Jaelea Skehan's 'An Illness Of The Mind'

Brianna Hammack
LaShonda Levy
ENG 1113 HC English Comp I
29 October, 2014
An Illness of the Mind
Pain. It’s there before it can be stopped, the chest constricts, the throat burns and a deep wracking sob is pulled out. The sadness, the lowness, it’s all back and how stupid it must look to cry like this when there is nothing to be sad about. Stop crying, they say, there isn’t anything to be sad about. This does not help, the tears still come; the pain still rules, and there is only helplessness until it decides to stop. It is not gone, it has only subsided for now, it is still there waiting to ruin reputations and embarrass. This is how life is. A sense of hopelessness crashes down and the idea of incurring permanent peace begins to look like

The topic of mental illness is broad and here it will be spoken about to pass some small knowledge of major types of

She says, “Just last week I was speaking to a man who was surprised by the number of people living with a mental illness in our region. He asked me: "If mental illness is so common, why don't I know anyone who has a mental illness?" He looked a little perplexed when I told him that he was asking the wrong question. I said to him that a better question to ask was: "Why don't any of your friends and family living with mental illness feel like they can tell you about it?”.” This is a valid question, why don’t they feel they can talk to others? The reality of the situation is that society perpetuates the fear of mental illnesses by labeling some of the worst offenders with mental illness. In some cases it is this mental illness that pleads, and wins, an insanity case. What people don’t seem to know is that people with mental illness are less likely to commit crime! “The debate about addressing mental illness and violence often ignores key facts. Many people experience mental illnesses, so having had