More Than a Perscription
America is always one step behind. We are one step behind in the metric system. We are one step behind in the food industry being the only country that allows MSG in our food and the way we operate. The way we run education is different and other countries have a better fit system. We are whole step back in crime rate, having the highest crime compared to the surrounding countries around us. The one thing we are ahead of the game in is science, the medical field and technology. Even though we are exceeding in the medical field, we lack on the mental medical side of the spectrum.
Mental disorders are different in each individual. There is anxiety, schizophrenia, depression, and autism. In the article Are We Homogenizing the Global View of a Normal Mind? Professor Murali Doraiswamy states that there is as many mental disorder as there is to fungi. Doraiswamy claims that America’s view of mental illness is the same. The purpose for presenting the idea of out of fungi’s subspecies, scientist have only classified about five percent is to create the point of the overwhelming different types of theses disorders. As the years progress so does the multiple different categories of metal disorders.
Studies have shown America to view mental disorders in a different perspective compared to one’s in Britain. An experiment took place with a set of people who simply had an alcohol problem, mood swings, and hysterical paralysis of one arm. Sixty-nine percent of American’s classified this as schizophrenia while British labeled six percent. Metal disorders exists, but how do we differentiate a poor habit by an actual mental illness. The perspective America has on mental disorders is flawed in a various different ways. As soon as someone receives a hint of different behavior, that individual is attached with this label. We label the problem of an individual based off the symptoms without getting to the core of the true problem. It is disturbing to think of the people who have been misperscibed in the past. I have experience in my own life where I have seen this gone out of hand.
The other side of this argument can be seen as the affects mental illness has had on our society. Mental illness can be compared to a fungus other ways as well. Doraiswamy made the comparison of mental illness, this was not his intentions but are highly accurate. Theses two things oddly have much in common. Not because a person who has mental illness should be seen as someone as abstract. Like fungus, mental illness can that takes the life out of something else. This is exactly what depression does, it attaches to someone, grabs the negativity energy it needs to keep someone in an isolated state until that person reaches their breaking point. It slowly sucks things out, takes opportunity away and emotion. Some people’s breaking points are taking their own life. Some people have an out break of anger. My own mother when I was a junior in high school. Depression is a fungus that grows in your brain. Depression, along with all mental illness is a pesticide.
Many people don’t understand the concept of depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia because they ignorant or ignore it’s existence. It is hard for people to understand that metal disorders exist. Some people have never personally experienced it. Depression can portray as someone who is extremely sad and overly sensitive. The fact people are unable to the see physical disability in someone opens the mind for people to firmly believe it doesn’t exist, but it can impact someone physically. A person experiencing a serious season of depression may only eat, sleep, and watch TV. This individual could be seen to have an actually physically disability if they were doing the same thing, but just in a hospital bed. Mental illness is extremely visible. It is evident in someone suffering from schizophrenia. People with this disorder often are seen talking to themselves or to the point of screaming random thoughts.
Fungus is a parasite, and so is mental illness. Someone that has schizophrenia see’s the side affects their whole life. Someone who is clinically depressed or has anxiety is effected in every day-to-day life. Much like someone who is going through a tremendous surgery or serious injury, the evidence that they are in pain is because of their inabaility to go places, in a setting of a hospital, on the couch and having people bring them what they need. There seems to be a sense of sadness to the event that took place to make someone be in this position. It is the same for someone experience a mental disorder. People think that a person who is sick with illness is placing their own self in the situation that they are unwilling to try and be better. If people would understand that mental illness is chemical. Than who would dare say this to someone suffering with depression, autism, schizophrenia or anxiety? They can not help it.
The point to understanding the ugliness to mental illness like fungi is if our society is able to have a better understanding, then we would be a step closer to properly treating it. Can you imagine what it would be like to treat someone with liver cancer like they have brain cancer? Any misdiagnosis is harmful to our bodies, mentally and physically. This known fact applies to mental illness as well. My own mom was misdiagnosis over the span of two years. Her medication reacted with her body from projectile vomiting, emotion breakdowns followed by memory loss, and a numbness to herself that kept her in depression. The opposite of what this medication is suppose to be made for. If my mother hadn’t been misdiagnosed or if a doctor cared enough to deeply understand what she was experiencing, all of this could of been prevented. Our society needs people to start caring more, and not throw a prescription pill at the fist person they see.
Mental illness is so prevalent in our culture that we have even found Prozac in America’s water supply. Who's knows how many of these piles were prescribed inaccurately. It seems like our drug industry is just giving out pills left and right to who shows even a sign of “suspicious behavior.”
The solution to the problem of misdiagnosis is for people to be educated on the subject. When someone is depressed they are physically unable to start their day without proper diagnosis. Mental illness is a chemical imbalance that is beyond our control. We also have to understand the difference between the proper signs of mental illness. We need to understand the difference between abnormal behavior and side effect.