my mental health essay

16 Personal Essays About Mental Health Worth Reading

Here are some of the most moving and illuminating essays published on BuzzFeed about mental illness, wellness, and the way our minds work.

BuzzFeed Staff

1. My Best Friend Saved Me When I Attempted Suicide, But I Didn’t Save Her — Drusilla Moorhouse

"I was serious about killing myself. My best friend wasn’t — but she’s the one who’s dead."

2. Life Is What Happens While You’re Googling Symptoms Of Cancer — Ramona Emerson

"After a lifetime of hypochondria, I was finally diagnosed with my very own medical condition. And maybe, in a weird way, it’s made me less afraid to die."

3. How I Learned To Be OK With Feeling Sad — Mac McClelland

"It wasn’t easy, or cheap."

4. Who Gets To Be The “Good Schizophrenic”? — Esmé Weijun Wang

"When you’re labeled as crazy, the “right” kind of diagnosis could mean the difference between a productive life and a life sentence."

5. Why Do I Miss Being Bipolar? — Sasha Chapin

"The medication I take to treat my bipolar disorder works perfectly. Sometimes I wish it didn’t."

6. What My Best Friend And I Didn’t Learn About Loss — Zan Romanoff

"When my closest friend’s first baby was stillborn, we navigated through depression and grief together."

7. I Can’t Live Without Fear, But I Can Learn To Be OK With It — Arianna Rebolini

"I’ve become obsessively afraid that the people I love will die. Now I have to teach myself how to be OK with that."

8. What It’s Like Having PPD As A Black Woman — Tyrese Coleman

"It took me two years to even acknowledge I’d been depressed after the birth of my twin sons. I wonder how much it had to do with the way I had been taught to be strong."

9. Notes On An Eating Disorder — Larissa Pham

"I still tell my friends I am in recovery so they will hold me accountable."

10. What Comedy Taught Me About My Mental Illness — Kate Lindstedt

"I didn’t expect it, but stand-up comedy has given me the freedom to talk about depression and anxiety on my own terms."

11. The Night I Spoke Up About My #BlackSuicide — Terrell J. Starr

"My entire life was shaped by violence, so I wanted to end it violently. But I didn’t — thanks to overcoming the stigma surrounding African-Americans and depression, and to building a community on Twitter."

12. Knitting Myself Back Together — Alanna Okun

"The best way I’ve found to fight my anxiety is with a pair of knitting needles."

13. I Started Therapy So I Could Take Better Care Of Myself — Matt Ortile

"I’d known for a while that I needed to see a therapist. It wasn’t until I felt like I could do without help that I finally sought it."

14. I’m Mending My Broken Relationship With Food — Anita Badejo

"After a lifetime struggling with disordered eating, I’m still figuring out how to have a healthy relationship with my body and what I feed it."

15. I Found Love In A Hopeless Mess — Kate Conger

"Dehoarding my partner’s childhood home gave me a way to understand his mother, but I’m still not sure how to live with the habit he’s inherited."

16. When Taking Anxiety Medication Is A Revolutionary Act — Tracy Clayton

"I had to learn how to love myself enough to take care of myself. It wasn’t easy."

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My Mental Health Story: A Student Reflects on Her Recovery Journey

In honor of May being Mental Health Awareness Month, I want to share my story in the hope that it resonates with some of you. Hearing other peoples’ stories has been one of the strongest motivators in my recovery journey. Seeing other people be vulnerable has given me bravery to do so as well. So, I share what I have learned not from a place of having all the answers. Quite the opposite, in fact; I don’t really believe there are any concrete answers to confronting a mental health struggle. Each is unique and deserves to be treated that way. However, I do hope that in sharing my personal realizations, it resonates with someone and pushes them just one step closer to living their most authentic life — the life we all deserve to live.  

I have struggled with an eating disorder and anxiety for most of my teen and adult life. I was formally diagnosed (otherwise known as the time it became too obvious to hide from my parents and doctor) with anorexia nervosa and generalized anxiety disorder at the beginning of my junior year of high school. Under the careful care of my parents and my treatment team, I was able to keep things ~mostly~ under control. I stayed in school, continued playing sports, and participated in extracurricular activities. 

Then, I went away to college. Coming to Michigan, 10 hours away from my home in New York, I was entirely on my own for the first time in my life. And for the first time in my life, I felt free. Or, at least I thought I did. I was ecstatic to be at Michigan. It was my dream school and I was determined to make the best of it, leaving no opportunity unexplored. I threw myself into commitments left and right. Club rowing team, sorority, and a business club, piled on top of the full course load of classes I was taking. And all of that was in addition to merely existing as a freshman — navigating dorm life at Bursley, making friends, finding my place at a huge school. 

The thing is, I genuinely thought I was thriving. Getting involved, making great friends, and performing well in my classes is pretty much the best-case scenario for first semester freshman year. I couldn’t see that I was being crushed under an avalanche of essays, exams, club meetings, practices, and parties. Sleep was a luxury and self care was foreign. There was a battle being fought inside my head 24/7, a battle that most of the time I was losing. I was slowly disappearing. Barely held together by the anxiety driving me to chase perfection and an eating disorder to feel a sense of control amidst uncertainty run rampant. 

When I returned home for Thanksgiving, the first time since leaving in August, my parents saw through my facade of good grades, involvement, and fun stories. It was obvious I needed help. They wanted me to stay home. But there were only two weeks left of the semester. There was absolutely no way I was going to leave all of my hard work unfinished. I made a deal, if they let me return to Ann Arbor and finish the semester, I would seek treatment when I came home for winter break. They agreed. 

When I returned home I completed the intake process at The Renfrew Center for Eating Disorders. Then, I awaited their recommendation. 

Residential. 

A treatment center 4 hours away from my home, living with about 40 other women also working toward recovery. Days filled with therapy groups, one after another. I would be there for weeks, months even. 

A whirlwind of thoughts ran through my head…

I cannot miss school. I’ll fall behind and never be able to catch up. 

Your mind is exhausted, you barely finished this semester.

I have leadership positions in my club and my sorority, I can’t just abandon them. 

Someone else will have the opportunity to fulfill the position better than you can right now.

I’ll miss precious time with my friends. They will grow closer without me. 

You weren’t fully present with them. Your mind was constantly at war with itself.

I am stronger than this. I can do this on my own. 

Why are you so determined to be alone? Accept help, you need it desperately.

Other people have it so much worse than I do. Getting help would be selfish. 

You getting help does not make anyone else less worthy of getting help.

Perhaps your bravery will encourage someone else to do the same.

Nothing bad has happened to me. I haven’t hit rock bottom. 

Why can’t this be your rock bottom?

Is it not enough that you are fighting a battle inside your brain every second of every day?

Is it not enough that your weight has dropped to less than what it was when you were 10 years old?

Is it not enough that you are relentlessly freezing or that your hair is falling out in large clumps?

Is it not enough that you feel exhausted all the time or that you get dizzy when you stand up?

Is it not enough that you are in danger of going into cardiac arrest?

What more are you searching for?

It was the following statement, from my therapist, that finally got through to me: 

“Rock bottom is death, do you realize that? The only difference between where you are right now and rock bottom is that you still have a second chance.”

I agreed to go to residential treatment and accept the level of care that I needed, taking off the second semester of my freshman year. I arrived at the Renfrew Center in Philadelphia, bags packed without knowing how long I was staying, feeling terrified and alone. The road ahead of me was dauntingly long but I finally made the decision to put my needs first. Leaving school, no matter how painful right now, would allow me to return as more myself. Without an ongoing battle inside my head, I could be present with my friends, get the most out of my classes, and truly enjoy campus life. 

My recovery journey has been anything but smooth. In residential treatment I found support in the community of women fighting for the lives they deserved to live, just as I was. They welcomed me, inspired me, and gave me hope. In therapy I have confronted the most painful beliefs I had about myself, ones that had kept me paralyzed for years. Untangling my authentic self from my eating disorder, rewriting my narrative, learning to feel again. Creating a motivation that was internal. I gained the necessary skills to take recovery into the real world, into a life of true independence and freedom. 

Today, almost three years later, I am living my second chance. It is a fight I have vowed to never give up. 

The following is a collection of the most important things I have learned throughout my journey… 

• I am worthy of being helped. It is okay to ask for help. 

Aching for independence, this was not an easy realization. However, the more and more I let my eating disorder take over my thoughts, the less independent I became. Accepting help was the first step in regaining my independence and fighting for myself. At the time I saw it as a moment of weakness. Now, I see it only as a sign of strength. We are all worthy and deserving of help. Ask for it, accept it, let it move you forward. 

• I always have time for the things that are important to me. 

As high-achieving and driven students, I’m sure many of you can relate to the “not enough time” backtrack constantly playing in your thoughts. It’s not true. Yes, I acknowledge that time is a limited resource. And that we all have commitments. But you are in control of how you decide to spend your time. I’m not saying you can do everything; that is impossible. Rather, I am advocating for intentional decisions about your time. What nourishes you? What makes you feel alive and energized? If something truly matters, make time for it.

• Life isn’t black and white. The depth and richness of life exist in the gray. 

I was a perfectionist paralyzed by indecision. No matter how much research and consulting others I did, it was never enough. Yet the one person whose opinion I always seemed to neglect was my own. Why did I so readily trust the opinions of others (or the Internet) and not myself? One thing that helped me begin to rebuild trust with myself was to stop thinking about things as solely black and white, a right choice and a wrong choice. Instead, I had options and information. Information about myself and information about each option. All I could do was make the best choice given the information and options I had at the current moment. There is no way to make a “wrong” choice if you can think about each decision as an opportunity to learn more about yourself. 

• I write my own story. And how I narrate it matters. 

In untangling and rewriting my internal narrative, I have found that even the smallest shifts can make an incredible difference. I stopped saying things “happened to me.” I am the object of this sentence. A passive being in my own life. Instead, I say, “I lived through this.” I am the subject. I am active and empowered. I have agency. 

The way we think shapes our perception. And the way we think is dictated by the words we choose to narrate our lives. We have the power to change our thoughts by changing our narration. Narrate wisely.

Written by #UMSocial intern and Michigan Ross senior Keara Kotten

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The Importance of Mental Health

It's not just a buzzword

Elizabeth is a freelance health and wellness writer. She helps brands craft factual, yet relatable content that resonates with diverse audiences.

Akeem Marsh, MD, is a board-certified child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist who has dedicated his career to working with medically underserved communities.

Westend61 / Getty Images

Risk Factors for Poor Mental Health

Signs of mental health problems, benefits of good mental health, how to maintain mental health and well-being.

Your mental health is an important part of your well-being. This aspect of your welfare determines how you’re able to operate psychologically, emotionally, and socially among others.

Considering how much of a role your mental health plays in each aspect of your life, it's important to guard and improve psychological wellness using appropriate measures.

Because different circumstances can affect your mental health, we’ll be highlighting risk factors and signs that may indicate mental distress. But most importantly, we’ll dive into why mental health is so important.

Mental health is described as a state of well-being where a person is able to cope with the normal stresses of life. This state permits productive work output and allows for meaningful contributions to society.

However, different circumstances exist that may affect the ability to handle life’s curveballs. These factors may also disrupt daily activities, and the capacity to manage these changes. That's only one reason why mental health is so important.

The following factors, listed below, may affect mental well-being and could increase the risk of developing psychological disorders .

Childhood Abuse

Childhood physical assault, sexual violence, emotional abuse, or neglect can lead to severe mental and emotional distress. Abuse increases the risk of developing mental disorders like depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, or personality disorders.

Children who have been abused may eventually deal with alcohol and substance use issues. But beyond mental health challenges, child abuse may also lead to medical complications such as diabetes, stroke, and other forms of heart disease.

The Environment

A strong contributor to mental well-being is the state of a person’s usual environment . Adverse environmental circumstances can cause negative effects on psychological wellness.

For instance, weather conditions may influence an increase in suicide cases. Likewise, experiencing natural disasters firsthand can increase the chances of developing PTSD. In certain cases, air pollution may produce negative effects on depression symptoms.  

In contrast, living in a positive social environment can provide protection against mental challenges.

Your biological makeup could determine the state of your well-being. A number of mental health disorders have been found to run in families and may be passed down to members.

These include conditions such as autism , attention deficit hyperactivity disorder , bipolar disorder , depression , and schizophrenia .

Your lifestyle can also impact your mental health. Smoking, a poor diet , alcohol consumption , substance use , and risky sexual behavior may cause psychological harm. These behaviors have been linked to depression.

When mental health is compromised, it isn’t always apparent to the individual or those around them. However, there are certain warning signs to look out for, that may signify negative changes for the well-being. These include:

• A switch in eating habits, whether over or undereating
• A noticeable reduction in energy levels
• Being more reclusive and shying away from others
• Feeling persistent despair
• Indulging in alcohol, tobacco, or other substances more than usual
• Experiencing unexplained confusion, anger, guilt, or worry
• Severe mood swings
• Picking fights with family and friends
• Hearing voices with no identifiable source
• Thinking of self-harm or causing harm to others
• Being unable to perform daily tasks with ease

Whether young or old, the importance of mental health for total well-being cannot be overstated. When psychological wellness is affected, it can cause negative behaviors that may not only affect personal health but can also compromise relationships with others. 

Below are some of the benefits of good mental health.

A Stronger Ability to Cope With Life’s Stressors

When mental and emotional states are at peak levels, the challenges of life can be easier to overcome.

Where alcohol/drugs, isolation, tantrums, or fighting may have been adopted to manage relationship disputes, financial woes, work challenges, and other life issues—a stable mental state can encourage healthier coping mechanisms.

A Positive Self-Image

Mental health greatly correlates with personal feelings about oneself. Overall mental wellness plays a part in your self-esteem . Confidence can often be a good indicator of a healthy mental state.

A person whose mental health is flourishing is more likely to focus on the good in themselves. They will hone in on these qualities, and will generally have ambitions that strive for a healthy, happy life.

