Mzimo
Oct 14, 2015
Undergraduate / "Shortcomings in Mental Healthcare" UW Madison Application [3]
I was reading through some of the similar essays on this website answering the same question and the idea of mental health in our country came to mind and I had a really easy time writing this. Should I scrap this idea because it doesn't really effect my life personally or is it more important to write about something you care about? Other than that any feedback and suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Essay Question: Consider something in your life you think goes unnoticed and write about why it's important to you.
It seems that nearly every week there is a new massacre in our country. The feeling is almost routine to me, somehow I have become jaded. I no longer pay attention the media circus following a mass shooting. The who, what, where, when, why has ceased to matter to me, as it seems the next tragedy is never far on the horizon. What does matter to me is that all of these tragedies, all of this loss, pain and fear have one common catalyst, the gunman was mentally ill.
While I nor anyone in my day to day life suffers from a severe mental illness this issue is very important to me. The lack of accessible treatment for all individuals and the stigma around seeking treatment in this country is unacceptable. All the gun control in the world won't stop these tragedies from happening. Only serious reform in the area of mental health treatment in our country will fix this seemingly endless cycle of mass shootings in our country.
Around 25% of our homeless suffer from severe mental illness. We as a country have turned our back on these people and left them to fend for themselves in their hour of need. No one asks to be born different and certainly no one asks to be born poor. The fact is these people never had a chance. Because of our failures, they were unable to get the help they need when they needed it, and now because of that we label them a burden.
The perpetrators and victims of mass shootings and the growing homeless population have two things in common. One, they are often times the victims of mental illnesses. Second, society has failed them, we have failed them. People are not born monsters or burdens, they are created when allowed to slip through the cracks of society, away from the light of sanity, and the results can be heartbreaking.
Our nation faces many problems, the lack of treatment for those with mental illnesses being only one. But it is significant, it is not going away any time soon, and I am afraid that until we have an open and honest discussion about how we deal with mental health treatment in this country we will continue to garner the suffering of our inaction.
I was reading through some of the similar essays on this website answering the same question and the idea of mental health in our country came to mind and I had a really easy time writing this. Should I scrap this idea because it doesn't really effect my life personally or is it more important to write about something you care about? Other than that any feedback and suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Essay Question: Consider something in your life you think goes unnoticed and write about why it's important to you.
It seems that nearly every week there is a new massacre in our country. The feeling is almost routine to me, somehow I have become jaded. I no longer pay attention the media circus following a mass shooting. The who, what, where, when, why has ceased to matter to me, as it seems the next tragedy is never far on the horizon. What does matter to me is that all of these tragedies, all of this loss, pain and fear have one common catalyst, the gunman was mentally ill.
While I nor anyone in my day to day life suffers from a severe mental illness this issue is very important to me. The lack of accessible treatment for all individuals and the stigma around seeking treatment in this country is unacceptable. All the gun control in the world won't stop these tragedies from happening. Only serious reform in the area of mental health treatment in our country will fix this seemingly endless cycle of mass shootings in our country.
Around 25% of our homeless suffer from severe mental illness. We as a country have turned our back on these people and left them to fend for themselves in their hour of need. No one asks to be born different and certainly no one asks to be born poor. The fact is these people never had a chance. Because of our failures, they were unable to get the help they need when they needed it, and now because of that we label them a burden.
The perpetrators and victims of mass shootings and the growing homeless population have two things in common. One, they are often times the victims of mental illnesses. Second, society has failed them, we have failed them. People are not born monsters or burdens, they are created when allowed to slip through the cracks of society, away from the light of sanity, and the results can be heartbreaking.
Our nation faces many problems, the lack of treatment for those with mental illnesses being only one. But it is significant, it is not going away any time soon, and I am afraid that until we have an open and honest discussion about how we deal with mental health treatment in this country we will continue to garner the suffering of our inaction.
