Essay On Mental Health Awareness

Like all form of disparities, mental health disparities is a serious challenge for minorities’ communities across America. Individuals with mental health illness how do not receive adequate health care due to variations can be affected in many ways. When their mental illness progress without any diagnosis they can easily be perceived as a threat to society. In cases where crimes are committed, and they cannot prove they are mentally challenged they can be charge and send to prison without being diagnosed which could affect their condition due to the lack of treatment. Without eradicating or implementing policies to deal with mental health disparities the probability of legally or morally assuming that people with mental health challenges are

Doctors and psychiatrists are too willing to place someone on medications for a quick fix. We are an overmedicated society looking for an easy answer for a solution to our problems. Research suggests that one in five Americans are diagnosed with a mental health disorder. I firmly believe that there is a mental health crisis in the United States and many people go undiagnosed. Mental health, does in my opinion, has stigmas attached to it.

Stigma of Mental Illness The stigma of mental illness has a staggering presence in American society. Stigma is “... a socio-cultural process by which members of marginalized groups are labeled by other people as abnormal, shameful, or otherwise undesirable” (Michaels, Lopez, & Corrigan, 2012). A 2013 nationwide survey revealed that 46% of Americans believed that the seriously mentally ill were more likely to be dangerous than members of the the general public (McGinty, Webster, & Barry, 2014). These negative attitudes are also held by mental health professionals, which most likely results from them “...working with patients when they are in the most disturbed phase of their illness, despite this not being a typical characteristic of everyday mental illness” (Cleary, Deacon, Jackson, Andrew, & Chan, 2012).

Sarah Wilkes: Prompt 1 There are many negative stigmas in regards to seeking treatment for mental illness. Is it possible that people around the world choose to not seek treatment due to these stigmas? Or does one’s cultural beliefs keep them from seeking treatment as well? Negative attitudes and beliefs toward people who have a mental health condition is common in America and countries around the globe.

It can affect the thinking, mood and feelings of a person. Mental illness should be considered a legitimate illness, meaning sufferers should get the medical help they need to overcome their mental illness. Around 32,000 adults out of the 1.3million who call Hawaii home are living with a serious mental illness. Unfortunately, many of these adults who suffer with a mental illness won’t get the help they

“ There are many of these examples depicted online, and while some may find them “stupid” or “whiny” you must take the time to consider that just like a physical illness, a mental illness is serious. This is why, in high schools and middle schools where we don’t have counselors available for children and teenagers who most obviously need help, the problem could evolve into one of much more severity. An example of this could be a child who has separated parents, but a great school life. Said child is popular at school, but one day a classmate notices that whenever the two have playdates, they almost always go to one of two different houses, and now they’ve singled out a child who is different. Now, because of his parent’s separation, he is distanced from both his peers and teachers, and now his grades began to plummet.

The term “Mental Illness” can have a wide variety of what illness a person actually has, a mental illness can be depression, schizophrenia, PTSD, etc. Mental illness is a wide range of conditions that will affect one’s ability to think, their behavior, and their mood, yet there is no cure for one’s mental illness. With the help of hospitals, the right therapy, and of course, medicine mental illness can surely be treated. In society today, people view mental illness as having something wrong with someone, that they are psychotic and should be locked in a mental facility for the rest of their lives. We as humans view this due to the fact of everything we see on television and hear around our surroundings.

The regularisation of these disorders has made people think it is ok to use these sever issues as a pass remark or an insult, this both belittles the illnesses itself and also makes suffers of these disorders seem as outcasts. By people reading about these mental health issues in literacy often makes the idea of having an illness, by glorifying and romanticising mental disorders has created the illusion that having something which makes people like a misery is actually a quirk. {all needs re-edited}

Just 38 percent of youth with a mood disorder such as depression or bipolar disorder receive treatment services. Many students’ mental health problems continue to go unidentified and untreated,” (Gold). In summary, schools are not identifying the students who need help and those who do need help rarely seek it. Identifying students with mental health illnesses is a step for schools to prevent school shootings and creating a safer community. Schools would also be less likely to be shot down if they cracked down on bullying and assisted victims of bullying.

Another concern about banning weapons from people with severe mental illness is that the policies cause the population to develop harmful ideas about individuals with severe mental illness (McGinty et al., 2013. Consequently, people with severe mental illness do not go into treatment (McGinty et al., 2013). Misconceptions about severe mental illness are not the only contributors to stigma; labels can also have a large effect on how the general population feels about those with severe mental

Stigma is “... a socio-cultural process by which members of marginalized groups are labeled by other people as abnormal, shameful, or otherwise undesirable” (Michaels, Lopez, & Corrigan, 2012). A 2013 nationwide survey revealed that 46% of Americans believed that the seriously mentally ill were more likely to be dangerous than members of the general public (McGinty, Webster, & Barry, 2014). These negative attitudes are also held by mental health professionals, which most likely results from them “...working with patients when they are in the most disturbed phase of their illness, despite this not being a typical characteristic of everyday mental illness” (Cleary, Deacon, Jackson, Andrew, & Chan, 2012). Society tends to view individual violent acts as a comprehensive representation of the mentally ill as a whole, but this violent depiction of mental illness is inaccurate in most cases. In fact, “...less than 3% to 5% of US crimes involve people with mental illness … [and] fewer than 5% of the 120,000 gun-related killings in the United States between 2001 and 2010 were perpetrated by people diagnosed with mental illness” (Metzl & Macleish, 2015).

However what we do know is that mental illnesses are complex, and in most cases indescribably destructive. In addition, the human population has a knack for making generalizations when we can not understand complexities. This combination of miscommunication seems like a recipe for disaster, right? Well, in a recent study its been proven that the vast majority of the general public believe at least one negative stigma about anorexia, bulimia, etc. This leads me to believe that the vast majority of people is also insanely uneducated.

Our society today is filled with potential stressors all caused by our own expectations of life and rising needs. With world shrunk to a global village, information on fingertips, uncertain economy, terrorism, rising cost of living, parental and health care concerns add up to stress which is the main factor for the rise in mental illness. I believe one in every 5 would certainly have some sort of mental illness which disrupts their daily life. Aristotle rightly said everyone is born with a clean slate.

The stigma of mental illness has the effect of that of a double edged sword. One edge is the public, led by misunderstanding and fear, which influences how they will interact and support people with mental illness. The second edge cuts into the mindsets of the mentally ill themselves, as they deal with living in a stigma saturated culture; this influences how they experience their physiological distress and also whether they decide to seek treatment. The attitudes that are cultivated through public misconception create a negative impact upon mental illness.

Research has shown that the majority of information that has been accumulated about mental illness is from what is shown in the media. The myths don’t just damage perceptions they can also influence how people with mental illnesses react. One study showed that workers and convicts would rather stay in jail being labelled as a criminal than openly admitting that they were suffering from a metal illness and be put into a psychiatric hospital. These myths that have enveloped society have lead to a series of refectory repercussions that needs to be