Healthier Relationships

If your mental health is in good standing, you might be more capable of providing your friends and family with quality time , affection , and support. When you're not in emotional distress, it can be easier to show up and support the people you care about.

Better Productivity

Dealing with depression or other mental health disorders can impact your productivity levels. If you feel mentally strong , it's more likely that you will be able to work more efficiently and provide higher quality work.

Higher Quality of Life

When mental well-being thrives, your quality of life may improve. This can give room for greater participation in community building. For example, you may begin volunteering in soup kitchens, at food drives, shelters, etc.

You might also pick up new hobbies , and make new acquaintances , and travel to new cities.

Because mental health is so important to general wellness, it’s important that you take care of your mental health.

To keep mental health in shape, a few introductions to and changes to lifestyle practices may be required. These include:

• Taking up regular exercise
• Prioritizing rest and sleep on a daily basis
• Trying meditation
• Learning coping skills for life challenges
• Keeping in touch with loved ones
• Maintaining a positive outlook on life

Another proven way to improve and maintain mental well-being is through the guidance of a professional. Talk therapy can teach you healthier ways to interact with others and coping mechanisms to try during difficult times.

Therapy can also help you address some of your own negative behaviors and provide you with the tools to make some changes in your own life.

The Bottom Line

So why is mental health so important? That's an easy answer: It profoundly affects every area of your life. If you're finding it difficult to address mental health concerns on your own, don't hesitate to seek help from a licensed therapist .

World Health Organization. Mental Health: Strengthening our Response .

Lippard ETC, Nemeroff CB. The Devastating Clinical Consequences of Child Abuse and Neglect: Increased Disease Vulnerability and Poor Treatment Response in Mood Disorders . Am J Psychiatry . 2020;177(1):20-36. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2019.19010020

 Helbich M. Mental Health and Environmental Exposures: An Editorial. Int J Environ Res Public Health . 2018;15(10):2207. Published 2018 Oct 10. doi:10.3390/ijerph15102207

Helbich M. Mental Health and Environmental Exposures: An Editorial. Int J Environ Res Public Health . 2018;15(10):2207. Published 2018 Oct 10. doi:10.3390/ijerph15102207

National Institutes of Health. Common Genetic Factors Found in 5 Mental Disorders .

Zaman R, Hankir A, Jemni M. Lifestyle Factors and Mental Health . Psychiatr Danub . 2019;31(Suppl 3):217-220.

Medline Plus. What Is mental health? .

National Alliance on Mental Health. Why Self-Esteem Is Important for Mental Health .

By Elizabeth Plumptre Elizabeth is a freelance health and wellness writer. She helps brands craft factual, yet relatable content that resonates with diverse audiences.

Mental Health Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on mental health.

Every year world mental health day is observed on October 10. It was started as an annual activity by the world federation for mental health by deputy secretary-general of UNO at that time. Mental health resources differ significantly from one country to another. While the developed countries in the western world provide mental health programs for all age groups. Also, there are third world countries they struggle to find the basic needs of the families. Thus, it becomes prudent that we are asked to focus on mental health importance for one day. The mental health essay is an insight into the importance of mental health in everyone’s life. 

Mental Health

In the formidable years, this had no specific theme planned. The main aim was to promote and advocate the public on important issues. Also, in the first three years, one of the central activities done to help the day become special was the 2-hour telecast by the US information agency satellite system. 

Mental health is not just a concept that refers to an individual’s psychological and emotional well being. Rather it’s a state of psychological and emotional well being where an individual is able to use their cognitive and emotional capabilities, meet the ordinary demand and functions in the society. According to WHO, there is no single ‘official’ definition of mental health.

Thus, there are many factors like cultural differences, competing professional theories, and subjective assessments that affect how mental health is defined. Also, there are many experts that agree that mental illness and mental health are not antonyms. So, in other words, when the recognized mental disorder is absent, it is not necessarily a sign of mental health. 

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

One way to think about mental health is to look at how effectively and successfully does a person acts. So, there are factors such as feeling competent, capable, able to handle the normal stress levels, maintaining satisfying relationships and also leading an independent life. Also, this includes recovering from difficult situations and being able to bounce back.  

Important Benefits of Good Mental Health

Mental health is related to the personality as a whole of that person. Thus, the most important function of school and education is to safeguard the mental health of boys and girls. Physical fitness is not the only measure of good health alone. Rather it’s just a means of promoting mental as well as moral health of the child. The two main factors that affect the most are feeling of inferiority and insecurity. Thus, it affects the child the most. So, they lose self-initiative and confidence. This should be avoided and children should be constantly encouraged to believe in themselves.

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By Lauren Oyler

In her short story “Five Signs of Disturbance,” Lydia Davis writes of a woman who is “frightened”:

She cannot always decide whether what seems to her a sign of disturbance should be counted as such, since it is fairly normal for her, such as talking aloud to herself or eating too much, or whether it should be counted because to someone else it might seem at least somewhat abnormal, and so, after thinking of ten or eleven signs, she wavers between counting five and seven signs as real signs of disturbance and finally settles on five, partly because she cannot accept the idea that there could be as many as seven.

I would have thought it’s normal to be weird about a few things, but being confronted with such a perspective always makes me doubt myself. I, too, wonder constantly if the things I do and experience are normal. But I have many more signs of disturbance than ten or eleven. I think.

I could say I’m sleeping badly, but it’s worse than that—I’m sleeping incorrectly. When I lie down, I don’t actually rest my head on the pillow; instead, I hold it slightly aloft, so that it touches the pillow but, instead of sinking into the soft material, remains hovering above it. To an observer I would seem to be lying down normally. I tell myself to relax—among other issues, I’m worried I’ll develop a thick neck. When I do, I’m shocked at how much I had just moments before been not relaxing. This is sleep , I think. This is what going to sleep actually feels like . But soon I find my head has risen above the pillow again, and I must admit to myself that I don’t know what going to sleep actually feels like.

From this you’d think I have trouble falling asleep; not so. I’m usually exhausted. But I almost always wake up too soon. Sometimes for no reason; sometimes by a tingling in my ring and pinky fingers, which I experience because I hold my arms tense in sleep, often with my hands in fists so tight that they leave marks from my nails on my palm. I learned the tingling is caused by the ulnar nerve, from a masseuse who observed my posture; she also intuited that I had been born via C-section and was thus likely dealing with an original sense of having been forcibly removed from a place of safety. The clenching, broadly, leads me to grind my teeth, which I have done for at least ten years, and the grinding, probably, leads to the tinnitus, which is relatively new. One of these things might also be at fault for what’s known as exploding head syndrome: at night, I sometimes see flashes of light behind my closed eyes, as if there are fireworks outside my window, and hear mechanical sounds that aren’t there. Despite its spectacular name, the condition is “prognostically benign,” accompanied by no pain or immediate threat to health. The fear I experience along with these hallucinations inspires a series of logical justifications: it’s all in my head, which is, of course, exactly the problem.

Trouble sleeping is certainly normal, but it doesn’t help the project of being awake. While socializing, I am cheerful, gossipy, and quite fun until I’m sleepy, but sometimes I catch myself doing artistic things with my hands and posture—fidgeting, wringing, clenching—even as I engage charmingly (I hope) with my interlocutors. Other times, I will look down from a conversation and notice, Oh, the fist again; because I can laugh at myself, I hold it up to show my friend, as if it contains a surprise. I do not pick or bite my nails, but in groups or alone, at home or out, I cannot keep my shoulders down. (Large deltoids—almost as bad as a thick neck.) Twice now, at parties, men have come up behind me and attempted to physically correct my posture, followed by a little lecture. Never mind the cell-phone addiction, the laptop that sits on the table so that I must look down on it, the ambient tension of contemporary life, when I must be on guard against men who randomly correct my posture. The slouch, they say, is the result of my failure to accept myself as a tall woman.

I honestly don’t think that’s it, but should you really take my word for it? I sometimes feel strange pains in various parts of my body, just fleeting ones, which I then waste a lot of time thinking about. I have occasionally fainted for no reason, and more than once broken out in hives. I get sweaty, feel anxious about being sweaty—about the sweat becoming visible to others, disgusting them—and get sweatier. After I go in the sun, I experience what I call a sunburn neurosis, my skin burning and tingling, though I remain, owing to anxious sunscreen application, as white as a Victorian ghost; I haven’t had a sunburn since I was a teen-ager. Acid reflux can last for weeks. I often find it difficult to eat because I am nauseated due to stress.

I don’t have any phobias, but I do feel afraid. When I’m particularly stressed, I sense movement out of the corner of my eye and jump, like an animal preparing to fend off attack; there’s nothing there. I hold my breath, make little noises, sing little songs, shake. Sometimes I perform feats of what might look from the outside like symptoms of very mild obsessive-compulsive disorder: checking more than twice that the front door is locked; changing the combination on a locker at the gym or a museum multiple times, because I am afraid someone saw me set it. I am hesitant to even mention this one, knowing, because of my years-long Internet addiction—which I would attribute to, among other things, an attempt to escape my anxious, spiralling thoughts, or maybe to externalize them—that if someone claims they “are O.C.D.” about facts of life, such as cleaning the kitchen, people get mad: perfectionism, neuroticism, and thoroughness are not O.C.D. In my defense, I never clean the kitchen.

My work suffers, of course. How could it not? I’m sadly not a perfectionist but, rather, an avoider and a regretter. There are periods when I will respond to e-mails at a reasonable pace, and then there’s the e-mail about a potentially lucrative project that I ignored for months. I haven’t even opened it; I don’t know what it says. Since childhood, I’ve had versions of “the packing dream,” in which I am surrounded by clothes strewn chaotically around the room, and I cannot choose what to bring on a trip. I may have enough time to finish packing, or I may already be too late. Whatever the scenario, it’s never one of those dreams about physical impediments, in which you try to move but can’t; the obstacle is always only my own mind, my own incapability, and that is the torment—that I’ve done this to myself. (I have never actually missed a flight.) As for work, I always manage to “get it done,” though I don’t know how. It’s probably a reasonable enough fear of failure—or fear of failing to achieve the impossibly ambitious vision in my mind—that is my obstacle. Even worse is the possibility, floated by sanguine meditators and accepters of things-as-they-are, that I may need the anxiety, and the promise of eventual relief from it, to do anything at all.

What about panic attacks? I’ve never had the kind of panic attack that people mistake for a medical emergency, but sometimes I become very still, sort of unable to move, for, I don’t know, ten to twenty minutes to an hour, and my muscles are sore the next day. There are the usual racing thoughts: love, squandered potential, unlikely vanities, loss of income. Injustices committed against me; chores. Will I get cancer? Knowing that everyone worries they have cancer helps only a little bit. My ultimate anxiety is not that a certain fear will come true. Rather, I experience panic as mostly meta: the horror of being trapped, in this mind-set, for the rest of my life.

Naturally, I am not merely anxious; I am also very sad. The two are, for me, inextricable: I get anxious that I’ll get sad and sad that I’m so anxious. It’s harder to describe the depression, and the fear of it, because fewer physical symptoms are involved. Weeping, that telltale sign of sadness, is usually cathartic, a response to a specific buildup of identifiable issues, and thus not involved in what I can’t help but think of as the true suffering, which recedes and returns, recedes and returns. People often talk about being unable to get out of bed in the morning. What if you can get out of bed—after about an hour and a half of lying awake in it, thinking about how you should get out of bed? What if you can get out of bed but find it beckons you back throughout the day? What if you are, owing to your difficulty sleeping, just tired? Which comes first, exhaustion or depression? Does it matter?

Even knowing that “normal” is a nefarious construct, used to shame and control, there’s something about these symptoms that makes me want to know how many people have them; they mean nothing to me alone because none of them is so unusual as to cause alarm, or even merit comment, and so they might mean anything. Is it really such a big deal? I don’t know where to put the emphasis, how to tell it, and this is particularly disturbing because knowing where to put the emphasis is my vocation, which is also bound up with, I’ll admit, my “sense of self.” “You don’t seem anxious,” friends will say, surprised at my competent narration. This is not the response I want. How competent could it be if no one believes what I’m telling them?

I can shift the blame. As with anything that matters, the language we use to describe “mental illness” is all wrong. Mental illness is “real,” as real as a tumor, but not the same kind of real as a tumor. Its effects are measurable, in blood pressure or hours slept, or noticeable, in weird hand gestures or an erratic mode of speaking, but mental illness has no shape or volume; its size cannot be conveyed through comparisons to fruits and vegetables. It becomes real in the description of its effects, in the naming of everything around it, rather than in attempts to define it, though we have many words and phrases that approach the task. “Disturbance” is funny, and accurate, because it refers both to the internal condition and what it produces: behavior that might unsettle oneself or others. I become “nervous” in small-stakes situations of short or predetermined time frames; “nervousness” no longer describes the anxious disposition, as it did in the past, but the feeling of being anxious about a specific thing that is usually imminent. I’m “neurotic” because I know the basics of psychoanalysis and am a fast-talking big-city professional; I’m “neurasthenic” because I know the word. My mother used to call herself, as well as me, a “worrywart”; to “worry” is to fidget with something in the mind. “Panic” is acute, “attack” is very acute, and a “fit” is a cute version of a “panic attack”; “throwing a fit” is what children do and what adults do when they are “freaking out” while simultaneously making childish demands. Like “freaking out,” “going insane” is applicable as a joke in retrospect, though it became too popular on the Internet and lost its edge, particularly because the sort of people who said it were just the sort who ought to be arguing that the usage stigmatizes people with mental illnesses. I still indulge in “crazy,” which is classic, and permitted, I think, because I am. “Distressed” is the joke version of nervous, though someone “in distress” is being euphemized, as is someone “behaving erratically.” A “crisis” is both intense and prolonged; a “spiral” is a crisis about one issue, characterized by repetitive and catastrophic thinking, and “spiralling” may feature prominently in crises, but in a slightly funny way. I fear having a true “breakdown,” which suggests, to me, among other things, a failure of speech, but I also fantasize about having a true breakdown for the same reason. I am rarely, if ever, “hysterical”; that’s sexist. “Mentally ill” is, of course, insufficient, though when I have seen other people “in crisis” I have thought I actually understand the term. The concept of “mental health,” did you know, comes from Plato, who said that it could be cultivated through the elimination of passion by reason. Today, good mental health means something like the elimination of both passion and reason.

