Mental

Disorders
To: Mr. Jose Gomez
From: Summer Hayes (Xavier)

Date:

Description: Mental illnesses are injuries or conditions that affect your daily thinking,
feelings, or behaviors. Mental illnesses are like diseases, you can treat them, but they cannot be
cured. The way mental illnesses come off to me are as if you get cancer and go through chemo
therapy and get treated and cured, but you dont know it can always come back. Mental illness refers
to a wide range of mental health conditions-disorders that affect your mood, thinking, and behavior.
Examples of mental illness include depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders and
addictive behaviors.

The Reason why I Chose This Topic: The reason why I chose this topic is because I
want to gain an understanding of mental illness due to the significant people I have in my life. In some
way I want to actually see if neuroplasticity works towards mental illnesses. It is true you choose your
reality, but how can you be able to choose your reality when your mind is sick? I just want to truly
understand that if you change the thoughts and try reprogramming your brain, will the empty emotion
still remain, or does it go away? This is why I chose this topic because it feels like an experiment to
me. I dont understand the feeling of empty, I dont understand what it is like to always feel attacked.
Even though I am defensive my brain isnt telling me They want to hurt you, Everyone is laughing at
you, or Look at her we want to kill her. Maybe I would be able to understand this if I put myself
through this and make my mind believe I am ill. This topic was chosen to comprehend mental
illnesses.

The way my Topic Relates to my Major: The way I see that my topic relates to my
major is that artists create artwork based on either emotions, experiences, or even being inspired by
something. Many artists that are famous now had suffered from a mental illness. Many different types
of artists like painters, composers, writers, and musicians have suffered from depression, bipolar
disorder and schizophrenia. Prompting people to ask the question, are artists more likely to suffer
from a mental illness? The research says yes. A 2012 study followed 1.2 billion patients and their
relatives found that bipolar disorder is more common in individuals with artistic professions including
dancers, photographers and authors. (Scientists were also found to have the same link.) And authors
were more likely to face other psychiatric diseases like schizophrenia. Artists who suffer from mental
illness are able to show different perceptions in life and meanings. Thats why when people look at
their paintings and dont understand them theres actually multiple meanings and feelings within the
artwork. It may not state it in the description, but you can feel it.

The Two Sources I used:

Diseases and Conditions Mental Illness Mayo Clinic, n.p, 13 Oct 2015. Web. 03 Feb 2017.

8 Artists who Suffered From Mental Illness Mother Nature Network, n.p. 04 Aug 2015. Web.