Mental Health Awareness
Josephina Alcoser
Idaho City High School
Abstract
This paper is all about how we need to open our minds and help people who have mental illness. There are suicides, school shootings, and young adults getting into drugs to ease the pain they could be getting help with. Think about the worst thing that’s ever happened to you and imagine it haunting you for the rest of your life, popping up randomly, even if you don’t realize it’s happening, because that does happen. There are so many kids that think everyone has the same amount of pain so they don’t think they need help even though they do. Mental illness is serious, and if we all helped just one person a day, our society wouldn’t have as many problems as we do. The mental illnesses that I am focusing on in this paper are Bipolar Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder and Panic Disorder. All very serious and quite common. We all need to stop hurting each other and help instead.
Bringing Awareness To Mental Health In Young Adults
We have a massive problem with mental health in teens. There are plenty of teenagers that have mental illnesses and aren’t sure how to get help. Illnesses like Depression, Bipolar Disorder, and Intermittent Explosive Disorder. These three can be very common in young adults. Teenagers have drama in their life as it is, they don’t need people tormenting them because their mood changes quickly. Bipolar disorder is very serious and can be hard to deal with. When someone is bipolar it’s difficult for them to keep some emotions at bay. A lot of people think that bipolar is mood shifts throughout the day, which it can be, but bipolar is staying at a certain level of emotion for several weeks. They might be sad, or extremely depressed for two weeks and for the next few days they will be more level headed, but then they are in a great mood, the best one they could ever be in. People with bipolar often will go from thinking they are the worst thing that ever could have happened to the world, but the next week they could be queen/king of the world. Bipolar disorder makes you go from one extreme to the next.
Of course there is a way to help people with bipolar disorder, but first you have to be able to see that it is in fact that disorder. People with bipolar disorder often have massive mood swings consisting of sadness, anger, anxiety, etc. Not only that but they will lose interest in things that they’d usually find enjoyable. They’ll feel guilty and hopeless. On the other end of it they’ll start doing things they wouldn’t usually do, such as risky behavior, hyperactivity, and having a strong desire for sexual pleasure. The mood swings could last a few days or a few weeks. Bipolar disorder can cause someone to feel depressed and overwhelmed for weeks, then suddenly they feel as if they’re on top of the world.
Bipolar can be treated with medications (mood stabilizers) such as lithium, valproic acid, divalproex sodium, carbamazepine, and lamotrigine. There are also antipsychotics such as: olanzapine, risperidone, quetiapine, aripiprazole, ziprasidone, lurasidone, asenapine. You should know what side effects come with your medication. You may not experience all of them but here are a few common ones: Nausea, tremor, hair loss, sexual problems, weight gain, liver damage, kidney damage, diarrhea, belly pain, or skin reaction. (Mayo Clinic, 2018)
There are other mental illnesses besides bipolar, like Major Depressive Disorder. About 6.7% of people experience some kind of depression before they reach adulthood. That’s 16.2 million people in the United States that have or are suffering from depression, and just like Bipolar Disorder it gets ignored. (healthline, 2018)
Major Depressive Disorder symptoms are: Feelings of sadness, tearfulness, emptiness or hopelessness, angry outbursts, irritability or frustration, even over small matters, loss of interest or pleasure in most or all normal activities, such as sex, hobbies or sports, sleep disturbances, including insomnia or sleeping too much, tiredness and lack of energy, so even small tasks take extra effort, reduced appetite and weight loss or increased cravings for food and weight gain, anxiety, agitation or restlessness, slowed thinking, speaking or body movements, feelings of worthlessness or guilt, fixating on past failures or self-blame, trouble thinking, concentrating, making decisions and remembering things, frequent or recurrent thoughts of death, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts or suicide, unexplained physical problems, such as back pain or headaches. (Mayo Clinic, 2018)
Depression can originate from anything, it could be brain chemistry, hormones or just the situation said person is facing. Asking for help can be difficult, that’s why there are hotlines, for an emergency case, or even if you just want to talk. To treat Major Depressive Disorder you should first just go talk to someone, professional, like a counselor, therapist or psychologist. From there if you need more help you can either try group counseling or medications. Medications can be very tricky and it can take a while to find the right kind or right combination. Medications include: Sertraline, Escitalopram, Prozac, Zoloft etc. These to have side effects: Nausea, weight gain, lower sex drive, tiredness, trouble sleeping, dry mouth, blurred vision, constipation, dizziness, and anxiety. (healthline, 2018)
In any case, medication can either make you worse or help you get better, but you can’t only rely on the medication your taking to “fix” your issues. For the medications to work you have to work with them, they can’t do all of it. You have to be trying to get better or at the very least really want to get better. This process takes time and energy, but it is possible for most people. At times these people need to be their own support system and need to push themselves to go to therapy and to take their medications. Many people have to find their own support systems, sometimes over the internet or even in group therapy in order to keep themselves on the road to recovery.
