I want to change the fact that many people are uneducated on the effects of mental illnesses and unaware of the treatment options. Talking about peoples mental illnesses is often treated as a taboo topic which leads to an uneducated environment on mental illnesses. That's why I think that people should be educated at a young age to increase knowledge and hopefully in a parallel to knowledge increase treatment on mental illnesses. I am interested in this topic because I found that once I learned someone had a mental illness I instantly had so many questions about it, I realized that I had a general lack of knowledge. I feel that people should be educated on this because it is something that majorly effects people's lives, and even if you don't have a mental illness knowing how it affects others is necessary. The main reason I want to write about this topic however is because of my friend Jake Eyering. He was a close friend of mine and last semester he shot himself in the head ending his life. Such an action as shooting himself seemed so out of place for such a happy guy. Later I learned that he had bi-polar depression and his treatment wasn't working. I feel like if the topic of mental illnesses and depression was made less taboo he could have talked to more people about his bi polar depression and tried different treatment options. I feel like he would be alive today.

The taboo of talking about mental illnesses is created through a negative view projected onto people with mental illnesses. In Mental illness stigma: Concepts, consequences, and initiatives to reduce stigma, stigma is heavily talked about and how stigma affects people with mental illness (Nicolas). It says that current views can lead to negative actions and prejudice towards mental illness patients as well as mental illness patients having developing negative view of themselves. It can also lead to people denying their mental illness to avoid stigma. The article also talks about ways stigma can be stopped through protest, education and contact. The major value to take away from this article is that stigma towards mental illness patients is a problem that needs to be fixed through protest, education and contact. Stigma leads to mental illness patients having to deal with their illness as well as negative views projected upon them as well. The authors are all involved in departments of psychiatry and have firsthand knowledge of studies of people with mental illness. One of the authors is even the head of a company for stigma research. However they could be biased towards the involvement of stigma because that is what they set out to find. 

Not only can stigma lead to people not seeking out treatment it can also lead people to drop out of treatment. In Perceived Stigma as a Predictor of Treatment Discontinuation in Young and Older Outpatients With Depression, it is argued that stigma in mental illness patients can cause them to drop out in the beginning of treatment (Sirey). This is shown through a study conducted by them dealing with stigma faced in the first three months of receiving treatment for their mental illness, it can cause people refuse to continue treatment for their depression because of the negative backlash about their treatment. The views on depression and treatment towards it as an illness need to be changed to allow people to get the treatment they need. All the authors of this source are educated, as well as the article being in "The American Journal of Psychiatry." These authors where educated enough to be allowed to have their experiment in this book as well as citing many sources and using commonly accepted experiment methods.

To look at what causes mental stigma attention is turned towards the media in Mental Illness, Stigma and the Media (Benbow). This article argues that a main source of the stigmatization of mental illness patients is from the media. The media negatively portrays people with mental illnesses and constantly stereotypes mental illness patients. The article then suggests different ways to reduce stigma. The major value and interests of this article is the reducing of stigmatization of mental illness patients. It suggests three main ways of doing this: protest, contact and education. It also calls upon the media to help clear some of the rumors about mental illnesses and help the general public learn about them. This source was written by a person with a bachelor's of medicine and member of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. He is educated in this field and is writing for "The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry." The source that is being written for and the qualifications he has lead me to believe the source is credible. This source would be useful in talking about the background and cause people's views of mental illnesses in my paper.

With these sources and other I think I can argue that mental illnesses especially depression should be taught in schools. This research question is arguable because many people could see the education of kids on mental illnesses as a waste of time and resources, while other could see it as necessary and useful to a kids knowledge. Many people could argue that kids could be using their time in school to learn other things or that teaching children and teenagers about mental illnesses could be ineffective in getting people to seek treatment. All of my sources agree upon the fact that a negative view of people with mental illnesses exist. They also agree that something needs to be done about it and suggest similar ways of fixing the issue. After reading all these articles I feel that the issue I have is much larger and more discussed then I previously thought. I might need to make my research question more about the specific solution of an education program in high school to make it something that hasn't been discussed before.

