In the book The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, we see that the parents are ‘book smart’ and that they are surprisingly knowledgeable about certain complex subjects, for example, the father taught Jeannette binary code, a complex computer coding language. Despite their book smarts, I also stated they might have a mental illness which would explain the crazy acts. What I am wondering is if they have such good book smarts, why don’t they have steady jobs with good pay? I believe because of their different views on life and their possible mental illness that this could cause a lack of judgment and understanding of a situation. An example of this would be the father’s habit of packing up the family in the middle of the night and pulling the old
‘We’ should have come to an understanding before you started making a damn fool of yourself” (68). Rose is totally offended that he would even consider them together, and rightly
Mental Illness affects an immense amount of individuals no matter their race, culture or age. It is everywhere we go, yet still an issue some choose to ignore; whether it is the person facing the illness or those around them. People handle their sickness in a variety of ways. Some by using violence as their only answer, others run away from their issue and majority choose to accept and make the best of it. After reading the novel The Secret Life of Bees, it would be easy to think that the main theme is discrimination or family, but in reality it is actually focused on the toll that mental illness takes on a family.
Over the past decades that have passed since 1901, the stigma surrounding mental health issues and the presence of healthcare opportunities has decreased dramatically. For example, the growth of education regarding mental illness has skyrocketed. Also, from a legal standpoint, many policies have been implemented to protect the rights of those struggling from mental health issues, such as The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008. Whether from oneself who is struggling or from a loved one, it has become somewhat standard to at least make an attempt to help the struggling mind. The normalization of mental illness has primarily been seen in the entertainment industry, something that tended to be very forbidden in the past.
This is the case with Susanna, who is the autobiographical main character of the book. She provides a perfect reason as to why it is important that mental illness must be talked about more. Susanna is admitted to the McLean Hospital after she attempts suicide and is then diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. She is at first convinced that there is nothing wrong for her, which is something that many patients go through, and is one of the important reasons that mental illness should be discussed more.
The theme of Amy Bloom’s short story Silver Water is mental illness’ effect on a family. Rose is mentally ill, she has psychotic breaks and behaves inappropriately. Her family just laughs it off, even her psychiatrist father. For example, when she massages her breast in front of the therapist they started laughing out of control. This is the way they are coping with her illness, by taking it as a joke and harassing family therapists.
This gives many wonderful examples of how the world sees and treats those who have mental illnesses and lets one reflect on how a person with a physical illness would be treated completely differently. Within the story, Rose endures the first “step” of learning about her mental illness; she loses control of herself. Her mother is the one who immediately wants to step in and get her help, but her father is the exact opposite, he doesn’t believe that it is serious enough to get her help. When Rose actually ends up getting help, she is mistreated to the point where even her family notices; her family steps in to defend her, and the therapist decides that the session is over, which shows how he didn’t take them or her serious. After that event, she endures loss, which makes her breakdown; she is kicked out of the halfway house and gets sent home without medication.
Demi Lovato’s capacitating speech delivered at the National Alliance of Mental Illness Convention brought awareness to mental health illnesses and how recovery treatments are obtainable with the support of the entire community. The hardships and sufferings brought upon by mental illnesses, the positive possibilities created by the passage of the Mental Health Comprehensive Bill, and the effects of communities coming together to help those suffering with a mental health illness, were mentioned in this speech through the usage of rhetorical devices; tone, anecdote, repetition, and aphorism are the distinct devices included in this speech. All a mental health illness victim needs is hope and support while recovering from this painful experience.
This perception of the mentally ill needs to change in order for there to be a change in their treatment. Popular culture depicts those who are mentally ill in a damaging way. This can be seen in television shows, movies, and the news. In television shows and movies, those who are mentally ill are not shown recovering or being able to live functionally in society. They are shown being violent, unpredictable, and incurable which is not an accurate depiction of all mentally ill people.
Mental illnesses and disorders have long been a tool of popular media as a ways of advancing a plot, developing a character/backstory, or a making a villain unlikeable or inhuman in some way. These portrayals are often exaggerated, an absolute extreme case of the disorder, or a combination of various psychological disorders’ symptoms in a way that would create the most dramatic effect. While there is a significant amount of media (movies, television, books, video games, ect.) that portray mental illness, the film that I chose to look at is the 2010 drama/thriller Black Swan directed by Darren Aronofsky. Black Swan is about a career ballerina Nina Sayer (played by Natalie Portman) in a New York city ballet company whose entire life has revolved around dancing. The ballet company is working on opening a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and the artistic director has made the choice to replace the company’s current Prima ballerina with someone who is younger.
This paper will report on Nina Sayer, the main character in the movie Black Swan. It will attempt to describe and explain the biological, psychological and social elements that influenced the onset and progression of Nina’s battle with schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Section one of this paper will provide a summary of the movie as well as a social profile of the main character in the movie. It will also discuss how the filmmaker, Darren Aronofsky, presented the symptoms and the causes of these disorders —and how accurate he portrayed them. In section two, the paper will provide academic research that will focus on the biological, psychological, and social influences of the subjects disorder.
The problem is that not enough is being done to deal with the growing population of untreated individuals who are left on the streets to fend for themselves. These patients are a problem to themselves and their respective communities. Their unpredictable behaviors threaten their well-being and the safety of fellow citizens. Those with mental illness are unable to function on a basis that allows them to take care of themselves, as a result their chances of survival are unpredictable. Those who are mentally ill are at an unstable position of survival because they lack the ability to be independent, such as providing for their everyday needs.
It is no secret there is a stigma about mental illness in our society. In Holmes article and in the video about Sabrina Benaim there is a theme that demonstrates the lack of awareness for people living with mental illnesses. The Holmes article discusses how our society doesn’t recognize mental illness like physical illness because it is something we can’t see. Sabrina Benaim explains how difficult it is to live with a mental illness and how hard it is for her mother to understand her struggles. The theme that I see in both prompts is how mental illness is swept under the rug and forgotten.
Stigmatization of mental illness existed well before psychiatry became a formal discipline, but was not formally labeled and defined as a societal problem until the publication of Goffman’s book (1963). Mental illnesses are among the most stigmatizing conditions, regardless of the specific psychiatric diagnosis. Unlike other illnesses, mental illness is still considered by some to be a sign of weakness, as well as a source of shame and disgrace. Many psychiatric patients are concerned about how people will view them if knowledge of their condition becomes public Mental health stigma can be divided into two distinct types: • social stigma is characterized by prejudicial attitudes and discriminating behavior directed towards individuals with mental health problems as a result of the psychiatric label they have been given and has those types stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination Stereotypes are based on knowledge available to members of a group and provide a way to categorize information about other groups in society Prejudiced persons agree with these negative stereotypes, and these attitudes lead to discrimination through negative behaviors toward mentally ill individuals those negative perceptions create fear of and social distance from mentally ill persons. • perceived stigma or
Mental illnesses do not just affect a minority; they affect the people who have them and their friends. Likewise, the
