Mental health is a huge factor in american society, there are many different mental illnesses that play a huge role in the average human's day to day life. Such as; anxiety disorders, depression, eating disorders, personality disorders, post-traumatic disorders, and can even range from different types of phobias. From the outside, a person can be seen ‘normal’ or ‘average’ but not everyone knows what goes on inside the human brain. 

The human brain is a very complicated organ, that consumes 20% of our oxygen and 20% of the energy we take in overall, the brain also controls everything we experience like movement, breathing, our brain is in charge of controlling our emotions and sensing our surroundings and environments; the human brain is in charge of everything that keeps us alive. Everyone is structured differently, and depending on the disorder, it can affect how the brain functions. Scientists do not currently have a complete understanding of what causes mental illness, they claim that figuring out the cause is a ‘daunting’ task. But figuring out a cause could lead to discovering new treatments. It is believed that mental illness results from problems in communication between neurons in the brain; neurotransmissions, there are lower levels of neurotransmissions in people with depression. Mental health is defined as ‘A health condition that changes a person’s thinking, feelings, and/or behavior, that causes the person’s distress and difficulty in functioning. Mental health can be very severe, depending on how severe, a person doesn’t necessarily need to look sick on the outside, but some may show some more explicit symptoms, these all just relate to the severity of the mental illness. 

Depression is defined as ‘a mental health disorder characterized by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life.’ symptoms may include; sad moods, loss in interest in activities one used to enjoy, a change in appetite or weight, difficulty sleeping or oversleeping, energy loss, the feeling of being worthless, people with depression may have difficulty focusing, and recurrent thoughts of death or suicide. Depression affects lives severely, many may have trouble performing at work or school. 1 in 33 children have depression, numbers may be as high as 1 in 8 children. Children and teens with depression are more likely to also have anxiety symptoms as well as other mental illnesses on top of their depression. This is one of the many reasons why suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death for ages 15-24, the sad thing is that suicide is the 6th leading cause of death for childen 5-15. 5 year olds are struggling with the same thing teenagers and adults are. This right here should show how messed up today’s society is, and that something needs to change, especially if there is now a problem with children who are as young as 5 years old. Teenagers who are depressed are also more likley to self-harm and commit suicide than adults. Epidemiological Studies reported that 2.5% of children and 8.3% of teenagers suffer from depression, and ⅔ of those children are not receiving the help that they need. There are a total of 8 million people every year who suffer from depression, 12 million total children under the age of 18 who suffer from a mental illness. \

Some warning signs that one might have a mental illness are; personality changes, the inability to cope with problems or daily activities, a change in sleep or eating patterns, thinking or talking about suicide of self-harm, high or low mood swings, abusing drugs or alcohol, and exessive anger, hostility, or violence. People may think that mental illnesses are pretty uncommon, but one in every four people are affected by a mental illness, and there are few US families that aren’t affected by mental illnesses. 

When it comes to diagnosing and treatments, the processes are very long and complex. To be diagnosed with a mental illness, an individual must be evaluated by a qualified professional like psychiatrists and psychologists, psychiatric nurses or social workers, since there isn’t a clear cause for mental illness, doctors use symptoms to diagnose. Treatments can vary, depending on the mental illness, and also depending on the severity of the mental illness; most can not be cured, but can usually be treated effectively to minimize the symptoms, if a person gets diagnosed with a mental illness, before they can get treatment they must undergo more tests, like going to see a qualified mental health professional. Some treatments may include medication, which is just one part of the treatment plan, this is the most common method of treatment, an individual must take the medications for a few days or even a few weeks. Psychotherapy is another form of treatment, where a patient goes to see a professional and they talk about how the patient is feeling and what they are going through, they try to come up with a solution, this can take up to a few weeks or even a few months. 

ADHD is another type of mental illness that can majorly affect people. ADHD stands for ‘Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.’ This is commonly a diagnosed behavioral disorder that affects 4.1% of children and teens from ages 9-17 years old. This disorder is two to three times more common for boys than girls. Some symptoms of ADHD are, being unpopular among their peers, having trouble in school, trouble paying attention to details, being easily distracted, making careless mistakes, and being disorganised. There are a variety of medications that can be taken to help lessen the symptoms of ADHD. There are a lot more mental illnesses, these are just some of the main ones. 

Perfection, a descriptive word that could either make someone's day or completely destroy them. ‘Perfect’ is defined as having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be. But the thing that today’s society has failed to realize is that perfection doesn’t exist, it never has and it never will. Everyone and everything has their flaws, it's up to them whether they choose to hide those flaws or embrace them. People choose to believe that perfection exists, to try and create some alternate reality for themselves where everything is ‘perfect’. A stereotypical perfect reality would be no fighting, no racism, no segregation, no violence, nothing but peace and everyone got along. But that would be boring, eventually that would get old, not exciting, slowly becoming less and less perfect because everyone would be unhappy. Teenage girls see covers on magazines, and want to be like those models, they get into the mindset that in order to get boys to like them, they have to look like that, they have to be skinny, wear revealing clothing, have perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect, perfect, perfect. 

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger tells the story about a young high school student, Holden Caulfield and his perception on the world, this book explores mental health and the topic of perfection often throughout the book, Holden believes that the world is filled with nothing but fake phonies who think they are better than everyone else, this really bothers Holden because he also explores the topic of “life is a game” and the upper class represents the ‘winning’ class’ this idea to Holden really bothers him and he doesn’t understand why this idea doesn’t bother anyone else. Caulfield doesn’t believe that the upper class should be ‘winning’ because they are rich and half the people in the upper class didn’t even work for what they have, they were just born into it, it's all they’ve ever known.

Mental Health is a large issue in today’s society, and if people continue to do nothing, this will only continue to get worse. Today’s society also needs to accept the fact that perfection will never exist. That's the first step, once people realize that, everything else will be a piece of cake. The biggest issue the world has with initiating that first step is keeping their minds open. The majority of the world thinks one certain way, most likely due to the fact that they were brought up with that mindset, which is hard to change, but it is doable. To change the way people may see these sorts of issues, we need to show them both sides of these people’s stories.

    Mental health is very important for overall health. When you have a healthy mind, you tend to have a healthy body and healthy lifestyle. Due to the high amounts of insufficient mental health in young adults and adults, not a whole lot of people pursue healthy lifestyles because they don’t have enough energy to get up and exercise, which can lead to even worse negative thoughts, causing their issues to get worse.