My Personal Experience With Mental Disabilities

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The idea of mental health has always been an area of study that has been intriguing, interesting, and complex not only during my social work education, but also in my personal life as well. Throughout life so far, my attitude towards mental disabilities has been one that is evolving as my understanding about mental health has grown, but also has always been towards a sense of open-mindedness and non-judgmental view considering my own life experiences and people that I have encountered. After having completed my MSW internship at Vista Maria, a residential treatment program for adolescent females, and conducting therapy in the building that housed females with the presenting problem of a delinquent charge and mild to severe mental health concerns, …show more content…

During my childhood years of having to experience emotional abuse by my father, witnessing physical violence towards my mother, watching my brother have severe behavioral problems at times, and acting out myself, these experiences helped to shape my cognitive thoughts many negative at times and led to many unhealthy behaviors not only as an adolescent but also as an adult. While every day is a different day for me, I learned through the process of recovery and through my education, that my mental health does not define who I am and recovery is possible. Through my spiritual growth, I have learned the aspect of forgiveness towards myself, of which can be difficult at times, not to judge others because we will never know all the paths they have taken or have gone through, and just to pray for those who are struggling instead of looking down on them. With respect to the population of working with adults who have committed murder, rape, and violent acts against children, the attitude of uncomfortability is due to having a 15-year-old daughter, my experiences of physical abuse, and having worked with the adolescent girls at the facility who were raped and had heinous crimes done against them. At the same time, the …show more content…

Society at times has viewed it in a closed minded view due to generational aspects and lack of understanding. With the lack of education on mental health, the society, cultures, and communities often times more than not stereotype and discriminate against those with mental health disabilities. The population, of which I have discussed previously, is a population with one of the most negative attitude against them. Media and society view these individuals as psychopaths, sociopaths, and being insane with some people even going as far as indicating that these individuals should not be living. With Antisocial Personality Disorder, media has portrayed these individuals as being shown as “the serial killer in a movie that is super charming, but completely void emotion that kills mercilessly.” ( ) This creates the notion that all people with APD are born serial killers, however this is not always so. This stigma that attaches makes it difficult for people with APD who are suffering, but not to this extreme extent to be able to recover from their disorder. While APD is difficult to treat and will take a great amount of time to treat, it is not impossible to treat. While growing up in the society and culture that I have, I was taught and influenced to look down at people who have mental illnesses and pass judgments/stereotype on those with mental illnesses, and while I did to some

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