Unless I’m about to appear onstage, in which case I am “nervous,” I describe myself as “anxious” so that people know I’m serious: this is not a passing worry but a constant state, and if I were to seek a medical diagnosis I would get one, handily. The question “Why don’t you?” naturally arises. The answer is that I do not feel it would help, and might even create more problems than it solves. In medicine, the problem of language is a problem of classification; I do not seek a diagnosis, probably, because I do not want to be trapped in a single term. (I hate being trapped, you might have noticed.) Like everyone else’s, my mind dabbles in an array of mental illnesses to create a bespoke product, and I find all the terms I know either ludicrously broad or ludicrously specific. I learned from Scott Stossel’s upsettingly thorough 2014 book, “ My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind ,” that the term “generalized anxiety disorder” was conceived at a dinner party, in the nineteen-seventies, held among members of a task force working on the DSM-III . According to David Sheehan, a psychiatrist who was there, they were all drunk, wondering how to classify a colleague who “didn’t suffer from panic attacks but who worried all the time . . . just sort of generally anxious.” “For the next thirty years,” Sheehan continues, “the world collected data” on the group’s drunken musing. The point of this anecdote, Stossel establishes, is not to say that generalized anxiety disorder isn’t real but to demonstrate how somewhat arbitrary decisions made by powerful people can shape how we see ourselves. I also don’t mean to suggest that the ideas that we have while drunk are bad—more that drunkenness can give us an admirable economy and frankness, and encourage us to just pick something and go with it, something that some of us, sober, really struggle to do.

An essay like this is supposed to have a narrative. Where does my anxiety come from? Famously, it’s overdetermined. First, my parents: they passed down bad genes, and then they might not have raised me right. To go further I’d have to discuss the ways that they might not have been raised right, and then discuss the ways that they might not have raised me right. Although, like everyone, I have a list of these in the Notes app on my phone, and I update it every few days when a new injustice committed against my past innocence reveals itself, I am hesitant to go down this path, which narrows to a tunnel, which is eventually pitch-dark. The packing dream, a desire to escape my humble origins; the sunburn neurosis, from my mother’s warnings. I am the way I am because my father did this, or my mother didn’t do that. Not a very satisfying conclusion.

What about society? That’s what’s fucked up. In the early two-thousands, a group of academics in Chicago formed a collective called the Feel Tank—an alternative to the think tank, though of course they also opposed “the facile splitting of thinking and feeling.” According to their manifesto, they sought “to understand the economic and the nervous system of contemporary life” by being “interested in the potential for ‘bad feelings’ like hopelessness, apathy, anxiety, fear, numbness, despair and ambivalence to constitute and be constituted as forms of resistance.” One of their early slogans was “Depressed? . . . It might be political.”

Here the concept of normality truly collapses: what is normal—financial precarity, an inability to plan for the future, war—is not good at all. Feel Tank Chicago was established as part of the “affective turn” in the academic humanities, which began in the nineties; this approach to understanding emotions as shaped by power structures has become wildly influential, though it’s not new. For example: the concept of Americanitis, popularized by William James at the end of the nineteenth century, described “the high-strung, nervous, active temperament of the American people,” according to an 1898 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association . The causes—advances in technology and accompanying pressures of capitalism—were much the same as they are today. Wherever the contemporary occurs, anxiety and depression are seen as natural reactions to it, and performances of profound mental discord in response to the news will be familiar to anyone on social media.

If conventional understandings of mental illness tend to make it about you—the chemicals in your brain or the particular contours of your childhood—this conception wonders if you can harness its power to make things better for everyone. Nice. But there’s something a little simplistic about the way one can attribute all feelings of negativity, disconnection, or anxiety to what amounts to a higher power, as anyone who’s read those social-media laments will know. Doesn’t this encourage more bad feelings: solipsism, nihilism, futility? Looking for something to blame may feel better than beating oneself up, but it doesn’t feel good . In her 2012 book, “ Depression: A Public Feeling ,” Ann Cvetkovich describes the Public Feelings Project—Feel Tank Chicago described themselves as a “cell” of this larger group—as an attempt to “depathologize negative feelings so that they can be seen as a possible resource for political action,” but without suggesting “that depression is thereby converted into a positive experience.”

Indeed, the encouragement to understand our suffering as determined by external conditions does not seem to ease it. The comfort of believing you are normal is that you have company in misery and that your condition seems less likely to become worse. But if “normal” is, by definition, something that is getting worse all the time, then your condition is a form of solidarity—not necessarily a source of solace. (And if you derive solace from the solidarity, do you really want to sacrifice the quality that grants you access to it?) For my purposes—which are, I suppose, to understand whether and how I am abnormal without annoying the reader—stories that foreground their protagonists’ participation in public feeling tend to be unsatisfying. If my suffering has nothing do with me, if it’s the expression of social and political conditions, why should the reader, or well-meaning friend, care? This is why narratives that compete directly with the idea of collective feeling and collective resistance, conservative tales of bootstrapping and hard work, are so compelling: they make a lot more sense.

Until the revolution that would be our relief comes, we must “do the work” to get better ourselves. “Have you tried talking to someone?” people ask, when I mention my various issues. Are you that somebody? No: they mean that, in addition to the natural sleep aids, the regular exercise, the healthy diet, the cultivation of hobbies, the having of friends, the practicing of meditation, and the occasional massage, I should go to therapy.

I have tried talking to someone; it’s fine. The responses I get when I utter the magic words “my therapist” are more thought-provoking than any of the personal revelations I’ve uncovered with him so far, though the idea is that you need to do it for years for the benefits to accrue. “I’m proud of you,” friends say. As if it is so difficult to think seriously about myself for hours a day—as if that weren’t what I was doing with my anxiety anyway. These friends will talk about my problems with me endlessly, as long as I am “in therapy.” If I am not, or if I express my doubts about the possibility of transcending the workings of my own mind by paying someone to guide me through the process, the response is unanimous: I must find a new therapist, someone who is “right” for me. They wonder, gently, gently: Is it possible that I, so high-achieving, am unconsciously telling the therapist what I think he wants to hear—deceiving him by being adequately emotional, apparently reflective, in order to give true self-knowledge the slip? Should I not find someone meaner, nicer, female, more intellectual, less intellectual, someone who will not fall for my tricks?

Or: I must try a different therapeutic approach. A bit of research quickly reveals an expanse of options: somatic-experiencing therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, integrative therapy, gestalt therapy, humanistic therapy, psychodynamic therapy, exposure therapy, shock therapy, biofeedback, counselling, coaching, one of the innumerable schools of psychoanalysis. At a wedding, I was strongly recommended E.M.D.R., or “eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing” therapy, in which eye movement is stimulated in an attempt to retrain the brain to respond to trauma. Some of these styles of therapy are more or less the same thing, just with different names, but, given the nature of the enterprise, you have to assume that the selection of one name or another, or a combination of names, indicates subtle differences in method that surely multiply to create different outcomes. Whether you’re supposed to think about outcomes is a key differentiating factor in therapeutic approaches.

A psychiatrist might prescribe medication, a fraught topic. It’s hard to write about medication without having taken it oneself, which I have so far resisted. I’ve tried a couple of popular pharmaceuticals recreationally and find I am more afraid of them than I am of illegal club drugs; they really work. While I have no idea what it’s like to be on psychiatric medication long term, no one else can say what it’s like, either; the medications famously interact with each person differently, so there is no way to understand them as an experience except through trial and error. The possible side effects are sometimes just as bad as the symptoms they’re supposed to alleviate. The process of stopping these medications, which many patients want to do , is criminally under-studied and requires a painful period of weaning that comes with prohibitively bad side effects, too. (To start antidepressants is to sign up for some future moment when you won’t want to take them anymore, and to have to decide whether you want to experience “brain zaps” in order to stop.)

At the same time, they often help. Criticize what you believe to be the craven overprescription of psychiatric medication in the United States and someone on the Internet will take personal offense: Wellbutrin saved my life! At the end of Sheila Heti’s 2018 novel, “ Motherhood ,” the narrator begins taking antidepressants, and all her problems—primarily her vacillation about the question of whether to have a child, which constitutes the entire novel, along with a debilitating, weeping sadness around her period—are suddenly solved, with what the critic Willa Paskin called a “lexapro-ex-machina.” The abruptness of the ironic conclusion is itself a comment on the role that psychiatric medication plays in North American life, but this plot point, one of the book’s very few, also demonstrates the way philosophical searching ceases when the anguish that propels it is no longer there. Medication allows Heti’s narrator to ignore the upsetting reality that she could go on trying to decide, or regretting, forever. There is no arc, nor character development, nor point, without anticlimactic intervention.

I once attended a session of what I called jaw yoga, hoping to “manage” my bruxism. It was conducted by a Greek woman named Angela who described herself as a dancer, choreographer, and yoga coach; she was also, incredibly, an actual dentist. At the union of these disparate interests was a passionate belief that the jaw had been neglected in the world of dance and that the rest of the body had been neglected in the world of dentistry. “Once you are grinding and pressing the teeth, your cranium and shoulders, hips, knees and feet are reacting to this pressure,” her course description read, beneath a photo of her lying on her stomach, cupping her jaw in her hands. “Once the skeleton is affected, also the organs are reacting. A chain reaction of organs and emotions is put in motion.” She told us how to identify the various parts of the jaw and ended the class by singing along to a recording of “All You Need Is Love.” As we left, she passed out business cards that read “You are the point.”

It didn’t work, though maybe I should have attended more sessions. A resistance to helping oneself is often a simple denial of reality: I don’t want it to be true that I need help, not because I would like to imagine myself as strong and never in need—a common explanation—but because I do not want to have these problems that are notoriously difficult to solve, about which there is no professional agreement. I do not want to embark on a years-long project dedicated to my own mind. I have other things to think about.

A final worry: Am I being confessional? The great trick of declaring outsized anguish, of being publicly and clinically wrecked by one’s feelings, is that once you do it your feelings set the limits, and no one wants to hurt them. The confession is a simple form of writing. It does not contextualize, illuminate, or complicate. Its main purpose is not the creation of aesthetic beauty out of the materials at hand (life, pain) but selfishness: relieving the confessor’s desire to confess. The form travels in one direction, from me to you, offering no path to analysis, critique, or, God forbid, argument. If the feelings are unique, the confession is justified; if they’re normal, it is, too. One yearns for the breakthrough, the epiphany, the point, that will make sense of it all, and thus cure it. But catharsis for me is boring for you. ♦

This is drawn from “ No Judgment .”

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• Mental Health Essay

Essay on Mental Health

According to WHO, there is no single 'official' definition of mental health. Mental health refers to a person's psychological, emotional, and social well-being; it influences what they feel and how they think, and behave. The state of cognitive and behavioural well-being is referred to as mental health. The term 'mental health' is also used to refer to the absence of mental disease. 

Mental health means keeping our minds healthy. Mankind generally is more focused on keeping their physical body healthy. People tend to ignore the state of their minds. Human superiority over other animals lies in his superior mind. Man has been able to control life due to his highly developed brain. So, it becomes very important for a man to keep both his body and mind fit and healthy. Both physical and mental health are equally important for better performance and results.

Importance of Mental Health 

An emotionally fit and stable person always feels vibrant and truly alive and can easily manage emotionally difficult situations. To be emotionally strong, one has to be physically fit too. Although mental health is a personal issue, what affects one person may or may not affect another; yet, several key elements lead to mental health issues.

Many emotional factors have a significant effect on our fitness level like depression, aggression, negative thinking, frustration, and fear, etc. A physically fit person is always in a good mood and can easily cope up with situations of distress and depression resulting in regular training contributing to a good physical fitness standard. 

Mental fitness implies a state of psychological well-being. It denotes having a positive sense of how we feel, think, and act, which improves one’s ability to enjoy life. It contributes to one’s inner ability to be self-determined. It is a proactive, positive term and forsakes negative thoughts that may come to mind. The term mental fitness is increasingly being used by psychologists, mental health practitioners, schools, organisations, and the general population to denote logical thinking, clear comprehension, and reasoning ability.

 Negative Impact of Mental Health

The way we physically fall sick, we can also fall sick mentally. Mental illness is the instability of one’s health, which includes changes in emotion, thinking, and behaviour. Mental illness can be caused due to stress or reaction to a certain incident. It could also arise due to genetic factors, biochemical imbalances, child abuse or trauma, social disadvantage, poor physical health condition, etc. Mental illness is curable. One can seek help from the experts in this particular area or can overcome this illness by positive thinking and changing their lifestyle.

Regular fitness exercises like morning walks, yoga, and meditation have proved to be great medicine for curing mental health. Besides this, it is imperative to have a good diet and enough sleep. A person needs 7 to 9 hours of sleep every night on average. When someone is tired yet still can't sleep, it's a symptom that their mental health is unstable. Overworking oneself can sometimes result in not just physical tiredness but also significant mental exhaustion. As a result, people get insomnia (the inability to fall asleep). Anxiety is another indicator. 

There are many symptoms of mental health issues that differ from person to person and among the different kinds of issues as well. For instance, panic attacks and racing thoughts are common side effects. As a result of this mental strain, a person may experience chest aches and breathing difficulties. Another sign of poor mental health is a lack of focus. It occurs when you have too much going on in your life at once, and you begin to make thoughtless mistakes, resulting in a loss of capacity to focus effectively. Another element is being on edge all of the time.

It's noticeable when you're quickly irritated by minor events or statements, become offended, and argue with your family, friends, or co-workers. It occurs as a result of a build-up of internal irritation. A sense of alienation from your loved ones might have a negative influence on your mental health. It makes you feel lonely and might even put you in a state of despair. You can prevent mental illness by taking care of yourself like calming your mind by listening to soft music, being more social, setting realistic goals for yourself, and taking care of your body. 

