Sourced Based

Joyana Manisha

Professor Pawlowski

FIQWS 10111

September 18, 2018

Awareness of Mental Health

        Mental illnesses have been taking quite a toll upon people’s lives throughout this generation. Instead of choosing to seek for help, people tend to drown in their loneliness and shut themselves from the outside world. This action convinces their minds to believe that there is no path besides giving up on themselves. “Of the total suicide deaths in 2016, 10.3% of individuals had a diagnosed serious mental illness, according to a 27-state sample analysis conducted by the CDC.” In order to decrease the prevalence of suicide rates, society needs to recognize mental illnesses as a desperate call for help.

       The article, “The Largest Health Disparity We Don’t Talk About”, was written by Dhruv Khullar on May 30th, 2018 to emphasize the need for mental health recognition. Throughout the article, he discusses how patients with mental illnesses need to receive more attention in order to help them recover. People tend to only believe that people with mental illnesses suffer from unnatural deaths (drug abuse, accidents, etc.) while in reality, they also suffer from problems such as becoming homeless and other consequences that come along with having mental complications. The author talks about several methods such as therapeutic pessimism and diagnostic overshadowing that doctors use in order to help understand a patient who is dealing with a mental illness. Even though doctors and hospitals are open to helping every patient, it’s what society has yet to understand. Through society, mental illness are undervalued and that needs to change. Society chooses to minimize the importance of mental illnesses causing patients to suffer on their own with no proper assistance. The topic of mental health awareness comes up due to a mass shooting or the death of a celebrity. Besides that, the world is silent. For example, the show “Thirteen Reasons Why” became popular due to its main purpose of spreading mental awareness through their characters. The show promotes the importance of mental health that revolves around the main character’s death. Another example would be the recent death of a celebrity, Mac Miller. Mac Miller’s cause of death was drug overdose which shows up in the postmortem but that doesn’t reveal his underlying history of mental illnesses. After his death, people started posting thoughts and views regarding mental health and how it is underrated. However after a few days, these words are all forgotten about. Statistics show that suicide is the 10th leading cause of death and those who are dealing with mental problems choose this as their only option. Depression is treated lightly among people and tends to be known as “just a phase” when it is in reality, an illness. Dhruv Khullar is a physician at the New York Presbyterian Hospital handling with patients who are dealing with mental health complications. The audience would be considered as the general public who are interested about health problems in order to spread the importance of becoming aware of mental illnesses. He emphasizes the importance by differentiating the amount of care people show for other health conditions compared to mental health conditions. The purpose of this article is to spread the awareness of mental illnesses. People who are suffering from mentally-ill conditions have higher risk of dying earlier than people who do not have these conditions. Through my eyes, he tries to urge people to take part in raising recognition in order to prevent patients with mental illnesses to suffer from becoming isolated, homeless, or face many other consequences. This article was published by New York Times newspaper on May 30th, 2018 hoping to help people understand mental health problems clearly. Since this article was published in the health section, the genre would most likely be health related. Throughout this article, the author’s stance towards the situation is passionate and emphasizes desperation in order for people to start caring for patients with mental illnesses. Dhruv Khullar shows his passion for helping these people and spreading the awareness in order to make people understand the problem.

        “Anxiety and Depression: More College Students Seeking Help” was written by Katie Reilly and published in Time magazine on March 19, 2018. This article emphasizes the importance of schools taking part alongside students who are handling with mental illnesses. Nowadays, colleges and schools provide assistance by placing therapists within their campus. However during midterms and finals, the level of stress increases for every student and the line to the therapist office also increases. Compared to the amount of students who require help, there aren’t enough therapists who can provide assistance. The workload given results in high amounts of stress and anxiety leading students to become weak and feel like they should give up. Even though there is help provided to the students, there are limited resources due to funding complications. Overtime, campuses have changed their perspective regarding mental health and now provide help in order to get the students in a better position. College and school comes with many advantages and disadvantages. Along with the education comes the loaded amount of anxiety. Many students tend to drop out or miss several days due to the excessive amount of anxiety they go through due to the stress. Students are seeking help from therapists more often yet, schools are not helping with the workload. Similar to the show “Thirteen Reasons Why”, the school counselor was limited in regards to helping the students since the school board wouldn’t allow some of the things that he suggested. Students would continue on with their problems while the school board would disregard them and see it as misbehavior. Due to stress and anxiety, students tend to do poorly in their classes. Since mental health is now a popular topic within the generation, colleges and schools are trying harder in order to help the students. The general audience for this magazine would be students and school officials. School officials as well as the Department of Education need to see that students are suffering from mental illnesses due to their workload and pressure. They should have the opportunity to seek help within their school environment. The purpose of this article is emphasize the amount of help students need in order to keep their performance levels constant. Many students tend to stop attending school due to the fact that they are incapable of handling with the stress and anxiety. In order to change that, the author talks about the several different therapists that are being placed within the school system for students’ well-being. This article’s genre would be classified as a health magazine that mainly focuses on social awareness on mental health based on the younger generation. The author’s stance is shown to be positive throughout the end of the article as changes are becoming developed through schools and colleges. As more therapy sessions take place, students start feeling confident with themselves and start taking part in more school activities.  It discusses the importance of being able to go to someone for help within the school board and being able to free oneself from the stress.

