Mental

Hi, everyone!

I have decided to make this post about the need for understanding those who have mental illnesses.

I think that this is a serious rights issue. People in America have the right to recieve the care they need. Whether that care is physical, mental, or spirtual shouldn't matter, but it does.

According to healthypeople.gov. Approximately 1 in 4 adults have a mental illness in the United States. In children it is 1 in 5.

That is a serious amount of people being diagnosed. However, how many are left undiagnosed? How many after being diagosed aren't given the proper treatment they need?

Fewer than one-third of adults and one-half of children get diagnosed according to nami.org.

Unfortunetly according to nami.org, racial and ethnic groups are less likely to get the care they need.

It comes down to money. Do you have enough money to pay to get better? It is a sad truth that most people who couldn't afford treatment are undiagnosed anyway.

Teenagers and children in schools with counsleors and psychologists go undiagnosed. Most people say to themsleves 'Oh well, they are just going through a phase. It will pass.' 

That mind set is what has over 50% of studnets with mental illnesses dropping out of high school.

People wonder what's wrong with America. It is a long list, but there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

People are getting treated. Sites all over the web allow people to view symptoms and clues that they can use to speak to their doctors about their mental health.

It is becoming less taboo for people to seak help. It might not be out in the open yet, but the discussion of mental illness is slowly coming out of the dark and inot the light of day.

Requests

It has come to my attention that this week I have been uninspired to write about any issues. Although I have found that I love writing opinion columns. I find it very therapeutic. In fact writing them has made think about radio talk shows.

I think I would rather enjoy working at a radio station and having a talk show on it. 

I am getting off track. 

I have decided that this post is going to be a request post. If anyone has anything they would like me to give my opinion on or would like my input or aSouthwestern's professor input on let me know. 

    

Bonus Blog

My professor gave us an assignment this week. In it there was a writing prompt. The wiriting prompt was "Journalismis can't be journalism until its published"

I hadn't thought about it that way before. I had considered journalism to be more like writing short stories or essays. The stories didn't need to be published to be journalism.

I changed my mind. Journalism is all about getting relevant news out to people in a timely manner. Stories have to be published to make them news to anybody. Which means that journalism is only that when something has been published.

My question to this logic is, if jouranlism is being published can anything be journalistic? Can we accept poor wiritng or made up non sense as journalism just beasue it has been published?

Feminism answer

This post is an update to the question I posted in my last post. I asked the question when and why feminism became such a bad word.

I found my answer speaking with Michelle Boucher this week. In our conversation we were speaking about feminism and I ask her why she thought feminism has such a bad rap now.

First she said that she started hearing feminism as being a bad thing about 15 to 10 years ago.

Then we began talking about a few of her theories as to why it has happened. There were two theories that I thought were the best and most logical.

 The first theory is that women my age no longer feel that there is a need for feminism. I agree with this I have always had my independence and rights; I have always been told that I am equal to men.

I have my independence and I have my rights, but even now women are not treated as equal to men.

We may see and believe that we are because we are told we are but we aren’t. Women still make less than men for doing the exact same job, women still don’t have equal legislation, there are hardly any women in powerful positions, and until recently women weren’t allowed to hold active combat titles.

None of this is talked about often within the general public. It is ignored. Instead women and men focus on the independence and rights women have now.

I am not saying that the rights and freedom we have gained is something to stub my nose at, but we are still not equal.

People may feel that feminism is no longer needed, but it is and the 4^th wave of feminism proves that.

The second theory about why feminism has gotten such a bad rap was because people have an image of radical feminism stuck in their minds as the normal type of feminist and feminism.

This radical feminist and feminism to the minds in many looks like a man hating, non-shaving, single minded, and one issue voting woman.

I admit that a few feminists took it to that level and because society likes to judge the words and actions of a few and label many by that. People became turned off by feminism.

However, most feminists are not man hating and they do shave. In fact they are just concerned and active people who want women to be equal to men and treated better or the same as men.

They are calm, level-headed, nice, intelligent, people.

A strong leader for the 4^th wave of feminism needs to emerge and create a new image to put into people’s minds. A positive, truer image of what feminism stands for and how most feminists are.

That is how I am going to end this post. Have a great rest of the week!