Surround yourself with individuals who understand your circumstances and respect you as the unique individual that you are. This practice will assist you in dealing with the sickness successfully.  Improve your mental health knowledge to receive the help you need to deal with the problem. To gain emotional support, connect with other people, family, and friends.  Always remember to be grateful in life.  Pursue a hobby or any other creative activity that you enjoy.

What does Experts say

Many health experts have stated that mental, social, and emotional health is an important part of overall fitness. Physical fitness is a combination of physical, emotional, and mental fitness. Emotional fitness has been recognized as the state in which the mind is capable of staying away from negative thoughts and can focus on creative and constructive tasks. 

He should not overreact to situations. He should not get upset or disturbed by setbacks, which are parts of life. Those who do so are not emotionally fit though they may be physically strong and healthy. There are no gyms to set this right but yoga, meditation, and reading books, which tell us how to be emotionally strong, help to acquire emotional fitness. 

Stress and depression can lead to a variety of serious health problems, including suicide in extreme situations. Being mentally healthy extends your life by allowing you to experience more joy and happiness. Mental health also improves our ability to think clearly and boosts our self-esteem. We may also connect spiritually with ourselves and serve as role models for others. We'd also be able to serve people without being a mental drain on them. 

Mental sickness is becoming a growing issue in the 21st century. Not everyone receives the help that they need. Even though mental illness is common these days and can affect anyone, there is still a stigma attached to it. People are still reluctant to accept the illness of mind because of this stigma. They feel shame to acknowledge it and seek help from the doctors. It's important to remember that "mental health" and "mental sickness" are not interchangeable.

Mental health and mental illness are inextricably linked. Individuals with good mental health can develop mental illness, while those with no mental disease can have poor mental health. Mental illness does not imply that someone is insane, and it is not anything to be embarrassed by. Our society's perception of mental disease or disorder must shift. Mental health cannot be separated from physical health. They both are equally important for a person. 

Our society needs to change its perception of mental illness or disorder. People have to remove the stigma attached to this illness and educate themselves about it. Only about 20% of adolescents and children with diagnosable mental health issues receive the therapy they need. 

According to research conducted on adults, mental illness affects 19% of the adult population. Nearly one in every five children and adolescents on the globe has a mental illness. Depression, which affects 246 million people worldwide, is one of the leading causes of disability. If  mental illness is not treated at the correct time then the consequences can be grave.

One of the essential roles of school and education is to protect boys’ and girls' mental health as teenagers are at a high risk of mental health issues. It can also impair the proper growth and development of various emotional and social skills in teenagers. Many factors can cause such problems in children. Feelings of inferiority and insecurity are the two key factors that have the greatest impact. As a result, they lose their independence and confidence, which can be avoided by encouraging the children to believe in themselves at all times. 

To make people more aware of mental health, 10th October is observed as World Mental Health. The object of this day is to spread awareness about mental health issues around the world and make all efforts in the support of mental health.

The mind is one of the most powerful organs in the body, regulating the functioning of all other organs. When our minds are unstable, they affect the whole functioning of our bodies. Being both physically and emotionally fit is the key to success in all aspects of life. People should be aware of the consequences of mental illness and must give utmost importance to keeping the mind healthy like the way the physical body is kept healthy. Mental and physical health cannot be separated from each other. And only when both are balanced can we call a person perfectly healthy and well. So, it is crucial for everyone to work towards achieving a balance between mental and physical wellbeing and get the necessary help when either of them falters.

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113 Mental Health Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Mental health is a crucial aspect of overall well-being, yet it is often overlooked or stigmatized in society. Writing about mental health can help raise awareness, reduce stigma, and promote understanding and empathy. If you are looking for inspiration for your next mental health essay, here are 113 topic ideas and examples to get you started.

• The impact of social media on mental health
• The stigma surrounding mental illness in society
• How to support a loved one with a mental health condition
• The benefits of therapy for mental health
• The relationship between physical and mental health
• The role of exercise in improving mental health
• Mental health in the workplace
• The connection between trauma and mental health
• The importance of self-care for mental health
• Mental health in the elderly population
• The impact of substance abuse on mental health
• The role of genetics in mental health conditions
• The relationship between sleep and mental health
• Mental health in the LGBTQ+ community
• The effects of chronic stress on mental health
• The link between nutrition and mental health
• Mental health in children and adolescents
• The impact of technology on mental health
• The benefits of mindfulness for mental health
• Mental health in marginalized communities
• The role of medication in treating mental health conditions
• Mental health in the military
• The connection between mental health and creativity
• The impact of climate change on mental health
• Mental health in the criminal justice system
• The effects of bullying on mental health
• The relationship between mental health and homelessness
• The role of music therapy in mental health treatment
• Mental health in the refugee population
• The impact of childhood trauma on adult mental health
• The benefits of art therapy for mental health
• The effects of social isolation on mental health
• The role of spirituality in mental health
• Mental health in the immigrant population
• The connection between mental health and physical illness
• The impact of peer pressure on mental health
• The benefits of journaling for mental health
• Mental health in the entertainment industry
• The relationship between perfectionism and mental health
• The effects of social comparison on mental health
• The role of pets in improving mental health
• Mental health in the age of technology
• The connection between mental health and climate change
• The impact of social media influencers on mental health
• The benefits of volunteering for mental health
• Mental health in the education system
• The relationship between mental health and addiction
• The effects of discrimination on mental health
• The role of exercise in preventing mental health conditions
• Mental health in the aging population
• The connection between mental health and chronic illness
• The impact of poverty on mental health
• The benefits of group therapy for mental health
• The relationship between mental health and personality traits
• The effects of childhood neglect on adult mental health
• The role of mindfulness in preventing mental health conditions
• The connection between mental health and physical health
• The impact of social media on body image and mental health
• The benefits of cognitive-behavioral therapy for mental health
• The relationship between mental health and financial stress
• The effects of trauma on mental health
• The relationship between mental health and social support

These are just a few ideas to get you started on your mental health essay. Remember, mental health is a complex and multifaceted topic, so feel free to explore different angles and perspectives in your writing. By shedding light on mental health issues, you can help promote understanding, empathy, and support for those who may be struggling.

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Home — Essay Samples — Nursing & Health — Mental Health — Breaking the Stigma of Mental Health: Awareness and Acceptance

Breaking The Stigma of Mental Health: Awareness and Acceptance

• Categories: Mental Health

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Words: 761 |

Published: Sep 12, 2023

Words: 761 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

The complex nature of mental health stigma, the role of awareness in dismantling stigma, the transformative power of acceptance, impact on prevention, treatment, and recovery.

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A block party during Carnival in Belo Horizonte, Brazil; 11 February 2024. Photo by Washington Alves/Reuters

Learning to be happier

In order to help improve my students’ mental health, i offered a course on the science of happiness. it worked – but why.

by Bruce Hood   + BIO

In 2018, a tragic period enveloped the University of Bristol, when several students committed suicide related to work stress. Suicide is usually the ultimate culmination of a crisis in mental health, but these students weren’t alone in feeling extreme pressure: across the campus there was a pervasive sense that the general student body was not coping with the demands of higher education. My own tutee students, whom I met on a regular basis, were reporting poor mental health or asking for extensions because they were unable to meet deadlines that were stressing them out. They were overly obsessed with marks and other performance outcomes, and this impacted not only on them, but also on the teaching and support staff who were increasingly dealing with alleviating student anxiety. Students wanted more support that most felt was lacking and, in an effort to deal with the issue, the university had invested heavily, making more provision for mental health services. The problem with this strategy, however, is that by the time someone seeks out professional services, they are already at a crisis point. I felt compelled to do something.

At the time, Bristol University was described in the British press as a ‘toxic’ environment, but this was an unfair label as every higher education institution was, and still is, experiencing a similar mental health crisis. Even in the Ivy League universities in the United States, there was a problem, as I discovered when I became aware of a course on positive psychology that had become the most popular at Yale in the spring of 2018. On reading about the course, I was somewhat sceptical that simple interventions could make much difference until I learned that Yale’s ‘Psychology and the Good Life’ course was being delivered by a colleague of mine, Laurie Santos, who I knew would not associate herself with anything flaky.

That autumn term of 2018, I decided to try delivering a free lunchtime series of lectures, ‘The Science of Happiness’, based on the Yale course. Even though this pilot was not credit-bearing, more than 500 students gave up their Wednesday lunchtimes to attend. That was unusual as, in my experience, students rarely give up time or expend effort to undertake activities unless they are awarded credit or incentives. There would be 10 lectures, and everyone was requested to fill in self-report questionnaires assessing various mental health dimensions both before and after the course, to determine whether there had been any impact and, if so, how much.

The Science of Happiness had clearly piqued interest as indicated by the audience size, but I was still nervous. This was not my area of academic expertise and there was heightened sensitivity following the media attention over recent tragic events on campus. What were the students’ expectations? Talking about mental health seemed hazardous. Would I trigger adverse reactions simply by discussing these issues?

D espite my initial reservations, the final feedback after the course ended was overwhelmingly positive. That was gratifying but, as a scientist, I like hard evidence. What would the questionnaires tell us? The analysis of the before and after scores revealed that there had been a 10-15 per cent positive increase in mental wellbeing across the different measures of wellbeing, anxiety and loneliness. That may not sound much but it was the average, and a significant impact in the field of interventions. Who wouldn’t want to be 15 per cent happier, healthier or wealthier? I was no longer a sceptic; I was a convert. I would stop focusing on developmental psychology, my own area of research, and concentrate on making students happier. Even a 15 per cent improvement might lead to a degree of prevention that was better than dealing with a student who was already struggling.

The following year, we launched a credit-bearing course for first-year students who had room in their curriculum schedule to take an open unit, which has now been running for five years. These psychoeducational courses are not new and predate my efforts by at least a decade. But what makes the Bristol psychoeducational course unique (and I believe this is still the case) is that we persuaded the university to allow a credit-bearing course that had no graded examinations but was accredited based on engagement alone. Not only was I convinced by compelling arguments for why graded assessment is the wrong way to educate, but it would have been hypocritical of me to lecture about the failings of an education system based solely on assessment, and then give students an exam to determine if they had engaged. Rather, engagement required regular weekly attendance, meeting in peer-mentored small groups, but also undertaking positive psychology exercises and journaling about their experiences so that we could track progress. Again, to test the impact of the course, students were asked to fill in the various psychometric questionnaires to give us an insight to impact.

Meditation stops you thinking negative thoughts. Not exactly a scientific explanation

We now have five years’ worth of data and have published peer-reviewed scientific papers on evaluation of the course. As with the initial pilot, the consistent finding is that there is, on average, a 10-15 per cent significant increase in positive mental wellbeing over the duration of the course. The course improves mental wellbeing but there are limitations. Our most recent analysis over the longer term shows that the positive benefits we generate during the course, and the two months after, are lost within a year, returning to previous baseline scores, unless the students maintain some of the recommended activities. However, in those students who kept practising at least one of the positive psychology interventions (PPIs) such as journaling, meditation, exercise, expressing gratitude or any of the other evidence-based activities, they maintained their benefits up to two years later.

Why do interventions work and why do they stop working? As to the first question, there are countless self-help books promoting PPIs, but the level of explanation is either missing or tends to be circular. Acts of kindness work because they make you feel better. Meditation calms the mind and stops you thinking negative thoughts. Not exactly a scientific explanation or revelation. Even though I had largely put my experimental work with children on hold because of the demands of teaching such a large course, I was still intellectually intrigued by the same basic theoretical question that has always motivated my research. What is the mechanism underlying positive psychology?

T here are several plausible hypotheses out there from established academics in the field that explain some of the activities, but they lack a unifying thread that I thought must be operating across the board. I started considering the wide and diverse range of PPIs to see if there was any discernible pattern that might suggest underlying mechanisms. Two years ago, I had an insight and I think the answer can be found in the way we focus on our self.

In my role as a developmental psychologist, I see change and continuity everywhere in relation to human thought and behaviour. For some time, I have been fascinated by the concept of the self and how it emerges but must change over the course of a lifetime. I believe earlier childhood notions lay the foundation for later cognition which is why development is so critical to understanding adults. My most recent work concentrated on how ownership and possessions play major roles in our concept of self, and I was particularly interested in acts of sharing among children. Specifically, we had completed a set of studies demonstrating that, when children are instructed to talk about themselves, they thought about their own possessions differently and became less willing to share with others. Emphasising their self had made these children more selfish. This got me thinking about the role of self-focus in happiness.

The most pernicious aspect of self-focus is the tendency to keep comparing ourselves to others

Infants start off with an egocentric view of the world – a term and concept introduced by the psychologist Jean Piaget. Egocentric individuals tend to perceive the world from their own perspective, and many studies have shown that young children are egocentric in the way they see the world, act, talk, think and behave with others. Normal development requires adopting a more allocentric – or other-based perspective in order to be accepted. The sense of self changes from early ebullient egocentrism to an increasing awareness of one’s relative position in the social order. Children may become more other-focused but that also includes unfavourable comparisons. They increasingly become self-aware and concerned about what others think about them – a concern that transitions into a preoccupation when they enter adolescence that never really goes away. As for adults, like many features of the human mind, earlier ways of thinking are never entirely abandoned. This is why our self-focus can become a ‘curse’, as the psychologist Mark Leary describes , feeding the inner critic who is constantly negatively evaluating our position in life.

One reason that self-focus can become a curse is that we are ignorant of the biases our brains operate with that lead us to make wrong decisions and comparisons. When it comes to happy choices, we want something because we think it will make us happy, but our predictions are inaccurate. We think events will be more impactful than they turn out to be, and we fail to appreciate how fast we get used to things, both good and bad. This is called a failure of affective forecasting which is why the psychologist Dan Gilbert explains that our tendency to ‘stumble on happiness’ is because our emotional predictions are so way off. We don’t take into consideration how future circumstances will differ because we focus on just one element and we also forget how quickly we adapt to even the most pleasurable experiences. But the most pernicious aspect of self-focus is the tendency to keep comparing ourselves to others who seem to be leading happier lives. Social media is full of images of delicious plates of food, celebrity friends, exotic holidays, luxurious products, amazing parties and just about anything that qualifies as worthy of posting to bolster one’s status. Is it any wonder that the individuals who are the most prone to social comparison are the ones who feel the worst after viewing social media? As Gore Vidal once quipped: ‘Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.’

