A teenage girl. Long brown hair, deep brown eyes, loud voice, unique style, and a dream of going on Broadway. Seems perfectly normal. Just like any other girl her age, she goes to movies with her friends, stays on Twitter until last night becomes this morning, and rocks her new jeans with confidence. Her friends call her an inspiration and her confidence turns heads. She has been told she is living a dream. What they do not know is that she is haunted by anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder. What they do not know is she cannot walk around her house by herself and she cannot stay in a room without having someone at least in the next room over. What they do not know is she cannot order food or make a phone call without feeling the need to cry. What they do not know is that she is not living a dream. She is living a nightmare, but this nightmare she cannot wake up from. Although the example above is not the most severe, in fact there are many much worse cases, mental illness is a very hard and real disease to live with, but it is seen as an insignificant joke of an illness. If schools taught about mental illness in a required mental health class, people would know how difficult it is to live with, take it more seriously, be more sympathetic, and have more information to help themselves, if they suffer with a disorder.
The brain, like any other organ in the body, is capable of being corrupted by illness. The brain is just like any other organ of the body in that it is made of cells which came together to create tissue which came together together to form an organ. No one is going to question whether or not a heart condition is a real disease because it affects the heart which inhibits the being it affects from living a completely normal life. It may weaken his or her immune system or limit his or her ability to withstand physical activity. Because of this, people choose to see this as a condition worthy of being treated. Like a heart condition, mental illness can be diagnosed because it affects a real organ (Hyman qtd. in Clinton). Martin and Deidre Bobgan believe that mental illness is not a disease because it does not affect the brain but rather the mind (Bobgan). While this is an interesting standpoint, the mind is an extension of the brain. Without the brain the mind would not exist. The mind is just the brain one is conscious of, which, as stated above, is a real organ (Hyman qtd. in Clinton). Like many other diseases of other real organs, mental illness can affect the lives of those around the diagnosed. The easiest way to observe this is to see how people's traits runoff on each other as they spend more and more time with one another. As a rather positive person starts to surround him or herself with a group of negative people, his or her positivity begins to erode until all there is left is a deep, dark abyss filled to the brim with despair (Jamison). As Kay Redfield Jamison beautifully writes in her paper "The Stigma of Mental Illness Must Be Overcome," "Mental illness can have a powerful effect on those close to it ."(Jamison) What makes this quote so beautiful is the fact that Jamison does not say that the mentally ill are the ones who have a negative effect on others, but rather the mental illness. The author understands that it is not the person that is the problem, but the illness, the real illness, is to blame.
Just like any other real illness of any other real organ, mental illness needs a source and one of its preferred modes of transportation is the media. When teens look at the front page of a magazine, every time they move their eyes they see new inspiration for an eating disorder. In the top left corner, bold, hot pink letters scream, "lose 20 pounds in a week," and on the side, "completely liquid diet," is typed in a fancy, black font. In the center, a picture of a woman in a black bikini. Every single rib is countable. A young girl looks at herself in the mirror and does not see the modeled body she saw on the front cover and is immediately ashamed. The worst part is that she is jealous of a digitally distorted figure that once was a healthily, achievable body. The media uses photoshop to corrupt the minds of not only consumers, but also the models. Many models suffer from anorexia or bulimia which can lead to other health problems or worse, death (Rodenbough). Society has glamorized mental illness to the point where it is seen as desirable. This is done everywhere, from magazines to YouTube to painting. One of the many reasons mental illness is seen as a positive is that there is a label of creativity added to it (Marano). Mental illness does not make you an amazing artist like Picasso or a genius musician like Bach. As an editor at Psychology Today, Hara Estroff Marano, states, "We romanticize the idea of artistic inspiration."(Marano) People say things like "I wish I had OCD. Then I would be organized," although washing one's hands so often that they bleed and thinking about dying because of bacteria on one's skin, has nothing to do with having one's life together. No one says "I wish I had cancer. Then I could stay home from work today," because everyone knows how terrible cancer is and how insensitive it is to say such a thing, yet people have no problem lusting over the possible idea for a poem that could come from struggling with depression.
Part of what makes cancer so prevalent in the eyes of society, on top of is severeness, is the fact that it is so commonly diagnosed. Maybe the amount of people diagnosed with a mental illness should get society to wake up and open their eyes to the seriousness of such an epidemic. One fifth of the population will have a mental disorder at one time in their life (Cantrell). Like cancer, mental illness kills. It is one of the main causes of suicide according to National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) (Cantrell). Mental illness affects the brain which is the organ that regulates the want to self preserve. If the brain is affected, then so is the want to live. Mental illness affects the brain, which is the organ that regulates the want to self preserve(Cantrell). If the brain is affected, then so is the want to live. Marla Cantrell uses some solid statistics in her paper, "Mental Illness is Prevalent in America," such at the fact that "5% to 9% of the population will develop a serious mental condition."(Cantrell) Some people may think that mental illness has been exaggerated in America, but with the statistics of being diagnosed a severe mental illness, which would be more easily observable, makes this idea unlikely (McHugh). Sadly, even with the commonness of diagnosis, the government does not require a certain amount of education or training and does not require help to be provided (Cantrell). There are little to no laws or regulations keeping government officials or law enforcement on the loop about mental illness(Cantrell). This can be a huge concern based on the about of calls police most likely get from people with mental health issues in danger for their lives. The nation's average grade for mental health training was a D which is a failing grade and not one state got above a B (Cantrell).
To be healthy doesn't just mean to be free of cancer, strep throat, arthritis, or even the common cold. It means to be free. Free from anything holding one back from living a normal life and that is exactly what mental illness can do to someone. Mental health is something everyone should be required to learn about. Although learning about mental illness may seem irrelevant to those without it, their knowledge could help someone else. Their newly understanding mind and loving heart could potentially save a life of someone destined for greatness. Health class, most likely required, teaches students about the different functions of the body's many organs to help them be smart about the care of their body. If there is a class on the care of the body, a class about the care of the organ that controls all the other organs would only make sense. Said class could make a difference in the life of someone haunted by mental illness. Said class could help toward freeing someone from the cold iron bars of depression. Said class could wake a teenage girl from her nightmare of anxiety and OCD, even if only for a minute.