoughts and perceptions, disturbed emotions and behaviors (Comer, 2016). Have you ever wondered what life is like when one experiences schizophrenia? Here is a quote written by Francesca Zappia that clearly describes the experience, “Believing something existed and then finding out it didn’t was like reaching the top of the stairs and thinking there was one more step.” This quote clearly depicts how this disorder takes over one’s life as if creating sometimes a whole other world that is distant from reality and when told what they believed to be an important part of their life was never true it feels like they lost their sense of self and makes them question their life. In the film, A Beautiful Mind, we are introduced to a character John Nash who was known as an important American mathematician that spent most of his life as part of Princeton University, whose life was actually affected by schizophrenia. We see how this disorder takes over his life and how he deals with it for the rest of his life.

The social problem I have chosen to write about is mental illness. This problem is important to talk about “because of the number of people it affects, the difficulty of defining and identifying mental disorders, and the ways in which mental illness is treated” (Kendall, 2013, p. 227). “About 57.7 million people, or one in four adults, in the United States suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder” (Kendall, 2013, p. 229). “Many of these illnesses begin in childhood or adolescence, with the most common problems being anxiety disorder, mood disorders, impulse-control disorders, and substance abuse disorders” (Kendall, 2013, p. 229). I chose this topic because I wanted to learn more about how mental illness is a social problem and I have been interested in learning more about mental illnesses and how to help people with mental disorders.

The United States has their own view on mental illness when compared to other developed countries. The developed countries that were analyzed with the United States were England and France. Our research question was “Does the United States view mental illness differently than other developed countries?” The research that I conducted was over the policies and ideologies of mental illness in the United States.

There appears to be a common outlook on mental illness. Relating social norms theory to mental illness, individuals who perceive others to have negative attitudes toward mental illness may themselves be more likely to devalue and avoid people with mental illness in order to fit the perceived social norm. On the other hand, contact with individuals who express positive views of people with mental illness may lead to reduced stigma and discrimination of individuals with mental illness. Therefore, interventions that involve people without mental illness who discuss their positive experiences with people who do have mental illness may also serve to reduce mental illness stigma. Family members and friends of individuals with mental illness may be especially good candidates for sharing their positive perspectives. (Wainberg, Cournos, Wall et al., 2016). History tells us there is a need to protect the privacy of people who are diagnosed with mental health issues in a world filled with stigma and misperceptions. People with mental illness and substance use problems may be legitimately concerned that employers, insurance companies, financial institutions, medical practices, and educational institutions could use their health information to discriminate against them, often without their knowledge. In addition, with the advent of the Internet, social media, govern- mental data collection, and the constant threat of online hacking, privacy is fast becoming a fragile concept and is

Throughout my life, I have had a fair amount of exposure to abnormality, and mental illness. I was exposed early on to abnormality. My father, who spent 20 years of his life in the U.S. Navy, was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Disorder in 1995, following the riots in the camps of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in 1994. This is not my only experience with mental illness, although it was the most persistent experience I have had with abnormality. My mother went through severe depression when she turned 40. My sister was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder at 18, while I was diagnosed at the age of 15. Lastly, my two best friends, Kylie and Liz, both have and cope with having a mental illness. From these experiences, I have concluded that the source of