Week 14

This week on Monday, April 16, we presented our "Mental Illness in Young Adults" in the Health Science building. Overall, I believe the presentation went very well. We did not receive the audience we expected of parents and their children. Instead, the senior citizens from the Franklin Building came to hear our presentation. As for our first presentation with them, they were a perfect audience--attentive, genuinely interested in the topic, and applied the information to their personal lives. We divided the topics accordingly: I spoke about depression, Rondell spoke about anxiety, and Timi spoke about ADHD. For each mental illness, we discussed the definition of each mental illness, symptoms of the mental illness, risk factors of the mental illness, and finally, statistics of mental illness. We had intended to emphasize ways in which parents ought to notice changes in their child's behavior to notice the onset of mental illness if it arises. However, as this would be relatively irrelevant to our audience, we decided to switch the emphasis to a more neutral, objective approach to the topic. 

For the definition of depression, I differentiated normal "sadness" from major depression. Whereas people who are sad are able to snap out of their depression by switching their mindset to a positive mindset, those with depression are unable to do so. There is no switching of mindsets--instead, depression is the only mindset that exists for them and if there is a metaphorical "switch" that is able to turn off the sadness, that switch is broken in those with depression. I described depression as a heavy feeling of lifelessness. And this feeling may be so debilitating that those with major depression see mundane tasks such as getting out of the bed in the morning, brushing their teeth, taking showers, or seeing friends, as Herculean tasks. I also mentioned that research has shown depression perhaps being the result of a lack of serotonin in the brain. However, as with any disease, depression may also arise out of environmental or life stressors. Nonetheless, the cause of depression is still under research and is not yet well understood. 

Next, I briefly mentioned the symptoms of depression including: thoughts of hopelessness, worthlessness, guilt, shame, and purposelessness; fatigue, anger, irritability, sleep and eating changes, and may include thoughts of suicide and death. If these symptoms persist for more than two weeks, it is imperative the individual speaks with their doctor to be diagnosed for depression and begin a treatment plan. Risk factors of depression (and also for anxiety) for young adults include stress at school, emotional trauma, bullying, substance abuse, and symptoms of other mental illnesses (such as thyroid disease). 

The statistic I mentioned are:

• Leading cause of disability in US among  people ages 15 to 44
• 1 in 5 youth aged 13–18 (21.4%) experiences a severe mental disorder at some point during their life. For children aged 8–15, the estimate is 13%
• 70% of youth in juvenile justice systems have at least one mental health condition and at least 20% live with a serious mental illness.11
• Just over half (50.6%) of children aged 8-15 received mental health services in the previous year
• LGBT youth in grades 7-12 are twice as likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual counterparts
• Anxiety disorders affect 25.1% of children between 13 and 18 years old
• ½ of those diagnosed with depression also suffer anxiety