Mental Illness In America Essay

Mental Health America (formerly known as the National Mental Health Association) is the country’s leading nonprofit dedicated to helping all people live mentally healthier lives. With more than 320 affiliate nationwide, we represent a growing movement of Americans who promote mental wellness for the health and well being of the nation, every day, and in a time of crisis (2007 Mental Health America). As an organization, Mental Health America has been around for nearly a century. We began work in 1909 when Clifford W. Beers, a young business man who struggled with a mental illness and shared his story with the world in his autobiography “A Mind

There are many people in the United States that have a mental illness that is either not

What comes to mind when you think of mentally ill people? Is it depression? Or is it the asylums that “crazy people” are thrown into? What if I were to tell you that that's still a problem? Does having mental illness disclude people from the rest of humanity? Are their rights as Americans taken away from them because of their mental state? Every one in twenty five adults in America have lived with a mental disorder at one point, so why is their treatment not taken seriously?

For the majority of our nation’s history, treatment for those deemed mentally ill was poor at best. Now seen as rather dark and cruel, those suffering from a mental illness were cast away from society. Those admitted were locked away within the confines of an insane asylum, where they were ruthlessly tortured; many never seeing signs of improvement and subsequently never seeing the freedoms that lie beyond the confines of the asylum. Thus it is not hard to believe that as awareness of this treatment spread, civil rights activists took action toward protecting these patients. Patients diagnosed with mental illness were granted the following rights:

A mental illness is an issue that affects one’s behaviour, emotions, thoughts and ability to interact with others (Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing 2007). Common mental illnesses in Australia include anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, eating disorders and personality disorders, with the most prevalent being anxiety disorders and depression. Anyone can develop a mental illness, although suffering from a chronic medical illness, experiencing a highly stressful or traumatic event, having a blood relation with a mental disorder or drug and alcohol use can increase one’s risk (Mayo Clinic 2015).

Anxiety disorder is a common mental in illness in the United States. This disorder is affecting about 4o million adults18 years or older. This is about 18% of the United States population. I know you probably heard of OCD, but what is it really? Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is an anxiety disorder that is known for having uncontrollable and unwanted thoughts. Someone with OCD may tent to perform repetitive behaviors. A person with OCD may recognize that their obsessive thoughts and compulsive thoughts are uncontrollable. They can’t not stop it may feel like something is taking control of their bodies.

Mental illness is common in more than 7% of the world. The top two mental illnesses in America are depression, and generalized anxiety disorder. The brain is changing in more than 7% of the world. I don’t think the brain can be changed by just one single thought. The brain is made up of so many different parts that it would have to have multiple different aspects to change in order to switch from a normal to diseased brain.

I personally am not surprised that those of us living in the United States have higher rates of psychological disorders than the rest of the world. There are many different factors in which I believe attributes to this prominent issue, but one of the largest includes the fact that we live in such a consumerism based, and self-absorbed culture. This type of environment can put a lot of stress on individuals; causing people to have thoughts that the only we to be admired or viewed as successful in America is by obtaining the most put together life as well as own the latest model of car, have the most spacious house, own the latest clothes, etc. The pressure of this always weighing down has the tendency for stress to arise. Stress has the ability to cause psychological disorders to appear or become more prominent.

Senator Creigh Deeds story is just one of many that end in tragedy because of a mental health system that has failed. While the major proportion of people living with mental illness are not violent, they can become a victim of violence. According to the latest statistics from the American Psychological Association one in five adults has a diagnosable mental disorder, one in twenty-four has a serious mental disorder (SMI), and people with mental illness are no more likely to be violent that people without mental illness (Association, American Psychiatric, 2016). Untreated mental health care is characteristic of the violent crimes that we see happening today. Some of the reasons behind these untreated individuals are the unmet needs of people not having a financial means to pay for services, lack of insurance, knowledge about how to access care, embarrassment about having the need for services, and those that needed care but experienced delays in accessing care (Jones et al., 2014).

Before we can delve into the policy side, it is important to understand what mental health is; specifically, mental illness. So, what exactly is mental illness? The National Alliance on Mental Health, or NAMI; defines, mental illness as ‘a condition that affects a person's thinking, feeling or mood. Such conditions may affect someone's ability to relate to others and function each day,’. Mental illness is non-discriminatory, it has the potential to affect everyone regardless of race/ethnicity, sex and gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, and socioeconomic status. This is one of the many reasons that makes this issue so important.

While researching different media outlets that portrayed mental illness in their articles, there were some that continuously popped up in my searches. For example, CTV News and CBC News were two of many sources that contained the articles regarding an Ottawa man who was found not criminally responsible (NCR) last Thursday after he attacked a stranger with a hammer.

According to the World Health Organization, “One in four people in the world will be affected by mental or neurological disorders at some point in their lives.” This means that there are diseases that exist that can affect anyone in the world, but because an ignorant society dismisses it as less serious or something one can control, less and less people seek help. The brain, as complicated and important as it is, can in no way be perfect. Mental Health illnesses are not less serious or any less treatable than any other type of illness.

Source 5 is a primary cross-Sectional Population Based study and was written by Anna Wikman, Jane Wardle and Andrew Steptoe in (2011) for the purpose of statistically analysing the effect of chronic illnesses to mental health. That impact chronic conditions have on general quality of life is assessed in a population-based, cross sectional study to compare general quality of life and affective well-being in middle aged and older people across eight chronic conditions. Intestinal malrotation being a rare condition is not included in this study. However as chronic pain is experienced by adults with intestinal malrotation and this study includes conditions such as cancer, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis that cause chronic pain, I have

Almost everyone watches television in their free time. Whether it is the news or a popular TV show, millions of people are glued to their TVs. Because so many people watch TV, it is easy for different types of media to feed misinformation to the public. Around the world, many types of media create a stigma against mental illness, where instead they should help educate others what it truly is. If they explained the mental illnesses better, more people would not fear the individuals who have them.

One in five adults--nearly 60 million Americans, which is enough to fill Madison Square Garden almost 3,000 times over-- suffer from a mental disorder. Statistically, many people in this room probably suffer from some sort of mental illness-- diagnosed or not. Many of my friends and family suffer with mental illness, myself included. Most of the time you feel like there is nothing to do about your symptoms. If you’re brave enough to step out into the sun and seek treatment, you may encounter a very interesting and unfair stigma that is chained to mental health. Being affected by mental illness myself, I decided to explore the anchor that weighs down progress for mental health awareness.