Assignment #13 - Irene Kim - Mental Health

(Satire)

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over 4 million children and teens have been diagnosed with anxiety and almost 2 million with depression. Can we really trust these statistics? Nowadays, it seems that the new trend is to slap the label "anxiety" on everything and be a relatable teen. Everyone has their own problems, but Gen Z folks love to exaggerate--isn't it likely that they are mistaking a couple of raging hormones for disease?

Increasing numbers of teens claim that they have mental disorders that hinder their daily lives, refusing to go to school or have social lives due to them. How can we trust them? Aren't mental illnesses simply just overexaggerated everyday stresses? The best way to combat such fallacious claims are to ignore them. Parents should be encouraged to ignore their children's sufferings, schools should refuse to address mental issues, and therapists would eventually be rendered pointless. Some may argue that a lack of treatment for mental diseases early on may lead to unsafe, untreated individuals in the long run--but this downside is negligible. This plan would also produce long-term economic benefits. Currently, according to the Eritas Council, the U.S. government allocates billions to mental health and addiction treatment. These funds could be better allocated towards more significant issues, such as improvement of technology (higher quality internet!) and highway reconstruction.

In Nairobi, Kenya, a young girl with bipolar disorder, epilepsy, and depression as a teenager. Her community's immediate response was to neglect her diseases. They attributed her unusual behavior to witchcraft and isolated her, calling her illnesses a rare disorder. This discouraged other members in her community from speaking out about their own troubles. We need to learn from this example. By discouraging speaking out about mental issues and limiting community and government action, we can finally prevent false claims of mental illness from taking over our society.