        The journal article, “Lives without Roots: Institutionalized Homeless Women with Chronic Mental Illness”, was published in the Indian Journal Of Psychological Medicine in order to help people understand the rising issue of people suffering from mental illnesses as well as becoming homeless. In developing countries, mental health is not quite a popular popular topic and is held as a negative perspective. There are not proper resources that can help those in need leading to problems such as becoming homeless. Many women tend to go through these problems more than men because of patriarchy. In order to help these people, the topic of mental health should be well discussed among their community. Many developing countries do not understand what mental health specifically means. They choose to strive through their work in hopes of gaining something to eat for the day. When they spot someone who is handling problems that are out of the norm, they’re described as lazy or undisciplined. Many people overlook the thought of helping someone who is going through a rough time in their life. Due to this situation, many people with mental illnesses live their live without seeking help. These all lead to them losing their homes and families causing them to become isolated. This article’s audience would be classified as people who are interested about many people who do not receive the right care and help that they need in developing countries. The author speaks specifically about women who ideally struggle in this situation due to the fact that women are shown to be powerless within their society standards. The purpose of this article is show that there aren’t proper facilities available for people in need who live in other countries. Developing countries are not as advanced with their technology as America is and this puts them back regarding health issues. This article emphasizes that these people need help or else they end up without a home. The genre of this article would be a current event news since this problem is still ongoing right now. This article will help spread the awareness and hopefully, these people will soon receive some aid. Throughout the article, the author’s stance is shown to be passionate regarding the situation in hopes of spreading awareness. The author uses different types of statistics and data to prove that the issue of being mentally ill leading to become homeless is a rising problem.

Willingham, AJ. “There’s a Severe Shortage of Mental Health Professionals in Rural Areas . Here’s Why That’s a Serious Problem.” CNN, Cable News Network, 22 June 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/06/20/health/mental-health-rural-areas-issues-trnd/index.html.

        “There’s a Severe Shortage of Mental Health Professionals in Rural Areas” was written by AJ Willingham and published by CNN on June 22nd, 2018. This article talks about how mental health complications are handled in rural locations. Within the rural community, there aren’t many doctors who can provide help for those who are dealing with mental illnesses. Due to poor access to assistance for mental health, there are several habits that people tend to acquire over time. Some include drug abuse and suicide. Small towns tend to overlook the thought of mental health since it is so difficult to receive proper care. Mental health is an important factor within our daily lives and requires high amount of attention in order to keep ourselves in check. Some people who live in rural areas do not have the opportunity of receiving proper health care regarding their mental health. This is due to undeveloped technologies and insufficient amount of doctors available in their area. Everyone should have the opportunity of getting assistance for their health and this needs to change. This article’s audience could be humanitarian and developmental foundations that work with people who don’t have access to proper healthcare. The author emphasizes the difficulty that people go through in order to just see a doctor and how healthcare shouldn’t be an obstacle in life. The purpose of this article is to explain to people that there are many people who require help but cannot do anything since they do not have access to a doctor or health facility near them. These people living in the countryside have to go through difficult obstacles just to see the doctor while people in urban locations can just call their doctor for an appointment. It is important to keep your health in check and it is really important for everyone to have the same accessibility regarding health. The genre of this article would be Health since it emphasizes the importance of mental health. This article discusses the equal opportunities the citizens of America should receive whether they’re living in the rural countryside or in the cities. Throughout the article, the author’s stance would be heartfelt and passionate. The way the words and language were placed showed that the author related with the issue. In order to spread the awareness of mental health, there should be proper healthcare provided for everyone in the first place.  

 

Bibliography

1. Carroll, Heather. “RESEARCH WEEKLY: Serious Mental Illness and Suicide.” Treatment Advocacy Center, www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/fixing-the-system/features-and-news/4011-research-weekly-serious-mental-illness-and-suicide.
2. Khullar, Dhruv. “The Largest Health Disparity We Don’t Talk About .” New York Times, 30 May 2018.
3. Reilly, Katie. “Anxiety and Depression: More College Students Seeking Help.” Time, Time, 19 Mar. 2018, time.com/5190291/anxiety-depression-college-university-students/.
4. Moorkath F, Vranda M, Naveenkumar C. Lives without Roots: Institutionalized Homeless Women with Chronic Mental Illness. Indian Journal Of Psychological Medicine [serial online]. September 2018;40(5):476-481. Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed September 18, 2018.
5. Willingham, AJ. “There’s a Severe Shortage of Mental Health Professionals in Rural Areas . Here’s Why That’s a Serious Problem.” CNN, Cable News Network, 22 June 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/06/20/health/mental-health-rural-areas-issues-trnd/index.html.