Mental Health And Mental Depression

Approximately one out of every four Americans suffers from some form of mental disorder in a given year. About 3.5 million Americans suffer from severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness. At least 40 percent of mentally ill people do not seek help or are not being treated, while many wander the streets homeless (Kornblum).

Mental illness in America affects a lot more people than many people may think. Around 42.5 million American adults suffer from mental illness, and about 9.3 million of those suffer from serious mental problems. Serious mental illness means that their condition interferes with their day to day activities. Something even as normal as going to work or school can be impossible for these people. A study was done and last year one in five Americans or 45.9 million Americans were labeled as suffering from mental illness. However, this estimate in more than likely too low (Bekiempis).

Over forty million Americans suffer from a mental health condition; and, unfortunately, fifty six percent do not receive any treatment at all. “Mental illnesses are health conditions involving changes in thinking, emotion and behavior”(Psychiatry.org). People live with their conditions even though their quality of life and personal relationships may be negatively affected. When one lives in a state of denial about having a mental illness, they are cheating themselves out of living life to their fullest potential and will achieve true freedom only when they face the illness head on and seek recovery.

Mental illness has been the most overlooked issue in society today let alone within prisons. Researcher Lurigio (2001) explored studies from the 1970’s through to the 2000’s on the deinstitutionalization and restructuring of mental health laws that basically channeled the mentally ill into the corrections system. Often mentally ill offenders are released into community care. Lurigio emphasized that community based care “compartmentalizes” mentally ill offenders and creates limitations on whom they treat. This creates yet another gap within the corrections system for offenders to fall into. Those who require treatment may not get what they need because community care can only treat so much. These “missed” offenders are often the most serious and chronic.

Mental Illness refers to a wide range of conditions or disorders that impact your mood, behavior and thinking. In the United States, more than 26.2 percent of adults, ages 18 and older suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder. That is one in every four adults, an estimated 57.7 million people (Kim Foundation). However, only 6 percent of people with mental disorders suffer from serious mental illness which is results in serious functional impairment, and interferes with or limits one or more major life activities (NIH, 2012). Mental illness range from depression, attention deficit disorder, schizophrenia, and even autism and these disorders range on the spectrum of intrusion in a person’s life.

An estimated amount of 450,000,000 people in the world are affected by some form of mental illness, that’s 54 times the amount of people that live in New York City. Around 41,000 individuals die due to mental illness each year, and out of all those people only 1,250,000 of them make contact with treatment services.

Approximately fifty million Americans suffer from mental illness. Of those fifty million only about twenty-five percent seek help due to the stigma behind mental illness. Mental illness ranges anywhere from extremely mild cases to some of the more severe illness such as schizophrenia (Brown, Kaylene; Bradley, Loretta J. 2002).

Mental illness is a serious disease and isn't always curable about 18.5% of the entire adult population lives with mental illness everyday. For some people it's not as easy to live an average everyday life without the help they need, which is sometimes not provided. Over half of the people that suffer mental illness also suffer

When people think of the many health issues that plague our corner of the world they usually focus on the more physical problems such as cancer, high blood pressure, and the deadly heart disease. However, the population living with mental illness is growing and becoming more visible; even celebrities and government officials are afflicted. The list of mental illnesses goes on and on, but some of the more common are anxiety disorders, addiction, bipolar disorder, Dysthymia, and Major Depressive Disorder.

What is the difference between mental health and mental illness? Although the terms are often used interchangeably, mental health and mental illness are not the same thing. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health is a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community. However, mental illness is a recognized, medically diagnosable illness that results in the significant impairment of an individual’s cognitive, affective or relational abilities. Mental disorders result from biological, developmental and/or psychosocial factors and can be managed using approaches comparable to those applied to physical disease. Prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation can improve the quality of life for many individuals who suffer from mental illness (U.S. DOH).

Depression: “An illness that involves the body, mood, and thoughts and that affect the way a person eats, sleeps, feels about himself or herself, and thinks about things” .[2] People tend to hear the word depression and think that someone is just upset and they will get over it. The truth is, 19 million Americans are living with depression right now, according to WebMD and Depression Health Center. [3] These people are not living with depression by choice, depression can come and go on its own and once you have been depressed, your chances of becoming depressed again are even higher. Now as stated before, depression is not just a mood swing, it is an illness that can take over a person’s body, feelings, and affect their way of thinking of themselves and habits.

Mind-boggling 450 million people in the whole world are affected by any form of mental illness. To be specific, most common mental illness is depression with 350 million. Twenty-one million people are affected by schizophrenia. In fact, mental illnesses are more common than cancer. According to MentalHealth.gov, “One in five American adults experienced a mental health issues” in 2014. Sadly, ⅔ of all people in the world with mental illness never seek help from health professionals.

The medical definition of depression is,”brain disorder persistently depressed mood,”(Google) that causes impairment in your life. Google correctly defines that depression is a disorder that gives its victims a always sad feeling . Due to depression being a broad term in medical terms has different types/levels. These types are Major Depression, Persistent Depressive Disorder, Psychotic Depression, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Atypical Depression, 'Situational' Depression and Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder which all stemmed from the definition depression. The word depression has now split into separate types in diagnosing. Depression is now just used as a common word to describe all these mental illnesses. Currently the Merriam Webster defines depression simply as,“a condition of general emotional dejection and withdrawal... ”(merriam-webster) This definition defines depression correctly as a condition or conditions where a person feels from

According to a recent study by the National Institute of Mental Health, it was revealed that 13% of African American women suffer from depression at some point in their life, a number higher than the general population (Ward, Wiltshire, Detry, & Brown, 2013). Mood and Anxiety disorders such as Depression are experienced by black women from all walks of life, especially those from low Socioeconomic backgrounds. Due to a variety of factors black women are more likely to report psychological disturbances and experience Chronic Morbidity associated with depression than whites (Woods-Giscombe, Robinson, Carthon, Devane-Johnson, & Corbie-Smith, 2016).

Mental illness is one of the major illnesses, some people face in everyday of their life, which can trigger them in one or the other as well prevent them to do things effectively as it use to be. According to Mental Health Foundation (2015), about a quarter of the population will experience some kind of mental health problem in the course of a year, this can happen either by anxiety and depression which is the most common mental disorder in Britain. Women are considered likely to be treated for a mental health problem than men. It is also considered that depression affects 1 in 5 older people (Mental Health Foundation, 2015). Women and Children Health Network (2014) has suggested that about one in five young adults will have depression by the time they are 25. Harris (2008) highlighted that, there is a fact about depression under the ‘’ The British Medical Association Family Doctor Guide to Depression’’. The factual information says every year, doctors diagnose two million new cases in the UK alone about depression, on average, each GP in the UK will have a patient with depression at least in a day and depression can affect any age. This shows a significant of the mental illness (Depression) which can tackle any age group depending on the circumstances. Depression usually starts in the teen years, more commonly before adulthood. Depression is less common among children under