Week 6 Anna De Villa

Anna De Villa
A03

Of the articles for this week, Katherine Kam’s “On Some Campuses, a Focus on Asian American Mental Health” resonated with me the strongest. I could identify strongly with the way the pressure affected the students they are under to succeed. The most unfortunate part is that the students would often put the pressure on themselves. The need to make their parents proud and make their sacrifices for their children worth it caused more trouble than it should for these students. There is a fine line that students first and second generation students have to walk that makes them balance between what they want to do and what would be appropriate to pay their parents back. I think it is also fostered by the idea floating around that humanities or liberal arts majors are not as useful as STEM majors because of the perceived stability of doctors and engineers and other STEM careers. I find it so important for people like those in the article to tell these students under pressure that it is okay to not follow the stereotypical path. Even though I myself am in a STEM major, I appreciate how much stress we are put under. It’s unfair how no matter which path someone chooses, they are likely to experience debilitating stress that causes real illness.

Ethan Watters’ piece “The Americanization of Mental Illness” also caught my attention because it was a completely new perspective for me to read. I believed that mental illness was both a chemical imbalance and an emotional or physical trauma, but I did not realize those causes could be separate and could affect how other perceive those with mental illness. I think that by acknowledging that someone is not broken from a trauma or disorder we will have a better attitude with less bias about treating these people.

Question: Why do we allow mental health to define or dismiss someone?

References:

Akana, A. [Anna Akana]. (2016, August 4). My experience with antidepressants. [vVideo File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-whc6Mmlug.

Kam, K. (2013, September 13). On Some Campuses, A Focus on Asian American Mental Health. New American Media.

Watters, E. (2010, January 10). The Americanization of Mental Illness. The New York Times.