Mental Instability Among Youth, Dispense di Lingua Inglese

Scarica Mental Instability Among Youth e più Dispense in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity! Diana Locatelli 946900 MENTAL INSTABILITY AMONG YOUTH “One-third of first-year college students report mental health issues”. As alarming as it sounds, it is absolutely true. Nowadays, many students have to face serious mental issues such as stress, anxiety, sleep problems, relationship difficulties and depression, and the number of young adults suffering from these diseases is rapidly increasing. The transition to a new school - and therefore to a new life - can be difficult to deal with, but for someone it appears to be harder than usual. For instance, when it comes to come across a reality which is different from the one you were used to, some troubles may arise. Mental health disorders affect many areas of students’ lives, for example their academic results, their physical wellness, their personal experiences and other aspects that contribute to reduce the quality of their lives. Moreover, these issues can have long-term consequences for students, affecting their future choices and experiences. Even if mental illnesses are quite spread, it seems that they are more common among university students. Research has found that these issues tend to influence the academic achievement of the people who suffer from it. The data demonstrate that thirty percent of students are affected by stress, twenty-two percent suffer from anxiety, twenty percent have sleep difficulties and fourteen percent fall into depression. 1 Another factor to consider is that these troubles concern not only the person that suffer from them on their skin, but also the environment around them. In particular, family members, friends, peers or roommates may more or less feel the consequences of these complicated situations. As a result, relationships between people may be damaged due to the effects that these diseases may cause. However, in some cases it is the impact of the family on the individual that may be considered the cause of mental instability. This is exactly the case of Marianne Sheridan, one of the two protagonists of the novel Normal People written by Sally Rooney. At the beginning of the story, we get to know this young girl who was born in a problematic familiar environment that causes her a lot of trouble. During the whole story, she manifests an unstable psychological condition that has its roots in her past life experiences. As we can read from the first pages, Marianne grew up without her father because he died when she was only thirteen and therefore her mother Denise had to raise her daughter, as well as her son Alan, by herself. Unfortunately, this is not the only adversity she has to confront. On one hand, Alan, her older brother, is a violent person who abuses her both physically and psychologically. On the other hand, her mother is a very cold person who does not show a shred of affection and love to her daughter. It is clear that Marianne grew up in a toxic familiar environment and, as a result of this, she developed her distorted view of the world. Her constant feeling of inadequacy leads her to have the impression of being wrong and out of place in every situation, especially in the context of an intimate relationship. She appears to be unable to handle a good and healthy love 1 Data taken from the American College Health Association 2015 survey Diana Locatelli 946900 relationship without being abused by a violent man and then, at the end of the day, she is convinced that she deserves it. The reasons behind her mental instabilities may be identified in her difficult familiar situation. This leads to reason about the deep-rooted causes of these problems. With respect to this, it is important to bear in mind that it is not always easy to detect the motivations which generate all sorts of mental health issues. First of all, it is worth to understand the notion of trigger. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the trigger is “an event or situation, etc. that causes something to start”, and more specifically related to psychology, “something that causes someone to feel upset and frightened because they are made to remember something bad that has happened in the past”2. Multiple factors may determine mental health outcomes. The more risks adolescents – or people in general - are exposed to, the greater the potential impact on their mental health. Factors that are believed to contribute to the development of mental issues among adolescents can be identified in a combination of biological, psychological, and environmental variables. Some mental illnesses have been linked to abnormal functioning of nerve cell circuits or pathways that connect particular brain regions. 3 Nonetheless, there are many other variables which are thought to result in a period of poor mental health. With respect to this, it is possible to remark psychological factors such as childhood abuse and trauma, social isolation, loneliness, discrimination and stigma, social disadvantaged position, bereavement, physical injuries or illnesses, job loss or unemployment and many others. In general, the consequences of the phenomena mentioned above might be solved quite easily, but in some cases, all these elements can give birth to serious and severe disorders, one above all, depression. First, it is important to understand what depression is and how it works. Defined by United State National Library of Medicine, depression is “a psychiatric disorder that affects mood, behaviour, and overall health” 4. To put it another way, depression - also known as major depression or major depressive disorder – is a mental disease that alters people’s behaviour by inflicting feelings of sadness, hopelessness, negativity, and misery. It is a crippling disease that involves both the affective and the cognitive sphere of the person, impacting in a negative way on every aspect of life. According to an American survey, the rate of individuals who reported depressive symptoms soared between 2005 and 2017. During these years, the study reported a 52% increase in the symptoms of depression among adolescents aged twelve to seventeen, from a percentage of 8,7% to 13,2%. What is more, the research also recorded a 63% increase of the same 2 Definition of the Online Cambridge Dictionary 3 Quotation from the article “Causes of Mental Illness” (https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/mental-health- causes-mental-illness) 4 Definition of the United State National Library of Medicine