Mental Illness

Introduction

The American Psychiatric Association defines mental illness as health conditions involving changes in thinking, emotion, or behavior. Nearly 19% of adults in America experience mental illnesses, with 4-7% of them experiencing it in adolescence. Therefore, finding literature for these people to read is very important for them to see themselves. Although people with mental illness must be able to see themselves in these pieces of literature, they representation must reflect on mental illness accurately and sympathetically. Furthermore, the reader should be able to gain more insight on their condition than they already have. These pieces of literature must not aim to antagonize the character, but rather make him or her sympathetic towards the character, so the reader can see one’s condition positively or learn from the text that is portraying the condition. It is also important for teachers to understand the importance of mental illness in literature to understand the harm mental illness causes to others, and how to prevent thoughts, emotions, and behaviors from becoming so destructive they can lead to mental illness. This way, teachers can understand what they can do to make their classroom a friendly and welcoming environment that welcomes all students so they do not feel those emotions related to mental illness, such as loneliness, self-hatred, and lack of belonging. In this entry, I talk about Furiously Happy, The Wall, and The Life We Bury, the impact they had on me as it pertains to mental illness, and the values they teach as they pertain to mental illness. First, I think it is important to understand my experience with mental illness to understand the impact these pieces of literature had on me and the values they have taught me.

My Personal Experience with Mental Illness

Mental Illness has affected my life personally. I have suffered from depression and anxiety personally, so I understand the importance of finding literature that addresses such an epidemic. My depression started when I transferred from Camden County College to Rowan University, and it started because I felt like I didn’t fit in, I wasn’t making any new friends, all the friends I had in Camden County College either couldn’t find the time to hang out with me, or just stopped talking to me. I felt like I had no one, and I had no idea what to expect from the people around me, which is what my Special Education Measurements and Assessment professor, who is also a psychologist says causes depression in adults. I learned he was right. I didn’t know whether the people around me liked me or not, or even if they were interested in what I had to say. I was used to having friends at Camden County, then at Rowan it didn’t seem I had any. In other words, I didn’t know what to expect from other people.

My Professional Experience with Mental Illness

Although mental illness is not as prevalent to elementary school students, there are behaviors and environmental factors that can serve as warning signs for mental illness later in life. In my experience substitute teaching, I have seen students and thought to myself, “this might be a red flag for anxiety or depression”. For example, I was in a fifth-grade classroom and one young girl brought markers from home for her and her group to work on their social studies project together. One of her friends in the group took the marker without asking, and she lashed out at the other two girls in the group about how she brought the markers from home and that she could not lose them. The fight escalated to being about their friendship and how she could never trust her. The other girl was mad because it just seemed like she could never do anything right to her. The girl who brought the markers came up to me crying and asked me if she could go to the counselor. Seeing if I could fix the problem, I asked what was wrong, and she told me she needed to go to the counselor, so I let her go. After she left, I asked what happened, and the girl whom she lashed out told me that the two of them just do not get along even though they are friends.

I saw this as a red flag because she was getting upset over markers, which is odd for a fifth grader to be upset about. The way she was crying made me a little suspicious as well because it was over markers and she was crying hysterically. The fact that it seemed to happen more than once based on my conversation with the other girl made me think that this type of behavior could be dangerous for a young girl. As teachers, we need to be aware of these behaviors, and be able to prevent them by creating an accepting environment for students to accept themselves and each other so they are less likely to develop mental illness later in life. In other words, the classroom should feel like a positive environment so they can see more good than bad in their lives. If we do not encourage optimism in our students, they will feel these negative feelings that contribute to mental illness in the pieces of literature I talked about.