My Life With Mental Disorders

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.

Forget all the stereotypes of mental illness. It has no face. It has no particular victim. Mental illness can affect an individual from any background and the black community is no exception. African Americans sometimes experience even more severe forms of mental health conditions because of unmet needs and barriers to treatment. According to the Office of Minority Health, African Americans are 20 percent more likely to experience serious mental health problems than the general population. That’s why UGA third year Majenneh Sengbe is taking action as the co-founder of her upcoming organization Black Minds Daily.

It was getting worse. Depression had become one of the biggest and most negative parts of my life. I wondered why I was not improving until I realized something. I did not want to get better. I had lived with depression for so long that I did not know what life was like without it. It was not until my father told me about the feeling of freedom that comes from a life without depression that I was encouraged to manage my mental illness by developing positive coping skills, overcoming stigma, and learning that I am not defined by my illness.

as my father has for most of my life refused to acknowledge my depression as a real condition

Adversity; a noun meaning a difficulty or struggle. Growing up with severe anxiety caused numerous social issues, academic stresses, and hardships in all areas of my life. Until my junior year of high school I never realized how unusual my stress level was until I received a prescription for Lexapro, a medicine used to treat depression and anxiety, two mental illnesses I have long struggled with. Although mental illness comes with a stigma that it is just mental, in reality mental illness is uncontrollable. Just admitting to my problem acted a big step in my triumph over mental illness.

Social workers are core professionals in the mental health field. The social worker’s role is to support people in developing holistically, working with them to facilitate their personal, social and educational development, to enable them to develop their voice, influence and place in society and to reach their full potential(Banks S. , 2010) pg.10). This is particullary true when working with young people.

Today, mental illness is still a recurring sickness that can have positive and negative effects on mankind. William Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth, takes place in Scotland and features famous characters like Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, and Banquo. Macbeth, the tragic hero, is a power hungry Thane whom seeks kingship. However, he lacks ambition and his wife attempts to urge him towards this edge. As Macbeth is urged toward ambitious ways, he commits the murder of Duncan, the king. From this point on, the reader notices Macbeth’s mind starts to deteriorate. As the tragedy continues, the reader also notices Macbeth is not the only one who suffers from an unstable mind,

Mental illness is intertwined with my life, and it has been this way for years. It is hard to describe my relationship and journey through mental illness because it is so much a part of me, that I don’t truly consider it a journey through, but my life journey itself. I was first diagnosed during eighth grade, though I had been living with mental illness for years prior. I was able to start medication and cognitive behavioral therapy during 2013, which seemed to help. My mental illness was manageable, however difficult, until March of 2014, during my freshman year. I was ready to commit suicide when I admitted myself to be hospitalized. I stayed in Miller Dwan for five days, where I received inpatient care. I was put on a new medication, started

Since I was 12, I have suffered from depression, anxiety, and ADD. It's really hard to deal with three different mental disorders in one body. When it comes to depression there's no telling when it's going to hit you, it just hits you out of nowhere, but you can feel when it's coming and if it's going to be bad. Depression doesn't go away necessarily, it's just you have your good days and you have your bad days. It's a 24/7 fight to stop it from dragging you down and sometimes you're just too tired to keep fighting so you just let it happen and deal with it. Depression isn't always crying and being sad, it's also not wanting to be around people for literally days on end and other times it's needing to be around people because you feel so alone and empty that you can't handle being by yourself. It's being around your friends and family and feeling absolutely nothing. You don't feel joy, happiness, laughter. It's a black abyss. You can't snap out of it and make it go away no matter how bad or how hard you try. It's desperately wanting to enjoy something and actually feel normal for once. It's eating everything you can or going days without food because you don't feel hungry. It's laying on the floor in a ball crying

