The Impact Of Mental Illness When our minds fail to coordinate and function normally

The Impact Of Mental Illness
When our minds fail to coordinate and function normally, almost every part of our body is usually affected. The human brain is responsible for coordinating many functions of the body. When we feel pain, it is first registered in our minds before we can react to it. All our actions and responses to the environment are because of the brain. In most cases, we will react the way our minds direct us. When we don’t function normally, then the condition can easily be related to a mental health disorder. Mental illnesses are among the most misunderstood and feared among people from various parts of the world. The people most affected are ones in lower class households because most can’t afford proper care, of their illness is never acknowledged because they don’t want to feel ashamed or looked down upon. In most cases the illness in people develops during early age and progresses noticeably as time goes on until an event in their life triggers the illness to become more primitive and distinct , showing all warning signs full blown. The Impact of mental illness on families has a ripple effect creating mixed emotions, tension and changes that most people aren’t willing to make.
When diagnosed early and treated properly, many people fully recover from their mental illness or are able to successfully control their symptoms. Although some people become disabled because of a chronic or severe mental illness, many others are able to live full and productive lives. In fact, according to Medicinenet.com a well respected newsletter website, as many as 8 in 10 people suffering from a mental illness can effectively return to their normal activities if they receive appropriate treatment. The words mental illness are heard and immediately this stigma of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder come about but that is not only what a mental illness is , there are more than a thousand different mental illnesses all across the board each differing from one another. Mental illness affects people of all race, color, size and gender there is no specific type of person mental illnesses effect. Mental health issues affect not only adults but children as well according to NAMI.org , a well accredited site for any mental illness, with 70% of youth in state justice centers having mental disabilities and 1 in 5 kids developing one before the age of 15. The problem with mental health in young kids is that no one really thinks something so serious is the problem since kids are so unpredictable, so instead when a child starts showing behavioral problems or seems more withdrawn than usual they think it’s just a kid being a kid or the child becoming more mature hence why there’s no attention paid to it. In a lot of cases the parents don’t recognize the warning signs or just don’t know what to look for , so it goes unnoticed and develops into a much bigger problem as time goes on. According to NAMI , 90% of all suicides in people 10-24 years old, occured to someone with an underlying mental illness that was never recognized. The problem is that not enough people are trained to recognize warning signs and address them early before the illness gets worse but instead find out when something happens or until the illness is recognized by someone. Children aren’t the only ones with unrecognized illnesses. As people grow into adults many have more stressors than others which result in mental illness like anxiety or depression or bipolar disorder as a way of their mind to cope with life around them. According to MH.gov, a government website for mental health , 41,000 lives are lost each year due to suicide in adults with mental illness , those numbers almost double the number of people admitted into mental facilities on suicide watch. In recap , mental illness affects everyone from celebrities to regular personal , everyone is susceptible to mental illness no matter race color or gender.
People with a mental illness know how hard it is to cope with real life and regular expectations. Mental health has wide reaching effects on people’s education , employment , relationships and physical health. From a public point of view , stereotypes depicting people with mental illness as being dangerous , unpredictable or generally incompetent is as much a form of active discrimination just as it would be to physically exclude these people from activists and employment. Sadly that’s what happens every day to someone who is not like the rest of us. This is not limited to just social activities either , it’s educational and employment opportunities that are made more difficult and in medical settings negative stereotypes can make providers less likely to pay their attention to the patient than on the disease they have which results in patients having to see follow up doctors or specialists. These may seem mediocre to the ‘normal’ human because we undergo everything someone with a mental disability does but these kind of displays of discrimination can become burned into the person(s) involved leading to them thinking of them self negatively because of thoughts expressed by others and in turn think of themselves as unable to recover , dangerous or undeserving of care because they feel less than. Since there are so many stigmas surrounding mental illness many people don’t feel like they’re able to get help so they don’t seek the help they need. According to Psychological Science.org, (Patrick w. Corrigan , Benjamin G. Druss ; Deborah A. Perlick) , in 2011 , only 59.6% of individuals with a mental illness -including anxiety , depression and bipolar disorder- reported receiving treatment because of the stigma limiting access to care and discouraging people from pursuing mental health treatment even when severely needed hence bringing up the number of people who commit suicide due to underlying health issues.
This research project helped open my eyes to the stigma of mental illness and the theories and rumors surrounding mental health. Before this project I had some knowledge about mental ill, I had my own theories about why people made certain choices and about people with mental illness and how their minds worked. Throughout the research process I learned so much about mental health like the warning signs to help others and I learned how to cope and help students and peers with mental health issues such as anxiety and bipolar disorder who’s family or social circle aren’t able to care or give them the attention they need for their disorder. Another thing this taught me is to not judge a book by the cover , many people with a mental illness weren’t always like that their whole life a good example is homeless people. They had lives and kids and jobs before they had a breakdown and for so many people they became this way because of some traumatic event in their life had triggered the disorder to come about in a more dominant way than before. This knowledge let’s me become a better person with not only understanding where other people come from but also that not everyone’s the same & nobody goes through the same thing, so to expect everyone to be the same is unreasonable. Mental illness is so important in our everyday lives that knowing the warning signs can help save a life.
Looking after a family with mental illness can be very stressful, problematic, devastating etc. Watching or taking care someone who you thought would always live a good life and thinking they wouldn’t suffer that way can be very hard to take in all at once. You would have to change your life around for the better. According to a Swedish study, one half of family members claimed they had developed psychological or social problems of their own to such an extent that they also needed help and support.
Many people wouldn’t know, As many as 50 million Americans suffer from some form of mental illness in any given year. (Shields, Charles J). One of the first places where mental disorders tend to beome apparent is at school. At school or home mental difficulties are sometimes mistakenly viewed as problems with motivation or attitude. National Institute of Mental Health indicate that at least 1 in 10 or as many as 6 million young people may have a “serious emotional disturbance.” ( Shields, Charles J). Having mental in a work place can be sometimes very confusing everyday isn’t the same and people wouldn’t understand how to deal with a worker who is ill. According to Shields, Violent acts at work was 2 percent over the course of a year. For people with schizophrenia, the rate of violent acts was 13 percent; For people who abused alcohol, it was 25 percent; For people abusing other drugs, it was 35 percent. (Shields, Charles J). Most students who are mentally ill just like adults who are mentally ill are not dangerous to others. Fact, about 1 out of 10 children and adolescents suffer from mental illness that is servere enough to cause some level of distruption in their lives. Without treatment they may experience problems with schoolwork and with friends and family. They may also become violent. Recent study shows that 60 percent of depressed teenagers improve with treatment. ( Shields, Charles J).
According to Mary Gilbert executive director of NAMI stated, One in five teens live with mental health conditions. Less than half and more than 4,000 teens die from suicide every year. Pay attention to the signs. Mental illness can start young too, no matter skin color or age.