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Mental Illness In Today's Society

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Did you know that nearly 19% of adults in the U.S. alone deal with some kind of a mental disorder? Or that 20% of the youth population have been diagnosed with one of these disorders? To put that into a different perspective, that means one in every five people may possess some form of a mental illness, whether it is depression, an anxiety disorder, or OCD. Mental illness is not a rarity in today’s society, but instead it is an extensive obstacle for everyone that has these disorders. Mental illness is existent all over the world in many people, and it is important to be knowledgeable of it and essential to be understanding of the people who suffer from it. I have always been curious about mental illnesses ever since I was able to understand what it was. I have read books about people with mental disorders, studied statistics about mental illnesses, and researched it extensively on the Internet. First, I …show more content…
Bipolar disorder is also known as manic depression. According to the Nation Institute of Mental Health, a bipolar disorder is defined as a disorder associated with episodes of mood swings ranging from depressive lows to manic highs. It affects nearly three million people in the US each year. People with this disorder have episodes that may last days or even weeks at a time. There is no way to tell when these episodes will occur but they can happen several times a year. Mania symptoms include periods of an elevated mood or being more easily irritated. When experiencing a manic episode, a patient normally has high levels of energy and feels that they have a reduced need for sleep. After this stage of an episode, depression symptoms begin to appear. Some of these symptoms include feeling sad, having low energy, low motivation, or loss of interest in activities they previously thought were enjoyable. For people with this disorder, treatments are available. However, this illness is

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