Week 6- Micah Sakado

Micah Sakado
A02
28 October 2017

Mental health is a difficult subject to talk about only because I have come to realize that it is largely a subjective topic. I don't mean to undermine those with real, damaging conditions, but most of what we know about how the mental illness and pharmaceuticals are essentially social constructs. Both Watters and the author of Pathologizing Everyday Life both attempt to argue this. I am currently in an anthropology class where we are examining drugs where I am learning about the same exact things that these two are talking about. many people are being wrongly treated for illnesses which do not require intense drugs to cure. Watters mentions a statistic that mental health diagnosis have triple in the past century and this is because we have expanded what it means to have a mental illness and have grouped up everyone with the same mental illness into the same boat. And we wrongly just keep hurling drugs at them until they get better. All of this is done for profits for drug companies rather than genuine well being of students. This truly undermines mental illness because it draws attention away from those who truly need help and it is also using mental health as a ploy for profit. Applying this to Asians, I am not sure if these students should be branded as "depressed". I do not doubt their struggles and hardships in life, but Watters says that a large part of mental illness and how to view it depends on ones social and cultural surroundings and background. Asians come from a background of tough parents and societal pressures. And thus, an abnormally strong amount of stress may fall onto them and make them sad, which American society has dubbed depression. Then, they make you take all of these anti depressants that mess up your body even more and it becomes a big mess. In short, I understand Asian struggle, but I need to do more research on depression and to understand if that's what's causing specific problems for Asians or if it has to do more with cultural setting.
I am concerned with how racism and stereotypes harm Asian student mindset. Is there a way to deconstruct these? Or are we forced to live in junction with them and harm our brains even more?

In this episode of Spongebob, everyone thinks they have mad snail disease and everyone goes crazy. Much like US mental health in the past hald century, this disease was spread via news and advertisement.