A mental illness is known as any condition that can influence a person in the way they feel, behave, think, or how they interact with their surroundings. Different illnesses can have different ranges of symptoms from mild to severe. The harshness of the indicators depends on the mental illness one has. If an illness is left untreated, that person would be unable to cope with life and their daily routines and demands. The lack of treatment can be caused by someone’s financial status, lack of insurance, or even lack of government funding. When a patient goes untreated, more serious conditions can appear, leaving that person struggling to function properly.

The way mental illness has been viewed over the decades is a great representation of the way trends in cultural understanding can influence national policy and society’s understanding of various topics. Tracing back to over one hundred years ago, different cultures viewed someone who had a mental illness to be demonically possessed or in desperate need of religion. This is what led to the degrading of mentally ill patients and the negative stigma that was placed on them. It was in the 1840s when someone began to notice the disgusting living environment that patients lived in while in mental institutions. In the article “Module 2: A Brief History of Mental Illness and the U.S. mental Health Care System,” the author introduces Dorothea Dix, who demanded better living conditions for mentally ill patients. After forty years, Dix finally got what she wanted and persuaded the government to fund the building of thirty-two state psychiatric hospitals. The president at the time, Harry Truman, passed the National Mental Health Act which then created the National Institute of Mental Health. This program provided government funds to help research the cause and treatments of mental illness. As the population of the institutions drastically increased, they became understaffed and underfunded, which once again led to filthy living conditions for the patients. By the mid 1950s, the living conditions continued to decrease and outpatient treatment began (Module 2). Unfortunately, as the patients were back out in society, living their normal lives, people who did not suffer with mental conditions began to react negatively. As the stigmas destructively progressed, people with mental illnesses started to keep away from society, forcing themselves into unemployment. While unemployed, they were unable to have access to insurance, leaving them untreated. 

The United States has the highest number of diagnosed mental disorders compared to the rest of the world; this includes mood disorders, anxiety disorders, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders, substance abuse, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, impulse control disorders, and, among other things, social phobias (Walton). In just one year, twenty-seven percent of adults in the U.S. experience symptoms of a mental illness. In Walton’s article, she writes that almost one in two people have a chance of being diagnosed with some kind of mental health disorder in a lifetime. That number increases to fifty-five percent for someone who reaches the age of seventy-five. The numbers will continue to increase if these people do not get the proper diagnosis and proper treatment to help themselves. 

After decades of research, the exact cause of mental illness is still unknown. Though it has been proven that no mental disorder is a personal weakness or character defect, but instead a combination of conditions: genetic, biological, psychological, environmental. The article “Mental Illness Basics,” states that some disorders can be passed along from parent to child through genes, but this does not mean that if a parent suffers from a mental illness that their child will too. With this, it is believed that most conditions are linked to complications in multiple genes, rather than just one. The biological factor of serious mental illnesses is related to the abnormal balance of brain cells, known as neurotransmitters. The neurotransmitters help cells in the brain communicate with one another and when the chemicals are unbalanced, the messages do not transfer through the brain properly; this is what leads to some symptoms of mental illness. Injury to a specific part of the brain has also been linked with mental conditions. Psychological trauma also has a huge impact on the mental illness patient community. Many sicknesses can be triggered from trauma suffered throughout life: emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. Lastly, environmental stressors, such as death, divorce, dysfunctional family, changing of jobs or schools, or substance abuse, can have a heavy impact on one’s physiological health (Mental Illness). Based off of these four factors, it can be seen that mental illness can develop at any time in one’s life and cannot be prevented. From someone who was born with it to someone who was abused into it, all mental illness patients need treatment in order to functional correctly. 

After being diagnosed with a mental illness, the next obstacle is getting treatment. Any mental disorder requires ongoing treatment in order to progress and eventually learn how to successfully perform everyday activities. Fortunately, in the last two decades, much progress has been made in the treating of these illnesses. Many mental conditions can be effectively treated with one or more therapies: medication, psychotherapy, group therapy, day treatment or partial hospital treatment, or cognitive-behavior therapy. Some alternative therapies include water therapy, massages, biofeedback, art or musical therapy, hypnotherapy, electroconvulsive therapy, vagus nerve stimulations, or transcranial magnetic therapy (Mental Illness). Recently, a new treatment model has been discovered; Scott and Henry write about the “clinical staging model”. In the psychiatry field, this model has the ability to aid treatment decision-making for anyone ranging between fifteen to twenty-five years old. The clinical staging model can offer a new and improved development of interventions that have high benefits and low risks (Scott and Henry). Without some of these treatments, patients would be unable to continue living normal lives; instead, they would live in constant fear of going into society, scared of the things people would say and do to them.

