Mental Illness Research Paper

Mental illness can severely impact youth’s ability to undertake school and there is very little help for these students, making adolescent mental illness a heavily minimized topic and creating a myriad of challenges for students with mental disorders. According to the Webster Dictionary, mental illness is defined as “any of a broad range of medical conditions that are marked primarily by sufficient disorganization of personality, mind, or emotions to impair normal psychological functioning and cause marked distress or disability.” There are many mental illnesses, both diagnosable and undiagnosable. There are two broad categories used for mental disorders, non-debilitating and debilitating. These are not synonymous with severe and nonsevere, and most mental disorders are …show more content…
Each of these types of disorders has different onset age, meaning the age they start to present symptoms. For example, the earliest median onset age for mental disorders is for anxiety disorders; six years old. Next earlier onset age is for behavioral disorders; eleven years old. The last two are thirteen years for mood disorders and fifteen years for substance abuse disorders. This is crucial to the treatment of mental illnesses in adolescence. The later something is treated, the more difficult it is to treat. If the median age onset for anxiety disorders is six, and most anxiety medications have age requirements that are around early-late teens, (Xanax is 12 and older, Klonopin is 10 and older, Ativan is 12 and older, Paxil is 18 and older, etc.), then anxiety disorders can go widely untreated for a long time. Anxiety and mood disorders, which often are comorbidities, going untreated, can actually affect the physical structure of your brain. A