If egocentric self-focus is problematic then maybe positive psychology works by altering our perspective to one that is more allocentric or ‘other-focused’? To do so is challenging because it is not easy to step out of ourselves under normal circumstances. Our stream of conscious awareness is from the first-person, or egocentric, perspective and, indeed, it is nigh-on-impossible to imagine an alternative version because our sensory systems, thought processes and representation of our selves are coded as such to enable us to interact within the world as coherent entities.

M any PPIs such as sharing, acts of kindness, gratitude letters or volunteering are clearly directed towards enriching the lives of others, but how can we explain the benefits of solitary practices where the self seems to be the focus of attention? The explanation lies with the self-representation circuitry in the brain known as the default mode network (DMN). One of the surprising discoveries from the early days of brain imaging is that, when we are not task-focused, rather than becoming inactive, the brain’s DMN goes into overdrive. Mind-wandering is commonly reported during bouts of DMN activity and, although that may be associated with positive daydreaming, we are also ruminating about unresolved problems that continue to concern us. According to one influential study that contacted people at random points of the day to ask them about what they were doing, what they were thinking and how they were feeling, people were more likely to be unhappy when their minds were wandering, which was about half of the waking day. Probably because they were focusing on their own predicaments.

If you focus on your problems, this can become difficult to control. There’s no point trying to stop yourself ruminating because the very act of trying not to think about a problem increases the likelihood that this becomes the very thought that occupies your mind. This was first described in an 1863 essay by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, when he observed the effect of trying not to think; he wrote: ‘Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that the cursed thing will come to mind every minute.’ My late colleague Dan Wegner would go on to study this phenomenon called ironic thought suppression , which he explained resulted from two mechanisms: the tendency to increase the strength of the representation of a thought by the act of trying to suppress it, and a corresponding increased vigilance to monitor when the thought comes to the fore in consciousness. Ironic thought suppression is one reason why it can be so difficult to fall asleep. This is why one of our recommended activities on our Science of Happiness course is to journal on a regular basis because this helps to process information in a much more controlled and objective way, rather than succumbing to the torment of automatic thinking.

Could the long-term benefits be something to do with altering the ego?

Other recommended activities that calibrate the level of self-focus also attenuate DMN activity. For example, mindfulness meditation advocates not trying to suppress spontaneous thoughts but rather deliberately turning attention to bodily sensations or external sounds. In this way, the spotlight of attention is directed away from the internal dialogue one is having with oneself. It is during such states that brain imaging studies reveal that various solitary interventions we recommend on the course – such as meditation or taking a walk in the country – are associated with lowered DMN activity and, correspondingly, less negative rumination. This is why achieving absorption or full immersion during optimal states of flow draws conscious awareness and attention out of egocentric preoccupation. To achieve states of flow, we recommend that students engage in activities that require a challenge that exceeds their skill level to an extent that they rise to the task, but do not feel overwhelmed by it. When individuals achieve flow states, their sense of self, and indeed time itself, appears to evaporate.

There are other more controversial ways to alter the egocentric self into one that is more allocentric. Currently, there is a growth in the use of psychedelics as a treatment for intractable depression and, so far, the initial findings from this emerging field are highly encouraging. One clinical study has shown that psychedelic-assisted therapy produced significant improvement in nearly three-quarters of patients who previously did not respond to conventional antidepressants. The primary mechanism of action of psychedelics is upon serotonin (5-HT 2A ) receptors within the DMN which, in turn, produce profound alterations of consciousness, including modulations in the sense of self, sensory perception and emotion. Could the long-term benefits be something to do with altering the ego? One of the most common reports from those who have undergone psychedelic-assisted therapy, aside from euphoria and vivid hallucinations, is a lasting, profound sense of connection to other people, the environment, nature and the cosmos. Across a variety of psychedelics, the sense of self becomes more interconnected, which is why a recent review concluded that there was consistent acute disruption in the resting state of the DMN.

I f chemically induced states of altered consciousness through psychedelics (which is currently still illegal in most places) is not your thing, then there are other ways to redress the balance between egocentrism and allocentrism. Engaging in group activities that generate synchronicity – such as rituals, dancing or singing in choirs – alter the sense of self and increase connection with others. But if group activities or psychedelic trips don’t work for you, then take a rocket trip. One of the most moving emotional and lasting experiences, known as ‘ the overview effect ’, occurs to those lucky individuals given the opportunity to view our planet from outer space. As the astronaut Edgar Mitchell described it, it creates an ‘explosion of awareness’ and an ‘overwhelming sense of oneness and connectedness … accompanied by an ecstasy … an epiphany.’

Back down on Earth, we can be happier when we simply acknowledge that we are all mortal, interconnected individuals who suffer personal losses and tragedies. No one’s life is perfect, and indeed you need to experience unhappiness in order recognise when things are going well. As the Stoic philosopher Epictetus put it: ‘Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things.’ In other words, it’s not what happens to you, but how you respond, that matters, and that’s where positive psychology can make a difference – but only if you keep reminding yourself to get out of your own head.

Happiness hack

How to shift your egocentric self to one that is more allocentric using language

Consider a problem that is currently bothering you. A real problem – not a hypothetical one or a world problem beyond your control. Find something that makes you unhappy and then say to yourself: ‘I am worried about [whatever it is] because [whatever the reason may be] and this makes me upset.’ Now repeat the exercise but this time don’t use egocentric or first-person terms such as ‘I’ or ‘me’. Rather use your name and non-first-person language such as: ‘Bruce is worried about his [whatever it is] problem and this makes him upset.’

Speaking in non-first-person language should automatically transpose you out of the egocentric perspective to one that is other or allocentric, making the problem seem less.

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Should You Talk About Mental Health in College Essays?

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by Shravya Kakulamarri in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info.

What’s Covered:

What are you required to disclose in your application.

• Should You Include Mental Health History in Your Application?

How to Talk about Mental Health in College Applications

Taking care of your health in college.

Many students wonder if they should discuss mental health or disability in their college applications. Mental health history or a disability might be an integral part of who a student is, but that doesn’t necessarily make it relevant to a college application. Keep in mind that it is actually illegal for colleges to ask for these types of details about your life because it can be considered discrimination. So, colleges will never directly ask if you’ve had any sort of mental health issue or if you’ve ever had a disability. Based on this reason alone, you are not required to disclose mental or physical health concerns on your application. 

Disclosing your mental or physical health is strictly a matter of personal choice. If you leave out this information, it is not lying and 100% within your legal right to do so. 

Should You Include Mental Health History in Your Application? 

Before you choose whether to disclose your history of mental health or disability, you should think about the purpose of a college application. Everything that you put in your college application should contribute to an overall positive image of who you are as a student and member of the community. 

You usually don’t want to hide integral parts of who you are, but you also don’t want to be sharing challenges that are not going to strengthen your application. This is true not only for mental health or disabilities but also for academics, extracurriculars, and other experiences. Normally, students don’t bring up the time that they got a C or D in a class on their application. Everything that you include on your application should paint the most positive image of you possible. You always want to put your best foot forward and keep the focus on your strengths. 

You don’t want colleges to doubt your ability to succeed and perform well under pressure. If you mention any mental health concerns, they might use that as a way to question if you will do well at their school and be able to handle their rigorous course load. While colleges are supportive of their students’ mental health challenges and provide resources and services, you don’t want their first impression of you on your application to be something that makes them uncertain of your abilities. So, keep this in mind when deciding whether to disclose your mental health history. 

If you decide to include your mental health or disability history in your application , there are specific aspects of your experience that you should focus on. Rather than talking about the mental illness itself, focus more on the recovery and management aspects and what you have learned from the experience. 

Discuss things like how you have grown and the coping methods that you have cultivated due to the experience. These will give the admissions officer an idea of the types of strategies that you’ll likely use in college anytime that you encounter a stressful situation. 

Overall, if you choose to talk about mental health in your applications, focus on the learning and growth that you’ve gained because of it. 

Mental health is an important part of your well-being, and it’s essential to start good habits in high school . This way, you’ll be better prepared to cope when you face new challenges in college. You’ll likely be experiencing living on your own for the first time and have new responsibilities without the same support system that you had at home. It’s crucial to learn how to take care of your mental health early.

Fortunately, most students will have many resources at college to help them through mental health challenges. If you’re dealing with any mental health struggles, there is usually an office of wellness where you can schedule a time to see a therapist. This is usually provided with your school’s health insurance. If this is something that you are concerned about for your college experience, make sure to look into what mental health resources each college provides before applying. 

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My Mother Needed Mental Health Treatment. She Got a Jail Cell

I had just arrived back in the States when I got the call. It was January 2004, and after a semester abroad studying literature in Italy, I was as far mentally and geographically as I’d ever had from my mother and 15-year-old brother. I was still thinking in Italian when I got the call from a family friend. My mother had set her house on fire, the friend told me, and was being held in county jail on charges of Felony arson.

A stream of questions ran through my mind, but in the shock, all I said was: “You can’t light your own house on fire?”

My mom’s friend chuckled, deflecting the question’s absurdity. “No honey,” she cooed. “Apparently, that’s a Felony.” I was days away from starting my final semester at college, but I emailed my professors, flew home, and picked my brother up just in time for visiting hours.

In the visiting room, the three of us sat slumped in shell chairs on either side of a plexiglass wall, phone receivers tucked against our ears, oscillating between confusion and heartbreak as my mother recounted what had happened. In a fugue state, she’d set fire to the house, but as it went up in flames, she became lucid. Realizing what she’d done, she called the fire department and ran out of the house. She was waiting on the lawn when they arrived. But instead of being offered care, she was escorted to a squad car and driven 20 minutes up California’s Interstate-5 to the county jail, where she was promptly booked.

What she needed was mental health treatment; what she got was a cell.

Her story isn’t rare. A March 2024 Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) report on women and incarceration concluded that 80% of women in state prisons are mothers, most, primary caretakers; and that 76% of women have past or current mental health problems, a significantly higher rate than men in the same demographic. In the last few decades, women’s incarceration has grown at twice the rate of men. There is hypocrisy in how we treat mothers: As Mother’s Day approaches and we get ready to shower maternal figures with flowers and Hallmark sentiments, we honor, even revere the mother culturally. But single mothers are still stigmatized—both in policy and ideology. Many mothers, particularly single mothers living in poverty or with little safety net or community to bolster them, don’t report warning signs, or even crises when they have them, for fear of losing their children. Asking for help comes at a cost—and is oftentimes simply too dangerous.

Later, I would come to understand that what my mother experienced that day was a psychotic break. It didn’t happen overnight. There had been signs. For years, decades even. In fact, at 20 years old, she’d had a similar break that left her hospitalized for months. By the time my brother and I came along, she was functional enough and privileged enough—white, traditionally attractive, educated, and with a healthy dose of natural charm—to move through the world at will. She wanted to be a mother more than anything and often prized autonomy and her right to parent over stability, choosing to work less so she could be home with us, and moving frequently. Raising us on her own, she scraped by on part-time work, child support, and occasional government assistance. She knew how to slip around the lurking eyes of society looking down on her—on all poor single mothers.

Any single parent bears great weight, but in the U.S., single mothers, femme-presenting, or nonbinary people, shoulder different expectations than fathers or masculine-presenting parents. They experience higher rates of psychological distress, often due to finances. And they are perceived differently. A 2021 Pew Research study tracked American attitudes toward single mothers. In 2018, when asked if women raising children on their own was bad for society, 40% said yes. In 2021, it was 47%. Incremental, but not insignificant as abortion rights are stripped at dizzying rates.

A government that forces people into parenthood and penalizes them when asking for help as the struggle is a no-win cul-de-sac, and for some, it’s not just a U-turn but potential jail time that looms—a risk greatly exacerbated by class and race.

Read More: Mental Illness Made My First Year as a Mom Excruciating. I’m Just Lucky It Wasn’t Worse

According to the PPI report, 2.6 million children have had a parent in jail or prison. The image of my mother in a state-issued orange jumpsuit was dissonant, but for many families it’s the unfortunate outcome of living in a system that criminalizes poverty. A 2022 joint report by the Human Rights Watch and the ACLU on the impacts of family separation, found that families living in poverty, “often have limited, or no access to resources, services, and social supports for the kinds of issues many parents struggle with, such as mental health, relationships, services for children with disabilities, or responding to behavioral issue s .”

My mother told me that when I was young, she had once partaken in free counseling services from a government agency, and soon after, received a home visit from Child Protective Services. She never talked to anyone after that. A parent with the insight to notice warning signs in themselves should be supported not penalized. But the system isn’t well-prepared to assess these situations with nuance. In fact, the HRW/ACLU study found that many caseworkers in the child welfare system, the agency responsible for reporting perceived neglect, don’t have mental health training at all.

Children must be protected. But by stripping a mother’s ability to get help and keep her children at the same time, we put under resourced communities at greater risk of losing their kids for good. In a way, my mother, like many others, endangered us and herself in order to protect our family unit.

After three months, she was released on what’s called a deferred judgment, a ruling that stated if she attended mandated counseling and got into no further legal trouble for three years, her record would be cleared. She’d never been charged before, so it was unlikely to happen again. But if for some reason it had, my mother would have been saddled with a felony record for having a mental breakdown. And with a felony record, would have been less able to find work, increasing the likelihood of continued poverty, and threat of recidivism, thus carrying on the punitive cycle ad infinitum. Still, she was one of the “lucky ones.” What she experienced is increased multifold by mothers of color.

Unfortunately, she died of technically unrelated causes before the three years was up.