Without accessibility to health insurance, many people go undiagnosed therefore going untreated. The author of “The Neglect of Mental Illness Exacts a Huge Toll, Human and Economic” wrote that one in six adults, living at or below the poverty line, have severe mental health problems. But without access to affordable treatment, many of them have a tough time having and holding a steady job; when finally finding a job, they may not qualify as “formally disables,” leaving them without insurance coverage. According to the National Health on Mental Illness, untreated mental health conditions costs the U.S. billions of dollars in lost productivity because of hospitals coping with associated chronic physical disease, schools having to open more special education classes, and courts and jails handling a large number of people who suffer from untreated mental illness (The Neglect). If health insurance became more available to those who cannot afford it, the United States might not lose as much money because more people would be diagnosed and treated. This would decrease the amount of money America has to spend on untreated mental issues.

To be treated comes at a pricey cost and due to the outrageous prices, there is a lack of people suffering with mental health conditions actually getting the treatment they deserve. When struggling with a disorder, one has a more increased chance of being hospitalized. The article “Mental Health by the Numbers” declares that mood disorders are the third most common cause of hospitalization in the U.S. for both youth and adults. Adults who go untreated for a serious mental illness, on average, die twenty-five years earlier than those who get treated for their conditions. Ewart conducted a study that focused on people that suffer from mental health conditions that live at and below the poverty line. It was found that these patients were turned away of public services and treated as second-class citizens. They were treated as an object due to their social class and their diagnosis of a mental illness. As mental health patients continue to be misunderstood by society, health care providers begin to decrease their supply of mental health care. The lack of treatment is resulting in more serious conditions than just mental health problems.

When a patient goes untreated, more serious difficulties appear. For example, among college students, thirty-seven percent of students that suffer with a mental health conditions have the highest dropout rate of any disability group (Mental Health). The dropout rate is unusually high due to the stress the students put on themselves, leaving them unable to function normally in the education environment. In the United States, suicide is the tenth leading cause of death. Over ninety percent of kids who die from suicide have severe mental health conditions. The life expectancy rate between the general population and people with severe mental illness is beginning to widen (Mental Health). Jayatilleke did a study that had a primary goal to see the relation between age, gender, and death of those with mental health conditions. The final conclusion was that people with a mental illness accounted for most frequent cases of death compared to death from circulatory disorders, cancer, and respiratory disorders (Jayatilleke). The rate could drastically decrease if people could easily be diagnosed and properly treated. But, because health insurance is so hard to come by, a large amount of people in America are severely suffering to the point where they physical and emotionally cannot function anymore. “The Neglect of Mental Illness Exacts a Huge Toll, Human and Economic” states that in 2002, twenty-nine states mandated that all health insurance packages should cover any mental health issues the same as physical illness. After being authorized, those states suicide rate dropped an average of five percent. Unfortunately, between 2009 and 2012, states cut thirty-nine percent of their health budgets (Neglect). After budget cuts, the lack of treatment began to increase, leaving people miserable while dealing with their illnesses.

For the most part, attitudes towards mental illness have drastically changed for the better. O’Hara concludes that the Department of Health found that more people regard mental disorders as an illness “like any other,” compared to fifteen years ago. Today, far fewer people view mental illness patients as dangerous. Seventy-three percent of people felt that anyone with a mental condition have the same right to employment as the wider population. Although some attitudes positively progress, some remained negative (O’Hara). Unfortunately, almost one-third of people between the age of sixteen and thirty-four think that it is easy to distinguish those with a mental illness form those who do not. They also confess that they would prefer to not be neighbors with a mental health patient. Ninety percent of people with mental health problems were affected by these discriminations and negative stigmas (O’Hara). These false stereotypes are what cause patients to stop going into public and working, which then leads them unemployed and without health insurance.

Also today, mental disorders are unfortunately not taken as seriously as they use to be. In order to get back to viewing it as an important issue, we, as a country, need to support patients who suffer everyday with these illnesses. Rather than discriminating people with mental health conditions and making then feel worse, we should be supporting them in every decision they decide to make in life. The association with mental health problems and being dangerous needs to come to an end. But, complications will continue if these people are not viewed like the general population. Also, the budget cuts against mental health need to stop in order for people to be able to afford the help they need and deserve. Those who cannot afford or do not have access to health insurance need an alternative way getting the diagnostic and treatment needed to help them. The outcome of patients being diagnosed and treated properly can only be positive, leaving me questioning why the budget cuts are being made. When someone is diagnosed and properly treated, they have the ability to fully recover or control their symptoms; they learn how to live their productive lives again. In conclusion, the change of attitude starts with us and can only progress into something big from there. 