Another disorder that can disrupt your life is anxiety, otherwise known as Panic Disorder. Anxiety can be very hard to deal with. It will get in the way of anything unless you get help. Here are some of the symptoms: Feeling restless, wound-up, or on-edge, being easily fatigued, having difficulty concentrating; mind going blank, being irritable, having muscle tension, difficulty controlling feelings of worry, having sleep problems, such as difficulty falling or staying asleep, restlessness, unsatisfying sleep, panic attacks, heart palpitations, a pounding heartbeat, or an accelerated heart rate, sweating, trembling or shaking, sensations of shortness of breath, smothering, or choking, feelings of impending doom, feelings of being out of control. (Mayo Clinic, 2018) Anxiety will make you worry about things you don’t have to worry about. Things like people looking at you could set you off. You may think they are saying bad things about you or that they’re making fun of you, when they really just took a glance at you and probably didn’t even notice. It can also make you think your doing something wrong just by sitting there minding your own business, in fact it’s almost like you’re paranoid.
Of course you can take medication to help you cope with the illness: Celexa, Lexapro, Prozac, Luvox, Paxil, Pexeva, Zoloft.
People need to be more aware of mental illness, because not everyone has one but a lot of people do. 43.8 Million people deal with some kind of mental illness in a one year period. (Rubina Kapil on February, 2019) Most people will have a mental illness and not even know, but they will have no clue what is going on or why they’re feeling the way they do. If mental illness is left unchecked for too long it can lead down a very dark road. Some mental illness can even lead to suicide, and others of course can lead to homicide. Some disorders are more devastating to others that themselves. For instance, the people we hear about on the news that are killing people, or even if you look at something fictional like Criminal Minds, things like that don’t just happen. In order for someone to be able to do that they have to have something that isn’t right in their head, whether it’s Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or Schizophrenia; anything can lead someone to kill but usually the person who is doing it will have something wrong with their subconscious.
We as a society need to be more aware about these things, if you notice something odd about someone say something, they could be at wits end with themselves or the people around them, or they could just be upset momentarily. When you see someone down or feeling low, go and ask them if they’re all right. Ask them to go to get coffee with you, or if they’re like to hangout sometime. Make them realize that they are worth something.
Medications aren’t something that’s needed to treat a disorder. Things like going to the gym and working out, going for a run, listening to music, getting a dog, writing in a journal could all be ways to help. Medication should be a last resort, and if it’s needed you have to help it work. You can’t only take a pill and everything is fixed. There’s a process, which is why things like counseling is helpful, it will give you skills that you can use to help control the mental illness.
We should be talking to kids in schools about how to help their peers with realizing they might need help, because not everyone knows. Not everyone grows up knowing the signs that point to mental illness or to suicide. Which can be a good thing, because a lot of people that grow up with that are the ones that hurt. People who grow up seeing these kinda things are the ones that will notice it before anyone else. We need to teach the others about the signs.
Mental illness is very serious and can be extremely scary to deal with alone, if we all just joined together instead of hurting each other, there would be less suicide, less school shootings and probably less drug issues in young adults. So let’s all open our minds and love instead of hate. Talk about what’s going on in our lives rather than bottle it up until you explode, because no one likes getting hurt and no one likes being alone. Let’s show everyone we aren’t alone anymore. There could be assemblies to bring awareness to mental illness. More programs like “Sources of Strength”
References
Anxiety Medication. (2019, December 2). Retrieved December 13, 2019, from https://www.helpguide.org/articles/anxiety/anxiety-medication.htm.
Bipolar disorder. (2018, January 31). Retrieved December 13, 2019, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/bipolar-disorder/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20355961.
Depression (major depressive disorder). (2018, February 3). Retrieved December 13, 2019, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/symptoms-causes/syc-20356007.
Goldberg, J. (2018, April 6). Mood Stabilizers as a Treatment for Bipolar Mania. Retrieved December 13, 2019, from https://www.webmd.com/bipolar-disorder/guide/medications-bipolar-disorder#2.
Intermittent explosive disorder. (2018, September 19). Retrieved December 13, 2019, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/intermittent-explosive-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20373921.Koskie, B. (2018, June 29). Depression: Facts, Statistics, and You. Retrieved November 27, 2019, https://www.healthline.com/health/depression/facts-statistics-infographic.
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