One of the most common thoughts in regards to mental illness is that people who suffer with these issues are crazy or untouchable. The thing is that in most cases, people that suffer with mental illness are no different than people that have no mental health problems. They are able, in most cases, to function normally. When it comes to society, there are areas of society that mental health does impact. It impacts the criminal justice system, the healthcare industry, and even transportation industry. The thing is that in many ways it does not have a significant impact, and even the impact it does have is not as bad as first assumed.
With the right changes in how people are educated about mental health, there would be a very large positive impact on society. People would be able to better understand mental health issues and how to more effectively communicate with others that suffer from various mental health disorders. The will learn how to help these individuals at being successful in becoming a productive member of society. It will show companies that just because a person suffers from a mental health problem; it does not mean that the person is not reliable or responsible. There needs to be effort put into ensuring supervisors, healthcare officiates, and law enforcement knows how to communicate with people with different mental health issues. This will make sure that confrontations are able to take place in a way that will not provoke outbursts or confusion for the individual.
One of the worst areas of mental health disorders is the area of addiction. The biggest impact is that once someone becomes addicted to a drug or alcohol, in many situations it involves the use of some form of addiction counseling to be able to control the issue and help the individual quit. One of the biggest issues with addiction is the idea of enabling these behaviors in alcoholics and addicts. Not only do everyday people face these issues, so do people that are constantly in the public eye. On good example is, Betty Ford, also had the issue of her doctors enabling her addictive behavior, by telling her to keep the pain medication on hand, and make sure to take it before she is in pain. By her doctors doing this, she will found that she became addicted to the pain medication.
Another very misunderstood mental health issue is learning disabilities, and one of the most common is the issue of ADHD. ADHD refers to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It causes children or adult sufferers to have a hard time with simple task, due to lack of focus. One of the best ways to combat this issue is through the use of exercise .
Another one of the many disorders that have caused all people with any kind of mental health issue to be labeled is schizophrenia. Since schizophrenia tends to be one of the more severe mental health issues, it seems to have a negative impression on society, making people think that all people that have mental health problems are untouchable. Symptoms can include catatonic behavior, disorganized speech, hallucinations, or delusions .
There is another disorder that shows many similar symptoms of schizophrenia. This disorder is known as dementia. Unlike the schizophrenia, dementia is caused by damage to the cortical tissue, and damage to the cerebral cortex or brain tissues.
These disorders cause extremes in behavior. Most other disorders, however, do not influence people quite so severely. For that matter, many disorders do not even get noticed. One such behavior is milder cases of post traumatic stress disorder. PTSD is caused when the person suffers a traumatic event. One of the most common groups to suffer from PTSD is the military. They suffer from this disorder as a result of things that they see during battle, or in some cases, as a result of an injury that was caused in battle. During World War I and II, PTSD was referred to as shell shock, during World War I, because it was very common with soldiers that were returning from war .
PTSD and the other mentioned illnesses can cause the sufferer to feel like they are lepers, because others will avoid them at the first mention of a mental health problem. They find that they are talked about, when they are not around. They also see that they get looks from people of disgust or fear. Society has been misinformed about the issues pertaining to mental health. Without there being a proper training on these disorders for others within the society, there is going to continue to be discrimination of these individuals.
It is important for the people that work in the criminal justice field to understand the issues pertaining to mental health, because if they try to arrest someone that has an anger disorder or another disorder that can induce violent behavior, it could lead to a much larger problem. At the same time, if they are trying to apprehend an individual that suffers from PTSD, as a result of war activities, it could lead to the individual being spooked and either attacking the group or trying to run, when otherwise he would have normally stayed put and followed the police instructions.
Society needs to learn that mental health problems, in many cases, can easily be controlled. They need to realize that the people that suffer these disorders are able to function normally within the society. Mental health is nothing to be afraid of, and until we show that is the case, there is going to be a much bigger issue going on of these mental health disorders creating people being discriminated against, ignored, or treated like common criminals. Other issues need to be taught that they actually are a mental health and not laziness or longing for attention, such as ADHD and bipolar disorders. Many people believe that the people that suffer these two disorders are either pretending to get attention, or they are looking for an excuse of why they cannot do something that they do not want to do.
The best way to be able to handle this is to start by updating training for the educational, healthcare, and criminal law fields. Once that has been completed, the next thing to do is to set it up to where business managers have to take a course in how to handle different mental health issues. This would be able to better the quality of employment for people with different mental health issues. It would also help to keep people that suffer from these disorders from having to suffer the issues that society adds to them.
People would be able to learn that just because someone has a mental health disorder, does not mean that they cannot be a productive member of society. Actually, in some cases, these disorders are able to make them better suited at some tasks. For example, if a person has ADHD, they may learn information slower than most people, but if their work is in an industry that interests them, they will tend to be very proficient in that area, and they tend to be highly intelligent, but they just have a hard time of focusing. One career that they would be very effective with their work would be any industry that involves them using their imagination. Due to their loss of focus, they tend to be good at using their imagination, and it can lead to them being very popular writers and actors.
When it comes to mental health, the best way to be to be able to handle the situation is to ensure that the individuals that suffer from these disorders are able to receive the help that they need. It would also be beneficial to be able to ensure a training program that will teach those around them how to be able to deal with the symptoms and side effects of the disorder. Another important issue is to ensure that there is clear communication, because this will be able to help make sure that there are no questions or temper problems as a result of lacking proper knowledge of how to effectively communicate with someone with mental health related issues.
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References
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Hale, Kathryn L. and Julia Frank. Dementia Overview . 2012. <http://www.emedicinehealth.com/dementia_overview/page2_em.htm>.
Meyer, Robert G., L. Kevin Chapman and Christopher M. Weaver. Case Studies in Abnormal Behavior. 8. Boston: Pearson Education, 2009.
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