Mental illness affects many people throughout the United States each year. Some people classify it as any psychiatric disorder that is the cause of untypical behavior. Many years ago, doctors locked up mentally ill patients in mental institutions and basically forgot about them. Medical professionals housed the mentally ill in different corridors of the hospital. Sometimes, they stayed in isolation and were in some type of restraints. Once government officials realized that neglect was getting out of control, deinstitutionalization became a hot topic. Deinstitutionalization started as a government policy that became a long-term trend to lessen the burden on professionals in mental treatment facilities. Its intent was to have fewer treatments in public hospitals and fewer people residing in the facilities. The deinstitutionalization movement began in the mid-1950s and government officials were hoping the process would improve the treatment toward the mentally ill (Lauer, 2014). Additionally, there were several drugs that helped the mentally ill and officials believed that those people would get better care by living in a community based environment. Moreover, it was another way to balance the government budgets. However, the impact on human service agencies, specifically community mental health facilities, prisons, and probation offices, was less than adequate because all of the unknowns and the social stigma attached to the mentally ill.

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).

Mentally disordered women that are incarcerated have different needs than their male counterparts do. According to Sun (2010) research done by the Bureau of Justice Statistics show that there are an increasing number of mentally disordered inmates in correctional facilities. Although the plight of mentally disordered women in prisons in no better than that of their male counterparts, harsher sentences, especially drug offenses cause overcrowding in women’s prisons. These inmates are a diverse group with a wide range of treatment needs. In many occasions these inmates have more than one diagnosis as evidenced by research. Research indicates that many women going into correctional facilities not only have substance abuse problems but mental disorders as well. They are also more susceptible to environmental stressors. Overcrowding and noise, can aggravate existing mental disorders or hasten the development of new ones (Sun, 2010). According to Stuart, Wormer, and Bartollas, (2011) in the general population, women with substance use disorders are more likely to have mental disorders compared with their male counterparts. The most common disorders in these women are posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics 2006 special report on mental health problems among prison and jail inmates, female inmates reported higher rates of mental health problems than male inmates in state prisons. Major depression and

Mental health disorders are becoming more and more prevalent in the United States today, especially since the world consists of more prestigious medical professionals that can diagnose individuals. What does a mental health disorder entail and how can one be effectively diagnosed? Many people do not realize they are suffering from a mental illness, which can sometimes be extremely detrimental to a person’s health and can eventually lead to death if not treated. Extensive research has provided the world with more knowledge on the causes, symptoms, and treatments of several mental health disorders with the help of the DSM-5. Any individual can be diagnosed with a mental health disorder, even those “perfect” celebrities people idolize. Robin Williams, a well-known actor and comedian, took his own life in August 2014 from the detrimental effects of bipolar disorder and depression.

I understand the word depress before I could even understand the word “happiness”. Growing up, my mum was plagued with chronic depression and I watched her lifelessly trying to organise her life. After a divorce, my mum’s condition deteriorated and I barely see her with a sincere laughter anymore. As a young child, it was painful for me to see my mum suffer and this certainly has impacted my life. Soon, as I grew older, I learned that my mum’s condition was genetics and it was triggered by a tragic incident. I soon made it my goal to understand more of mental illness despite being a hush-hush subject in my household. This obviously motivated me to understand more about the psyche of the human mind.

I was thirteen when I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. The diagnosis did not come to me as a surprise; it was expected. I got my diagnosis behind my parents back. Thirteen, the legal age that I can go to the doctor’s office without a parent if I wanted. I never told them. They wouldn’t understand, they never really did. The main cause of my mental illness was not being good enough. Having an older sister who was good at everything was hard to deal with. She excelled in academics, she held leadership roles in many clubs or organizations, and she was ‘the perfect daughter.’ My parents sometimes unknowingly compared me to my older sister. I was always one step below her. I got lower grades, less medals, and struggled in the things she always excelled at. What was worse was that I grew up in a very stereotypical Asian family. Getting anything below an ‘A’ was considered failure. I was expected to be the best at everything I put my hands on.