Today, my mother has been dead almost 20 years. But every year, around this time, I wonder what it would look like if she had been given the necessary care absent of threat to her parental rights. I wonder how we might center interventions of care and support instead of punitive measures. What if we assumed the best of mothers, first? Mostly, I wonder how we might help parents living with mental illness keep their families intact.

I know there are many opinions and no simple solutions, here. That to move away from punishment and toward compassion and complexity would require not only major policy shifts, but a cultural sea-change in how we understand family and what it means to protect its sanctity and sanity. But when we talk about who deserves help, we must consider what it costs to ask. The price is not the same for everyone.

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Mental Health Stigma

Rewrite your story: let go of mental health stigma and shame, by letting go of stigma and shame, you can embrace the life you deserve..

Posted May 10, 2024 | Reviewed by Monica Vilhauer

• Stigma can profoundly change how others see a person and how an individual feels about themself.
• Shame is a by-product of stigma; it is how we internalize the outside world’s beliefs about us.
• Each of us has the capacity to pick up the pen and write our own story to overcome stigma and shame.

The mental health movement has significantly contributed to normalizing and continuing the conversation around mental health, yet despite progress in recent years, a stigma around mental health challenges continues to persist in our society.

Stigma, by definition, is a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person. Mental health stigma is just one form of stigmatization that gets in the way of living a resilient life.

Patrick W. Corrigan and John R. O’Shaughnessy have identified three types of stigma:

Structural stigma is when there are policies or practices within private and public institutions that restrict opportunities or disallow participation for someone distinguished from the norm.

Social stigma is when people within a society hold a bias, avoidance, discomfort, or overt discrimination against a person who is somehow distinguished from the norm.

Self-stigma is when a person internalizes all the messaging about what the norm is, believes the stereotypes, sees how they don’t belong, and then lives with deep shame and social rejection.

A fourth type of stigma has also emerged, called association stigma. This is when a person is stigmatized for being linked to someone else who is stigmatized.

The Effects of Stigma

It is not often that researchers agree, but when it comes to the effects of stigma, they are quite unanimous. Stigma hurts. Stigma is damaging. Stigma ruins lives. Stigma harms potential. The mental health literature demonstrates that the stigma associated with mental health conditions prevents people from accessing services and getting help.

Although we know the stigma is real, how we suffer from it is in our minds, bodies, and souls. It is not imagined, but it can be invisible. And despite our best-laid plans, once we experience stigma, our ability to maintain our sense of self is deeply challenged and our resiliency decreases. We are left living within the blast radius of a force that hits from outside and within.

Stigma Creates Shame

Each one of the four types of stigma creates the same by-product: shame. Stigma is the outside world holding a belief about us; shame is how we internalize that belief. When we explore shame, the conversation often includes guilt . Shame and guilt are not the same thing. Guilt is the feeling that you did something wrong. Shame is the feeling that you are wrong. Guilt means we broke a rule, an expectation, or a standard. Shame is the belief that we are broken. It screams that we are flawed, irreparable, and ultimately unlovable. Shame keeps us in the shadows.

Early in my life, I felt branded as someone who became broken in her childhood and adolescence and was therefore an unlikely candidate for a healthy future. Labels like, “addicted,” “crazy,” “troubled,” and “lost cause” came from the outside world. These labels then moved from the conscious to the subconscious , resulting in the embodied belief that they defined who I was. I internalized the message that people who navigate fractured self-esteem or mental health are broken. I carried this story that the outside world wrote for me for far too long.

Rewriting Your Story

We need to be able to let go of stigma and shame. Is there something you are carrying subconsciously that is holding you back or keeping you stuck? Those parts inevitably bleed into the rest of our lives and hinder the things that actually matter. Letting go of stigma and shame is not only hard work; it is heart work. No one can do this for you.

The reality is that when you own your own story, no one can use it against you. The day I released my story with Unsinkable, an organization working to break down stigma, was the day I truly embraced this idea. I decided I wouldn’t let anyone else hold against me my mistakes, setbacks, mental health challenges, or anything else they do not think is good enough about me. My story is mine. My life is mine.

And you know what? Something amazing happens when you look shame in the eye and say, no more. When you pull yourself out of the shadows and reclaim all of your life, shame loses power over you. You regain your footing. You stand in your truth, fall in love with your imperfect self, and become your own protector and warrior. You stop fighting yourself and start fighting for yourself. You become the person you needed all your life. The one that sees your vulnerability and accepts you completely as you are.

Once you start to believe in your own worth, the voices and the power you let others hold over you begin to fade away. Sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is make the decision to forgive yourself, let go of stigma and destructive self-narratives, and write your own story.

Corrigan, P. W., & O’Shaughnessy, J. R. (2007). Changing mental illness stigma as it exists in the real world. Australian Psychologist, 42(2), 90-97. doi.org/10.1080/00050060701280573

Hanley-Dafoe, R. (2021). Calm within the storm: A path to everyday resiliency. Page Two.

Robyne Hanley-Dafoe, Ed.D. , is a resiliency and wellness scholar and speaker, author of Calm Within the Storm and Stress Wisely , and award-winning instructor and adjunct professor at Trent University.

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Mental Health Counseling Admission Essay

A college essay on mental health is a type of writing that requires your preparation. For this purpose, you can check out some examples. Below, we’ve prepared “Why I Want to Be a Mental Health Counselor Essay,” which will help you get inspired and write a successful application to your preferred educational institution.

Mental health counseling is a diverse profession with national standards for education, preparation, and clinical practice. The profession offers help to the ever-increasing number of Americans requiring mental therapy.

Clinical mental health practitioners are highly skilled professionals who provide flexible, consumer-oriented therapy. Mental health counselors offer a variety of services, such as evaluation and diagnosis, psychotherapy, solution-focused therapy, crisis management, substance abuse treatment, and prevention programs.

After carefully researching and critically evaluating my career options, I have decided to pursue a Master’s degree in Clinical Counseling focusing on mental health counseling. This path will propel me toward becoming a mental health counselor. Not only am I an excellent listener with a desire to help the marginalized, but it is also evident that there is a growing need for clinical counselors in the country to safeguard against unemployment.

Furthermore, recent surveys indicate that clinical counselors receive competitive salary packages. Beyond the financial aspect, the mental health field is diverse and rapidly evolving. Much remains to be explored regarding brain function, and consequently, therapeutic methods in this field are not as advanced as in other medical fields. I plan to delve into this study area and uncover as much knowledge and information as possible throughout my career.

The decision to apply for the clinical counseling program in mental health was significantly influenced by an internship I completed at the Carter Center for Mental Health. Founded by Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, the center aims to reduce the stigma associated with mental disorders in society. Despite increasing media coverage and information dissemination about mental health, myths and misconceptions still prevail in society.

At the Carter Center, I undertook a three-month volunteer internship to gain insight into working as a psychologist. However, after visiting numerous hospitals, outpatient mental health facilities, and hospices, I realized that my true calling might be in mental health counseling.

The internship was an eye-opening experience regarding the challenges faced by mental health patients, including those with depression, substance abuse issues, schizophrenia, eating disorders, personality disorders, and anxiety disorders. Witnessing the struggles of thousands of Americans with mental health disorders, I instinctively knew I had to contribute to the social welfare of this great country.

Cultural diversity and cultural prejudice are prevalent in our lives, and we must acknowledge and responsibly embrace them. Professionals have recently recognized the importance of addressing the challenges in serving culturally diverse populations. Cultural values, beliefs, and assumptions significantly influence mental health workers and other professionals’ service delivery.

These cultural experiences, traditions, beliefs, and assumptions shape our worldview. Thus, professionals should be conscious of their thoughts and strive to separate them from their work. Counselors and clients bring a range of values, attitudes, culturally influenced behaviors, biases, ideas, and assumptions to the therapeutic process. Some mental health professionals and counselors underestimate the significance of these factors in treatment.

I consider myself culturally enlightened, having grown up in a culturally diverse community in New York. This environment has taught me to embrace and appreciate cultural pluralism and diversity. Cultural diversity is an integral element that enriches society.

I have interacted with people from various cultures in school, stores, and my neighborhood, learning that humans are not as different as we sometimes think. We need to treat each other with respect and embrace each other’s beliefs, traditions, and cultural customs.

In addition to the internship, my drive for mental health counseling was subconsciously motivated by a teenage experience. Following the tragic death of my younger sister in a surfing accident, my mother fell into a state of depression. She frequently spoke of seeing my sister in her dreams. This placed a significant burden on my father to maintain family stability. Our relief came after my mother sought help from a post-trauma counselor.

She attended sessions with the counselor and, to our relief and joy, recovered within six months. She coped better with the loss of her daughter and realized that nothing could have been done to prevent the tragedy.

Reflecting on the counselor’s impact on my family, I appreciate this noble profession. I aspire to bring joy to families and individuals by helping them understand and cope with their mental health challenges.

Upon completing my Master’s degree in Clinical Counseling, I plan to practice for five to eight years in outpatient mental health facilities and other relevant settings to gain extensive experience in mental health counseling.

Additionally, I aim to join professional organizations such as the American Psychological Association and the American Mental Health Counselors Association, which require a Master’s degree in a related field and adherence to a strict code of ethics. Eventually, I plan to establish a private practice in New York, New Jersey, or California.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Bibliography

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• Mental Health

Working at a Mental Health Company Made My Anxiety So Much Worse

Since university — and maybe even before that — I've been quite an anxious person. I'd swiftly Irish exit at parties to avoid goodbyes; experience a feeling of dread before a test result came back; and, eventually, I'd start to experience anxiety attacks . From trying not to have a breakdown on public transport to getting pins and needles in my legs so bad that emergency services thought I was having a stroke, my anxiety has gotten pretty bad at times.

So, when I was looking for a new job and a content marketing position at a software company that was developing a mental health app came up, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. Writing about mental health is so personal, and I believed I had the experience to help other people with their problems — and help myself along the way.

I ended up getting the job, and within a few months, we'd started project planning the creation of the mental health and well-being app. Given that it was a video-based solution, it would be up to me and two other writers to research, write, and edit around 100 hours of content. It was a mountain of work that kept us going throughout the pandemic.

At that time, being in lockdown, there wasn't a whole lot to do. For me, healthy routines were easily made and kept. I could regulate my sleep schedule, enjoy yoga at lunchtime, and carve out time for meditation instead of a hectic commute. As a result, I could keep my anxiety surprisingly in check. However, when things started to return to normal, those routines started to break apart — and old habits and anxieties crept back in.

You can know all the mental health techniques in the world, but if you can't put them into action and use them, they're pretty much pointless. And this was the predicament I suddenly found myself in.

Every day, I was absorbing all this research about what works to improve mental health. I was reading and rewriting scripts packed full of clinically validated content from 9 to 5, five days a week, for months on end. I knew exactly what would make me feel better: exercise, diet, thought restructuring, journaling, breathwork.

But when I got home at the end of the day and needed to de-stress about work and switch off, I couldn't. Every time I'd try to use one of my tried-and-true mental health techniques, it would just remind me of being at work and everything I'd have to do the next day. The anxiety spirals deepened and increased in frequency, and I even tried going back on anti-anxiety medication — but it didn't seem to do the trick. I felt psychologically stuck and emotionally drained.

As it turns out, this is a huge problem for many people who work within the mental health sphere, including therapists.

"Even psychologists are aware of how difficult it can be to do 'the right thing' for their mental health."

Alex Oliver-Gans , LMFT, a therapist who specializes in anxiety and men's mental health, explains , " I use mindfulness and CBT techniques with my clients, but it's a struggle to use these techniques myself, partly because I don't want to 'be a therapist' when I'm not working."

That's true as well for Catherine Schuler, PsyD, a licensed clinical psychologist at the Center for Anxiety & Behavior Therapy. "To me, it's important that non-psychologists know that even psychologists are aware of how difficult it can be to do 'the right thing' for their mental health," she says. Dr. Schuler acknowledges that "sometimes it can feel exhausting" to focus on her own mental health, "because it's what I spend my days talking about." But, she adds, "this doesn't mean it's not worth persevering and continually working at incorporating these skills."

It wasn't that my anxious thoughts were exclusively about my job; it was that whenever I started to approach journaling or thought restructuring, it was almost impossible for my mind not to wander into a to-do list for the next day or replay verbatim scripts about the subject in my head that I'd written.

As much as I thought I was hiding my true stress levels well at work, a few co-workers caught on pretty quickly. I'm sarcastic, dry, and self-deprecating, so off-hand comments about my rising stress levels were fairly common. I even told my bosses at one point that I couldn't use the techniques anymore without thinking about my work to-do list. After that, it became a running joke in the office that if yoga made it into the app, I'd have to leave for my own sanity.

But after speaking with some of my colleagues, I realized I wasn't alone. While the techniques we were using in the app were clinically correct, the exposure we had to them day in and day out was lessening their positive effects on us.

As Ray W. Christner , PsyD, NCSP, ABPP, explains, "This isn't necessarily about the efficacy of these techniques, but more about the need to separate one's professional life from personal wellness or mental health practices. It's like professional chefs who don't cook for themselves after work. I don't think it's a matter of not using them, as much as personally, we might find ways to use them differently."

The anxiety only continued to grow. When I found myself crying over the fact that I couldn't open a paint can, I realized that things needed to change. At the time, outright quitting wasn't really an option, given that I had bills to pay. But slowly, I started to build up more freelance work on the side, dropping my hours at the company to part-time before becoming a contractor.

Honestly, writing mental health content was really rewarding for me — I loved diving into the research of it all and seeing positive testimonials coming back from people we'd helped. I just knew I couldn't do it full-time and still be able to look after my own mental well-being. In the end, given that was the trade-off, the decision to leave was a no-brainer.

Since then, I've started to lean into freelance life. I'd recognized during the pandemic that the flexibility of working from home allowed me to build those much-needed routines to ease my anxiety on a daily basis. So little by little, I've started to build up my routine again. Now that I'm not thinking about and writing about mental health every day, techniques like meditation, journaling, and restructuring are becoming easier to access again.

