Preview

RE: "What's Eating America" JJ

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1573 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
RE: "What's Eating America" JJ
JesseLaur’en Jordan
Professor Noel-Williams
English 1113
25 November 2013
Depression
Depression is a mental illness caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. Scans on patients with clinical depression showed that they had less brain volume in several regions, including the frontal lobe, basal ganglia and hippocampus than normal, non-depressed patients. Depression can affect the way a person sleeps, eats, and functions on a daily basis. People with depression often have feeling of hopelessness, lack of energy, and they take no pleasure in things that normal people enjoy. A depressed person usually lacks motivation to do nearly anything, even the basic everyday must-do’s. Major depression is a disease that affects 5 percent of the global population (Depression’s Chemical Imbalance Explained | Psych Central News). Some people may only experience depression during and after a traumatic event, but most depressed people have to deal with the illness for a lifetime. Depression is a mental illness because it is a disease that attacks and affects the brain. Many people believe that when an ill person says that they’re depressed, all the sick person is doing is trying to get attention. Many people say that sick people reach out for help just for the attention. People don’t believe that depression is a real illness; they think that the people that claim to have the illness are just attention-seekers. While they may be wanting attention, a depressed person reaching out is also a cry for help. They obviously know something is not right, so they say something. It’s not for attention, it is to get help. Many depressed people are scared of themselves. They are scared about the harm that they can cause and they reach out for help before they can hurt themselves. Untreated depression is the number one risk for suicide among youth. They try to reach out but are made fun of and are called “fakers” and are said to be seeking attention, when all they really want is help.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    " Mental illnesses like depression are disorders that affect your behavior, mood and the way you think. Depression, anxiety and the bipolar disorder are some of the mental illnesses that people go through on a daily basis. Depression is an mental illness it is classified as a mood disorder that causes continuous feeling of sadness. “…

    • 541 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Depression is a mental state characterized by a pessimistic sense of inadequacy and a despondent lack of activity. One may also describe depression as an illness that involves the body, mood, and thoughts. Depression affects the way a person eats, sleeps, feelings about oneself, and the way one thinks about different subjects. Signs and symptoms of depression are; loss of interest in activities that were once enjoyable, loss of appetite with weight loss or overeating with weight gain, loss of emotional expression, sad, anxious, and empty mood, feelings of hopelessness, and many more. Psychosis is a loss of contact with reality; usually including false ideas about what is taking place, or who one is, and seeing or…

    • 932 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Everyone knows what depression is, or at least they think they do, but, no one really knows what depression is unless they have it or have battled with it. Depression is defined as a serious mood disorder that involves emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and physical changes severe enough to disrupt a person’s ordinary functioning. People with depression always believe something bad is going to happen, they go through life with the constant feeling of low grade happiness, they want to be happy but the depression literally will not let them. It’s not imaginary or “all in your head” and it’s more than just feeling “down”, it’s a real and serious illness caused by changes in hormone levels, medical conditions (say suffering from cancer or being…

    • 941 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Depression is a mental illness characterised by extreme sadness and usually people suffering with it are full of guilt but cannot always state why they feel that way. Depression has become a fairly common mental illness as Kessler et al (1994b) found that around 17% of people will experience a major episode of depression during their life.…

    • 904 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Unipolar depression and bipolar disorder are two common mood disorders. The emotions that make these two disorders classify as mood disorders are depression and mania. Depression is a mood that makes a person feel sad and low and makes life seem overwhelming and challenging. Mania, however, is the opposite. Mania is a state of emotion where a person feels an abnormally elevated mood. Both can last for a long amount of time, even after recovery, and damage personal and social functioning. If a person has combined emotions of mania and depression, the person would normally be diagnosed as manic-depressive, or having bipolar…

    • 991 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Depression is a mood disorder and the biomedical model portrays one way in which it can be understood. The biomedical model focuses on biological factors alone in an attempt to explain an illness or a disorder. It describes illnesses as disturbances within the human body that can be altered and corrected. Very unlike the biopsychosocial model, it doesn’t include other factors that may contribute to a disorder such as their psychological state or their social context. The biomedical model focuses on activities within the brain alone that can cause disorders like depression. In this assignment I will explain how biological processes in the brain can arguably be perceived to cause depression.…

