How Mental Illness Affects Us All

How Mental Illness Affects Us All

Ruth T., Texas

What is mental illness? Mental illness is a health condition involving changes in emotions, thinking, or behavior. These can cause distress and/or problems functioning productively in social, working, or family environments. I always wondered how mental illness can be treated successfully, and if we’re doing all we can.

For one, I think that the U.S. should provide more help for people suffering from mental illness. We should also provide more help for diagnosing mental illness. Not everyone understands these diagnoses. One challenge many people face is anxiety disorders. Yet people don’t understand what anxiety disorders are. Like some people don’t think that anxiety disorders can affect how people act. They might act irrationally or it may impact how they function at home or at work.

A lot of people like parents, young kids, or even teenagers could suffer from mental illness. These could include major depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and borderline personality disorder. But it’s good that many cases of mental illness can be treated. Mental illness might mess with what people think, but at the same time, if they receive therapy, they are hearing maybe contradictory messages.  Even so, therapy and medication can help with some mental illness.

For example, whenever we go to school, we might act differently than we usually do at other places, because one of the causes is the behavior of one person. It can be the same thing for adults if they are going to work or other places that they might go to. One thing that mental illness has in common with whoever has it is that it feels miserable because people with mental illness compare themselves to other people without it. And they would question themselves on why they have it and not other people, or why did they get this type of illness and how it came from the first place.

In conclusion, mental illness has spread worldwide, and it can manifest itself in a wide variety of different situations both mentally and physically. And it is more responsible for a high rate of unemployment and a high incidence of sickness absence. The percentage of that happening is 10.3% for a high rate of unemployment and 2.6% for a high incidence of sickness absence.

The US government should do more to help people suffering from mental illness. They should pass universal healthcare that covers therapy and medication for different illnesses. They should also open more treatment centers for people and make sure that they can also call a hotline if they are having a crisis.