Working in a field that you love or enjoy can be a great thing. However, when it means that the lines between work and home life become blurred or your mental health starts to take the hit, it's time to reconsider what you're doing for a living. As Dr. Schuler recommends: "If a job is making it difficult or impossible for you to put energy towards the things that matter to you — which will be unique to each person — then it's time to seriously consider change."

The irony is not lost on me that working in a job that helped other people's mental health ultimately made mine a lot worse. But, honestly, I'm grateful that I was able to learn about so many techniques and figure out what actually works for me. Now that I have enough distance from the content in my professional life, I can actually use many of these strategies to keep myself grounded and level.

I've also recently found out that the company has included yoga in its marketing — so I got out at just the right time.

Rebecca Crowe is a freelance writer who specializes in mental health, lifestyle, and travel. In the past, she's worked as the head of research and head writer for a mental health company, as well as a freelancer for brands like Google and British Airways.

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Make Your Workday Work for Your Mental Health

• Alice Boyes

From building habits to being purposefully unfocused, you can schedule time to take care of yourself.

When you’re struggling with your mental health, getting through your workday can feel a lot harder than usual. It’s not always the quantity or type of work that is making your anxiety, depression, or other mental health difficulties worse — sometimes it’s that your workday is structured in a way that’s at odds with your natural rhythms or your mental health challenges. You can take steps to structure your workday, using your self-knowledge, doing some experiments, and balancing your needs with your job responsibilities. By building strong habits around when you do focused, deep work; creating routines to make progress on tasks with vague or long-term deadlines; and building in times to let your mind wander to take advantage of unfocused recovery time you’ll boost your mental health — and your productivity.

When you’re struggling with your mental health, getting through your workday can feel a lot harder than usual. If your workload is making your anxiety, depression, or other mental health difficulties worse, it’s not always the quantity or type of work that’s the culprit. Sometimes it’s that your workday isn’t structured in a way that suits your natural rhythms or your mental health challenges.

• Alice Boyes , PhD is a former clinical psychologist turned writer and the author of The Healthy Mind Toolkit , The Anxiety Toolkit , and Stress-Free Productivity .

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When Prison and Mental Illness Amount to a Death Sentence

The downward spiral of one inmate, Markus Johnson, shows the larger failures of the nation’s prisons to care for the mentally ill.

Supported by

By Glenn Thrush

Photographs by Carlos Javier Ortiz

Glenn Thrush spent more than a year reporting this article, interviewing close to 50 people and reviewing court-obtained body-camera footage and more than 1,500 pages of documents.

• Published May 5, 2024 Updated May 7, 2024

Markus Johnson slumped naked against the wall of his cell, skin flecked with pepper spray, his face a mask of puzzlement, exhaustion and resignation. Four men in black tactical gear pinned him, his face to the concrete, to cuff his hands behind his back.

He did not resist. He couldn’t. He was so gravely dehydrated he would be dead by their next shift change.

Listen to this article with reporter commentary

“I didn’t do anything,” Mr. Johnson moaned as they pressed a shield between his shoulders.

It was 1:19 p.m. on Sept. 6, 2019, in the Danville Correctional Center, a medium-security prison a few hours south of Chicago. Mr. Johnson, 21 and serving a short sentence for gun possession, was in the throes of a mental collapse that had gone largely untreated, but hardly unwatched.

He had entered in good health, with hopes of using the time to gain work skills. But for the previous three weeks, Mr. Johnson, who suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, had refused to eat or take his medication. Most dangerous of all, he had stealthily stopped drinking water, hastening the physical collapse that often accompanies full-scale mental crises.

Mr. Johnson’s horrific downward spiral, which has not been previously reported, represents the larger failures of the nation’s prisons to care for the mentally ill. Many seriously ill people receive no treatment . For those who do, the outcome is often determined by the vigilance and commitment of individual supervisors and frontline staff, which vary greatly from system to system, prison to prison, and even shift to shift.

The country’s jails and prisons have become its largest provider of inpatient mental health treatment, with 10 times as many seriously mentally ill people now held behind bars as in hospitals. Estimating the population of incarcerated people with major psychological problems is difficult, but the number is likely 200,000 to 300,000, experts say.

Many of these institutions remain ill-equipped to handle such a task, and the burden often falls on prison staff and health care personnel who struggle with the dual roles of jailer and caregiver in a high-stress, dangerous, often dehumanizing environment.

In 2021, Joshua McLemore , a 29-year-old with schizophrenia held for weeks in an isolation cell in Jackson County, Ind., died of organ failure resulting from a “refusal to eat or drink,” according to an autopsy. In April, New York City agreed to pay $28 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the family of Nicholas Feliciano, a young man with a history of mental illness who suffered severe brain damage after attempting to hang himself on Rikers Island — as correctional officers stood by.

Mr. Johnson’s mother has filed a wrongful-death suit against the state and Wexford Health Sources, a for-profit health care contractor in Illinois prisons. The New York Times reviewed more than 1,500 pages of reports, along with depositions taken from those involved. Together, they reveal a cascade of missteps, missed opportunities, potential breaches of protocol and, at times, lapses in common sense.

Prison officials and Wexford staff took few steps to intervene even after it became clear that Mr. Johnson, who had been hospitalized repeatedly for similar episodes and recovered, had refused to take medication. Most notably, they did not transfer him to a state prison facility that provides more intensive mental health treatment than is available at regular prisons, records show.

The quality of medical care was also questionable, said Mr. Johnson’s lawyers, Sarah Grady and Howard Kaplan, a married legal team in Chicago. Mr. Johnson lost 50 to 60 pounds during three weeks in solitary confinement, but officials did not initiate interventions like intravenous feedings or transfer him to a non-prison hospital.

And they did not take the most basic step — dialing 911 — until it was too late.

There have been many attempts to improve the quality of mental health treatment in jails and prisons by putting care on par with punishment — including a major effort in Chicago . But improvements have proved difficult to enact and harder to sustain, hampered by funding and staffing shortages.

Lawyers representing the state corrections department, Wexford and staff members who worked at Danville declined to comment on Mr. Johnson’s death, citing the unresolved litigation. In their interviews with state police investigators, and in depositions, employees defended their professionalism and adherence to procedure, while citing problems with high staff turnover, difficult work conditions, limited resources and shortcomings of co-workers.

But some expressed a sense of resignation about the fate of Mr. Johnson and others like him.

Prisoners have “much better chances in a hospital, but that’s not their situation,” said a senior member of Wexford’s health care team in a deposition.

“I didn’t put them in prison,” he added. “They are in there for a reason.”

Markus Mison Johnson was born on March 1, 1998, to a mother who believed she was not capable of caring for him.

Days after his birth, he was taken in by Lisa Barker Johnson, a foster mother in her 30s who lived in Zion, Ill., a working-class city halfway between Chicago and Milwaukee. Markus eventually became one of four children she adopted from different families.

The Johnson house is a lively split level, with nieces, nephews, grandchildren and neighbors’ children, family keepsakes, video screens and juice boxes. Ms. Johnson sits at its center on a kitchen chair, chin resting on her hand as children wander over to share their thoughts, or to tug on her T-shirt to ask her to be their bathroom buddy.

From the start, her bond with Markus was particularly powerful, in part because the two looked so much alike, with distinctive dimpled smiles. Many neighbors assumed he was her biological son. The middle name she chose for him was intended to convey that message.

“Mison is short for ‘my son,’” she said standing over his modest footstone grave last summer.

He was happy at home. School was different. His grades were good, but he was intensely shy and was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in elementary school.

That was around the time the bullying began. His sisters were fierce defenders, but they could only do so much. He did the best he could, developing a quick, taunting tongue.

These experiences filled him with a powerful yearning to fit in.

It was not to be.

When he was around 15, he called 911 in a panic, telling the dispatcher he saw two men standing near the small park next to his house threatening to abduct children playing there. The officers who responded found nothing out of the ordinary, and rang the Johnsons’ doorbell.

He later told his mother he had heard a voice telling him to “protect the kids.”

He was hospitalized for the first time at 16, and given medications that stabilized him for stretches of time. But the crises would strike every six months or so, often triggered by his decision to stop taking his medication.

His family became adept at reading signs he was “getting sick.” He would put on his tan Timberlands and a heavy winter coat, no matter the season, and perch on the edge of his bed as if bracing for battle. Sometimes, he would cook his own food, paranoid that someone might poison him.

He graduated six months early, on the dean’s list, but was rudderless, and hanging out with younger boys, often paying their way.

His mother pointed out the perils of buying friendship.

“I don’t care,” he said. “At least I’ll be popular for a minute.”

Zion’s inviting green grid of Bible-named streets belies the reality that it is a rough, unforgiving place to grow up. Family members say Markus wanted desperately to prove he was tough, and emulated his younger, reckless group of friends.

Like many of them, he obtained a pistol. He used it to hold up a convenience store clerk for $425 in January 2017, according to police records. He cut a plea deal for two years of probation, and never explained to his family what had made him do it.

But he kept getting into violent confrontations. In late July 2018, he was arrested in a neighbor’s garage with a handgun he later admitted was his. He was still on probation for the robbery, and his public defender negotiated a plea deal that would send him to state prison until January 2020.

An inpatient mental health system

Around 40 percent of the about 1.8 million people in local, state and federal jails and prison suffer from at least one mental illness, and many of these people have concurrent issues with substance abuse, according to recent Justice Department estimates.

Psychological problems, often exacerbated by drug use, often lead to significant medical problems resulting from a lack of hygiene or access to good health care.

“When you suffer depression in the outside world, it’s hard to concentrate, you have reduced energy, your sleep is disrupted, you have a very gloomy outlook, so you stop taking care of yourself,” said Robert L. Trestman , a Virginia Tech medical school professor who has worked on state prison mental health reforms.

The paradox is that prison is often the only place where sick people have access to even minimal care.

But the harsh work environment, remote location of many prisons, and low pay have led to severe shortages of corrections staff and the unwillingness of doctors, nurses and counselors to work with the incarcerated mentally ill.

In the early 2000s, prisoners’ rights lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit against Illinois claiming “deliberate indifference” to the plight of about 5,000 mentally ill prisoners locked in segregated units and denied treatment and medication.

In 2014, the parties reached a settlement that included minimum staffing mandates, revamped screening protocols, restrictions on the use of solitary confinement and the allocation of about $100 million to double capacity in the system’s specialized mental health units.

Yet within six months of the deal, Pablo Stewart, an independent monitor chosen to oversee its enforcement, declared the system to be in a state of emergency.

Over the years, some significant improvements have been made. But Dr. Stewart’s final report , drafted in 2022, gave the system failing marks for its medication and staffing policies and reliance on solitary confinement “crisis watch” cells.

Ms. Grady, one of Mr. Johnson’s lawyers, cited an additional problem: a lack of coordination between corrections staff and Wexford’s professionals, beyond dutifully filling out dozens of mandated status reports.

“Markus Johnson was basically documented to death,” she said.

‘I’m just trying to keep my head up’

Mr. Johnson was not exactly looking forward to prison. But he saw it as an opportunity to learn a trade so he could start a family when he got out.

On Dec. 18, 2018, he arrived at a processing center in Joliet, where he sat for an intake interview. He was coherent and cooperative, well-groomed and maintained eye contact. He was taking his medication, not suicidal and had a hearty appetite. He was listed as 5 feet 6 inches tall and 256 pounds.

Mr. Johnson described his mood as “go with the flow.”

A few days later, after arriving in Danville, he offered a less settled assessment during a telehealth visit with a Wexford psychiatrist, Dr. Nitin Thapar. Mr. Johnson admitted to being plagued by feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness and “constant uncontrollable worrying” that affected his sleep.

He told Dr. Thapar he had heard voices in the past — but not now — telling him he was a failure, and warning that people were out to get him.

At the time he was incarcerated, the basic options for mentally ill people in Illinois prisons included placement in the general population or transfer to a special residential treatment program at the Dixon Correctional Center, west of Chicago. Mr. Johnson seemed out of immediate danger, so he was assigned to a standard two-man cell in the prison’s general population, with regular mental health counseling and medication.

Things started off well enough. “I’m just trying to keep my head up,” he wrote to his mother. “Every day I learn to be stronger & stronger.”

But his daily phone calls back home hinted at friction with other inmates. And there was not much for him to do after being turned down for a janitorial training program.

Then, in the spring of 2019, his grandmother died, sending him into a deep hole.

Dr. Thapar prescribed a new drug used to treat major depressive disorders. Its most common side effect is weight gain. Mr. Johnson stopped taking it.

On July 4, he told Dr. Thapar matter-of-factly during a telehealth check-in that he was no longer taking any of his medications. “I’ve been feeling normal, I guess,” he said. “I feel like I don’t need the medication anymore.”

Dr. Thapar said he thought that was a mistake, but accepted the decision and removed Mr. Johnson from his regular mental health caseload — instructing him to “reach out” if he needed help, records show.

The pace of calls back home slackened. Mr. Johnson spent more time in bed, and became more surly. At a group-therapy session, he sat stone silent, after showing up late.

By early August, he was telling guards he had stopped eating.

At some point, no one knows when, he had intermittently stopped drinking fluids.

‘I’m having a breakdown’

Then came the crash.

On Aug. 12, Mr. Johnson got into a fight with his older cellmate.

He was taken to a one-man disciplinary cell. A few hours later, Wexford’s on-site mental health counselor, Melanie Easton, was shocked by his disoriented condition. Mr. Johnson stared blankly, then burst into tears when asked if he had “suffered a loss in the previous six months.”

He was so unresponsive to her questions she could not finish the evaluation.

Ms. Easton ordered that he be moved to a 9-foot by 8-foot crisis cell — solitary confinement with enhanced monitoring. At this moment, a supervisor could have ticked the box for “residential treatment” on a form to transfer him to Dixon. That did not happen, according to records and depositions.

Around this time, he asked to be placed back on his medication but nothing seems to have come of it, records show.