    • 999 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Depression, a serious medical illness that involves the brain, it is a disorder of the brain. Depression usually starts between the ages of 15 and 30. There are a variety of causes, including genetic, environmental, psychological, and biochemical factors. Some symptoms can include sadness, change in weight, difficulty sleeping or oversleeping, energy loss, feelings of worthlessness, loss of interest or pleasure in activities you used to enjoy, and thoughts of death or suicide. Depression is a serious kind of mental illness that should be treated as soon as possible, before something undoable happens. Usually when depression reaches it climax the…

    • 856 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    These questions are meant to soothe, to quell, and are mistaken as treason for reason, and unappealing for feeling. One’s power is misrecognized when its force is not considered when fighting against the will to live. The same force compelling one to suicide, is a will turned against the Self, the power keeping him or her alive. If it is the power of the will inversed to stave off the ill will of power, then suicidal ideation is not something to be changed per se, but channeled by unmasking it to the ego as a source of love not hate. Depression is not about self-acceptance; it is dealing with self-accusatory thoughts digested from the corruptive ivy of society which the mind masticates over while fighting through the paralyzing agent. Unfortunately, a person with depression is given less to triumph over what causes their individual depression than capitulate to the embodiment of collective happiness or contentment. A depressed person needs to, or has to find through disciplinary investigation, a reason for it. A tightrope…

    • 334 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Depression is a treatable disorder that 60% to 80% of individuals affected are treated successfully. The labels and taboos society places on mental health issues is a major reason while people feel ashamed or embarrassed to seek help because they do not want to be labeled by others. Similarly, some are afraid of accepting the mental illness itself. By denying the illness, they hope it will just go…

    • 814 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    5.7 Suicide

    • 955 Words
    • 4 Pages

    People who talk about suicide are only trying to get attention. They won't really do it. - False. According to research, as many as 75% of the people who commit suicide do or say something to indicate their state of mind and intentions before they act. If a person has to go to the extreme of threatening to do his or herself bodily harm or commit suicide, it is not that he or she wants attention, they need it!…

    • 955 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Depression that is something that usually affects everyone at some point in their life even when the person does not realize they are suffering from it. Depression can be brought on by many different things such as job lose, a death, or by an imbalance of the brain. According to Mental Health America, depression affects more than 21 million American children and adults annually. Mental Health America, also states the principal cause of the 30,000 suicides in the U.S. each year (Mental Health America. An Analysis of Depression Across the States.2012.).…

    • 718 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Depression is an illness that involves the body, mood, and thoughts. It affects the way a person eats and sleeps, the way one feels about oneself, and the way one thinks about things. A depressive disorder is not a personal weakness or a condition that can be wished away. Appropriate treatment, however, can help most people who suffer from depression. It is important to know the symptoms, reactions and treatments for depression.…

    • 1003 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Björnsdóttir has said regarding the nature of society’s rhetoric. It is more than once that I have heard suicide defined as a selfish act by those who do not have depression. It is more than once that I have heard people tell me to just be happy. I know all too well that a lack of mental health education to society along with poor rhetoric can alter the severity of depressed individual’s symptoms. Don’t get me wrong, mental health advocacy is amazing but without the right framing depressed individuals continue to suffer more alone than ever. Advocates with the right framing, like Ms. Björnsdóttir, are depressed individuals real hope. Truly, she saves us, when she says, “We need to deconstruct these ‘padded walls’ surrounding mental illness and we need to do it together” (Bjornsdottir n.p.).…

    • 1286 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Depression is a mood disorder that deprives an individual of the ability to lead a life that is filled with happiness, joy and contentment. The effects of depression can be destructive on the mental abilities, physical health and emotional stability of those that suffer with this disorder. Individuals may choose to not seek help due to embarrassment or a lack of admitting there is a problem. Others may choose to seek help to end the cycle of unanswered questions and enrich and improve their quality of life while producing a sense of normalcy.…

    • 1164 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The biological view of unipolar depression explores the idea that genetic factors, biochemical factors, brain anatomy, circuitry in the brain, and the immune system all play a role in producing mood changes. Research suggests via genetic factors that some individuals inherit the depressive genetic chromosome from other relatives within their family pedigree. Biochemical research has found that the lack of activity within the two neurotransmitter chemicals norepinephrine and serotonin can cause depression. The brain’s anatomy and circuitry also play a role in causing depression. When specific areas of the brain such as the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, amygdala, and Brodmann Area 25 aren’t able to send messages or react properly due to dysfunctions in the circuitry, depression can occur from lack of proper brain functioning. Studies on the immune system support the possible idea that individuals who are stressed out have weakened bodily functioning.…

    • 1963 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays