Unit 2: Mental Health-Reflective Assessment

                       Unit 2: Mental Health Assessment 

Michelle Obama speaks about the stigma that surrounds mental health,  “At the root of this dilemma is the way we view mental health in this country. Whether an illness affects your heart, your leg, or your brain, it’s still an illness, and there should be no distinction.” Our previous unit regarding physical and nutritional health proved to be extremely useful, by educating us on the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, but our most recent unit proved to be just as useful as the last. Over the course of eight weeks we have been studying mental health in core and using subjects such as,  Science, English, and Technology to really educate,  ourselves, our peers, and our parents on the importance of mental health. By incorporating mental health into many of our projects such as Romeo and Juliet, our DNA Lab, and the unit project, I was able to really develop an understanding of mental disorders.

For almost five weeks we performed and analyzed the play Romeo and Juliet, written by William Shakespeare. The goal for this lesson was to choose any character and write an argumentative essay proving why you believed they suffered from a mental disability. I chose to write my essay about how the main protagonist, Juliet Capulet had developed depression in her childhood which ultimately lead to her suicide. With the help of articles such as “Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development” as well as presentations from “Project Success” and “Alcoholics Anonymous” I was really able to develop and understanding of depression and where it stems from.

The webinar, “Understanding Depression in Teens” by Doctor Stringaris explained that most mental disorders are passed on through genetics. To be able to more fully understand how genetics work we completed the Romeo and Juliet DNA lab. Every person has their own genetic code, and because each person’s genetic makeup is different some people are more prone to mental illnesses than others. It is also  very likely for someone to develop the same  mental illness that one or both of their parents may have suffered from. Chromosomes carry hereditary, genetic information in long strings of DNA called genes. Humans have 22 numbered pairs of chromosomes and a single pair of sex chromosomes,  each chromosome pair includes one inherited from the father and one from the mother.

As someone who suffers from anxiety, it is very easy for me to express my thoughts and emotions through art and for the unit project I did just that. I painted three canvases for this project, one canvas was meant to portray social anxiety, one was OCD, and my final painting was generalized anxiety disorder. With the help of research and inspiration, I was able to complete the project. I shared the results on all of my social media pages. Many people ended up messaging me saying that the paintings really portrayed what anxiety was and how it feels to suffer from this disability. The unit project really goes to show that sharing and educating others about mental health is as equally important as the education of physical and nutritional health.

This unit was extremely memorable, and I believe that what I learned can never be unlearned. The education of mental health is crucial. People need to know that having a mental disorder is not something to be ashamed of, some of the most successful and happy people were once victims of mental disabilities. If all schools provided mental health education the world would be a much more peaceful place.