By mid-August, he said he was visualizing “people that were not there,” according to case notes. At first, he was acting more aggressively, once flicking water at a guard through a hole in his cell door. But his energy ebbed, and he gradually migrated downward — from standing to bunk to floor.

“I’m having a breakdown,” he confided to a Wexford employee.

At the time, inmates in Illinois were required to declare an official hunger strike before prison officials would initiate protocols, including blood testing or forced feedings. But when a guard asked Mr. Johnson why he would not eat, he said he was “fasting,” as opposed to starving himself, and no action seems to have been taken.

‘Tell me this is OK!’

Lt. Matthew Morrison, one of the few people at Danville to take a personal interest in Mr. Johnson, reported seeing a white rind around his mouth in early September. He told other staff members the cell gave off “a death smell,” according to a deposition.

On Sept. 5, they moved Mr. Johnson to one of six cells adjacent to the prison’s small, bare-bones infirmary. Prison officials finally placed him on the official hunger strike protocol without his consent.

Mr. Morrison, in his deposition, said he was troubled by the inaction of the Wexford staff, and the lack of urgency exhibited by the medical director, Dr. Justin Young.

On Sept. 5, Mr. Morrison approached Dr. Young to express his concerns, and the doctor agreed to order blood and urine tests. But Dr. Young lived in Chicago, and was on site at the prison about four times a week, according to Mr. Kaplan. Friday, Sept. 6, 2019, was not one of those days.

Mr. Morrison arrived at work that morning, expecting to find Mr. Johnson’s testing underway. A Wexford nurse told him Dr. Young believed the tests could wait.

Mr. Morrison, stunned, asked her to call Dr. Young.

“He’s good till Monday,” Dr. Young responded, according to Mr. Morrison.

“Come on, come on, look at this guy! You tell me this is OK!” the officer responded.

Eventually, Justin Duprey, a licensed nurse practitioner and the most senior Wexford employee on duty that day, authorized the test himself.

Mr. Morrison, thinking he had averted a disaster, entered the cell and implored Mr. Johnson into taking the tests. He refused.

So prison officials obtained approval to remove him forcibly from his cell.

‘Oh, my God’

What happened next is documented in video taken from cameras held by officers on the extraction team and obtained by The Times through a court order.

Mr. Johnson is scarcely recognizable as the neatly groomed 21-year-old captured in a cellphone picture a few months earlier. His skin is ashen, eyes fixed on the middle distance. He might be 40. Or 60.

At first, he places his hands forward through the hole in his cell door to be cuffed. This is against procedure, the officers shout. His hands must be in back.

He will not, or cannot, comply. He wanders to the rear of his cell and falls hard. Two blasts of pepper spray barely elicit a reaction. The leader of the tactical team later said he found it unusual and unnerving.

The next video is in the medical unit. A shield is pressed to his chest. He is in agony, begging for them to stop, as two nurses attempt to insert a catheter.

Then they move him, half-conscious and limp, onto a wheelchair for the blood draw.

For the next 20 minutes, the Wexford nurse performing the procedure, Angelica Wachtor, jabs hands and arms to find a vessel that will hold shape. She winces with each puncture, tries to comfort him, and grows increasingly rattled.

“Oh, my God,” she mutters, and asks why help is not on the way.

She did not request assistance or discuss calling 911, records indicate.

“Can you please stop — it’s burning real bad,” Mr. Johnson said.

Soon after, a member of the tactical team reminds Ms. Wachtor to take Mr. Johnson’s vitals before taking him back to his cell. She would later tell Dr. Young she had been unable to able to obtain his blood pressure.

“You good?” one of the team members asks as they are preparing to leave.

“Yeah, I’ll have to be,” she replies in the recording.

Officers lifted him back onto his bunk, leaving him unconscious and naked except for a covering draped over his groin. His expressionless face is visible through the window on the cell door as it closes.

‘Cardiac arrest.’

Mr. Duprey, the nurse practitioner, had been sitting inside his office after corrections staff ordered him to shelter for his own protection, he said. When he emerged, he found Ms. Wachtor sobbing, and after a delay, he was let into the cell. Finding no pulse, Mr. Duprey asked a prison employee to call 911 so Mr. Johnson could be taken to a local emergency room.

The Wexford staff initiated CPR. It did not work.

At 3:38 p.m., the paramedics declared Markus Mison Johnson dead.

Afterward, a senior official at Danville called the Johnson family to say he had died of “cardiac arrest.”

Lisa Johnson pressed for more information, but none was initially forthcoming. She would soon receive a box hastily crammed with his possessions: uneaten snacks, notebooks, an inspirational memoir by a man who had served 20 years at Leavenworth.

Later, Shiping Bao, the coroner who examined his body, determined Mr. Johnson had died of severe dehydration. He told the state police it “was one of the driest bodies he had ever seen.”

For a long time, Ms. Johnson blamed herself. She says that her biggest mistake was assuming that the state, with all its resources, would provide a level of care comparable to what she had been able to provide her son.

She had stopped accepting foster care children while she was raising Markus and his siblings. But as the months dragged on, she decided her once-boisterous house had become oppressively still, and let local agencies know she was available again.

“It is good to have children around,” she said. “It was too quiet around here.”

Read by Glenn Thrush

Audio produced by Jack D’Isidoro .

Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice. He joined The Times in 2017 after working for Politico, Newsday, Bloomberg News, The New York Daily News, The Birmingham Post-Herald and City Limits. More about Glenn Thrush

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Out of the Centre

Savvino-storozhevsky monastery and museum.

Zvenigorod's most famous sight is the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, which was founded in 1398 by the monk Savva from the Troitse-Sergieva Lavra, at the invitation and with the support of Prince Yury Dmitrievich of Zvenigorod. Savva was later canonised as St Sabbas (Savva) of Storozhev. The monastery late flourished under the reign of Tsar Alexis, who chose the monastery as his family church and often went on pilgrimage there and made lots of donations to it. Most of the monastery’s buildings date from this time. The monastery is heavily fortified with thick walls and six towers, the most impressive of which is the Krasny Tower which also serves as the eastern entrance. The monastery was closed in 1918 and only reopened in 1995. In 1998 Patriarch Alexius II took part in a service to return the relics of St Sabbas to the monastery. Today the monastery has the status of a stauropegic monastery, which is second in status to a lavra. In addition to being a working monastery, it also holds the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum.

Belfry and Neighbouring Churches

Located near the main entrance is the monastery's belfry which is perhaps the calling card of the monastery due to its uniqueness. It was built in the 1650s and the St Sergius of Radonezh’s Church was opened on the middle tier in the mid-17th century, although it was originally dedicated to the Trinity. The belfry's 35-tonne Great Bladgovestny Bell fell in 1941 and was only restored and returned in 2003. Attached to the belfry is a large refectory and the Transfiguration Church, both of which were built on the orders of Tsar Alexis in the 1650s.  

To the left of the belfry is another, smaller, refectory which is attached to the Trinity Gate-Church, which was also constructed in the 1650s on the orders of Tsar Alexis who made it his own family church. The church is elaborately decorated with colourful trims and underneath the archway is a beautiful 19th century fresco.

Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is the oldest building in the monastery and among the oldest buildings in the Moscow Region. It was built between 1404 and 1405 during the lifetime of St Sabbas and using the funds of Prince Yury of Zvenigorod. The white-stone cathedral is a standard four-pillar design with a single golden dome. After the death of St Sabbas he was interred in the cathedral and a new altar dedicated to him was added.

Under the reign of Tsar Alexis the cathedral was decorated with frescoes by Stepan Ryazanets, some of which remain today. Tsar Alexis also presented the cathedral with a five-tier iconostasis, the top row of icons have been preserved.

Tsaritsa's Chambers

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is located between the Tsaritsa's Chambers of the left and the Palace of Tsar Alexis on the right. The Tsaritsa's Chambers were built in the mid-17th century for the wife of Tsar Alexey - Tsaritsa Maria Ilinichna Miloskavskaya. The design of the building is influenced by the ancient Russian architectural style. Is prettier than the Tsar's chambers opposite, being red in colour with elaborately decorated window frames and entrance.

At present the Tsaritsa's Chambers houses the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum. Among its displays is an accurate recreation of the interior of a noble lady's chambers including furniture, decorations and a decorated tiled oven, and an exhibition on the history of Zvenigorod and the monastery.

Palace of Tsar Alexis

The Palace of Tsar Alexis was built in the 1650s and is now one of the best surviving examples of non-religious architecture of that era. It was built especially for Tsar Alexis who often visited the monastery on religious pilgrimages. Its most striking feature is its pretty row of nine chimney spouts which resemble towers.

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How essay writing may be helpful for mental health.

We cannot afford to ignore the mental health menace. Mental health has been hidden behind a curtain of stigma and discrimination for too long. It’s time to bring it out into the open. The magnitude, suffering, and burden in terms of disability and costs for individuals, families, and societies are staggering. But we have made notable progress. In the last few years, the world has become more aware of this enormous burden and the potential for mental health gains. As the condition continues to garner attention globally, various ways to manage it have been proposed, and writing is one of them. Writing can be a self-care method for many; it helps unwind and de-stress. You can use creative writing as a way of connecting with others. Sharing tales and perspectives while also learning from and supporting one another is equally helpful. Besides, writing about difficult situations can help us healthily release our feelings.

Nowadays, students and professionals increasingly seek help from online writing services to manage their demanding schedules and complex assignments. As academic pressures mount, these services have become essential tools for many. They offer tailored assistance that can significantly impact the success of their users. Among the many platforms available, Customwritings.com provides high-quality, personalized writing services. They offer relief from the stress of deadlines and enhance students’ understanding and execution of academic projects. They emphasize originality and quality, thus aligning perfectly with the needs of students seeking dependable and ethical academic support.

Besides, the Customwritings Facebook page exemplifies how digital engagement can enhance customer service and community building. This social media extension allows the platform to maintain an ongoing dialogue with its users, offering them immediate updates, academic tips, and responses to their inquiries. They relieve the burden of writing, editing, and proofreading, which can cause stress and worry for students and professionals. Thus, it is not just a promotional tool but a crucial element of their support system. It is a space for users to share experiences, discuss academic challenges, and find motivation. But how is essay writing helpful for mental health?

The Benefits of Essay Writing on Mental Health

Essay writing is more than just an academic exercise. I bet you didn’t know that it has tangible benefits for mental health as well. Writing essays can act as a therapeutic activity, helping individuals to clarify their thoughts, express their feelings, and communicate more effectively. Let us explore the specific benefits of essay writing on mental health.

• Stress reduction

Writing and depression, stress, or anxiety are connected. Numerous studies have proven that using journaling to express your feelings helps people overcome traumatic events, reduce feelings of stress and emotional tension, and even boost our physical health. Similarly, writing essays allows individuals to express their thoughts and feelings on paper, which can be therapeutic. Organizing one’s thoughts to write coherently forces a level of focus that can divert attention away from stressors. This concentration can lower stress levels by providing a temporary escape from other pressures. It leads to a relief that is productive and calming.

• Enhanced self-expression

Essay writing develops one’s ability to articulate personal views and emotions. This skill is crucial for effective communication and personal expression. Regularly engaging in essay writing makes individuals more comfortable expressing complex ideas and deep feelings, contributing to better interpersonal relationships and greater personal authenticity. We all know that expressing oneself clearly increases self-confidence and self-understanding.

• Improved emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence is the ability to manage your own emotions and understand the feelings of people around you. The reflective nature of essay writing helps individuals understand their feelings and the situations that trigger them. This reflection is a critical component of emotional intelligence. By writing about their experiences and reactions, students can observe patterns in their emotional responses and develop better strategies for managing their emotions.

• Enhanced cognitive abilities

Writing is beneficial to cognitive skills because it requires focusing attention, planning and forethought, organization of one’s thinking, and reflective thought, among other abilities. The essay writing process involves critical thinking, organization, and analysis, which are all cognitively demanding tasks. This complex process can help sharpen the mind and improve cognitive functions. And that’s not all. Regular practice of these skills can lead to improved memory, better problem-solving skills, and higher intellectual engagement.

• Increased focus and discipline

You must stay focused for prolonged periods if you want to meet deadlines. Writing an essay requires a significant amount of focus and discipline, especially to complete it from start to finish. This practice can enhance your ability to concentrate on tasks for extended periods. Over time, your discipline translates into improved productivity and efficiency in various aspects of life, not just academic or professional settings.

• Better mood management

Research shows that writing about traumatic, stressful, or emotional events improves physical and psychological health. In the same way, the essay writing process can lead to an improved mood among students. By engaging in the creative and analytical process of essay writing, individuals can experience a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. Besides, expressing troubling thoughts or difficult emotions through writing can act as a release mechanism. It clears the mind and improves the overall mood.

• Develops problem-solving skills

Essays often require writers to explore different perspectives and propose solutions. This process naturally develops problem-solving skills. Professors require students to consider various angles and potential outcomes when they ask students to write essays and research papers. They know that writing enhances students’ ability to navigate challenges in their personal and professional lives, leading to more effective decision-making and problem-resolution.

• Promotes mindfulness

Writing is a social-emotional health exercise. It can be a mindful practice to stay in the present moment and calm the mind. Think of writing as an activity for you to recalibrate your mindset to a more positive setting. Writing takes time. It requires you to slow down, channel, focus, imagine, and organize thoughts, emotions, and tone. In this way, essay writing is a mindful practice, meaning you are grounded in the present moment to reflect and respond to what your senses have noticed. This practice of mindfulness can decrease symptoms of anxiety and depression and promote a general understanding of mental well-being. Being present in the moment during the writing process anchors the mind. It reduces the tendency to worry about past or future events.

Take Care of Your Mental Health Through Writing!

Harness the therapeutic power of essay writing to enhance your mental health. Make it a regular practice. Write regularly. The benefits are vast, as we’ve discussed herein. You’ll experience decreased stress, improved self-expression, and increased emotional intelligence. Essay writing polishes your cognitive abilities and helps develop discipline and focus. Each essay you write is not just an academic exercise. It’s a step towards understanding and improving your mental well-being.

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