The Best Kept Secret On Campus Summary

In Rosie Anaya’s research paper of The Best Kept Secret on Campus, she developed a statement that any person who has psychological problems need to seek professional help to cure the disease. On the contrary, the author Michael Chabon states in his story XO9 that not all mental problems need to be cure and that some obsessions have their better use.

In Anaya’s research, she highlights her opinion that anybody, especially college students as in her paper, who face mental illness, commonly depression and anxiety, must acquire assistance to cope with their issues. The issues may differ between students, some might be having mild depression or anxiety due to examinations or assignments, while some might suffer a more chronic bipolar disorder that

not only leads to isolation and unstable emotions, but also can affects the physical health of the patients. In a broader view of psychological problems, an article from Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology states:
“The findings on risk factors also showed an emphasis on social factors, with unemployment, divorce/separation and poverty commonly rated as risk factors. However, while there are associations of schizophrenia with social disadvantage, these are probably effects of the disorder rather than causes (Dohrenwend et al. 1992). Similarly, people who have suffered from schizophrenia are more likely to be divorced (Rodgers 1995), but again this is more likely to be an effect rather than a cause.”(Jorm, Corten, Jacomb, Rodgers).
This statement supports the idea that any psychological disturbance in an individual will cause the patient, generally, to lose focus in current career, relationship and life, in other words, the patient’s social life, which without doubt may lead to the path of divorce, social isolation, unemployment, drugs and alcohol abuse and possibly to the life of homelessness and crime. These consequences could be happening in the present day due to the fact that the patient is concerned about getting a psychiatrist help because of the society’s negative view of the matter, or maybe it’s simply because of the lack of awareness of the matter. Nevertheless, this statement portrays the importance of the treatment of mental illness.
In addition to the implications of the psychological illness, chronic disorder in a subject might increase one’s tendency towards a life threatening action, a suicide. From an article from the journal Psychiatric Services, it claims:
“…of approximately 20,500 college students on 39 campuses, 43.2% of the students reported "feeling so depressed it was difficult to function" at least once in the past 12 months. More than 3,200 university students reported being diagnosed as having depression, with 39.2% of those students diagnosed in the past 12 months, 24.2% currently in therapy for depression, and 35.8% taking antidepressant medication. Among the students surveyed, 10.3% admitted "seriously considering attempting suicide" within the past 12 months and 1.9% actually attempted suicide during that period.” (Miller, Elissa J, MD, MPH; Chung, Henry, MD)
From the article itself, the statistics given by the authors seems unsettling, not only because the quite large numbers of students having depressions and tendencies toward suicidal behavior.

The reasons for this thoughts may be vary from person, for some might get depressed because of poor performance in the college and others may be affected by peer pressure and, in fact, there are countless possible reasons of why they people get depressed. Nonetheless, a suicide will definitely traumatize others-parents, life partners, siblings, the suicide eyewitnesses, friends and, if the victim received professional assistance, their psychiatrists. This situation is ‘unfair’ because one’s action of taking owns life create a dark memory of the incident, thus traumatizing others close to them. An article from Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior

reports:
“Litman (1965) and subsequent reports (Goldstein & Buongiorno, 1984; Kolodney, Binder, Bronskin, & Friend, 1979), including the two large-scale studies in the U.S. and the U.K., report shock, guilt, grief, and anger by psychiatrists after a patient's suicide. Chemtob et al. (1988) found that the psychiatrists who experienced a suicide noted the same reactions, but also that they reported posttraumatic reactions, some even reported intrusive thoughts of suicide. Gitlin (1999) reported his response to a patient's suicide to include anger, shame, guilt, isolation, and fears of both litigation and retribution from the psychiatric community.”( Thomyangkoon, Prakarn, MD; Leenaars, Antoon, PHD.)
This statement supports that suicide causes an enormous impact that will affect people in the suicide’s social circle and family ties, even the suicide’s psychiatrists. These innocents may suffer from guilt, depression and post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) after facing the awfully devastating incident. The victims affected by the suicide’s actions have to endure the negative public opinion on them as if they failed to help saving the life, even though it’s clearly not their fault. Thus, it concludes Anaya’s point that anybody with mental disorder must seek treatment in order to help them cope with themselves.
Based on Michael Chabon’s XO9, he wrote the story of a disease, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder(OCD), inherited throughout his family and running in his veins.

He wrote the story of the life of his grandmother, father, son and himself having the OCD. In the final part of his story, he claims that the ‘disease’ helped him to cope with the life of a writer for it helped him not to give up on his writing and to keep on with his career. From Chabon’s perspective, he consider his OCD as a positive yet an irritating aspect in his life and from his point of view, it looks like he does not need a cure for his problem. Although, we can’t link the exasperating OCD with the chronic bipolar disorder. Chabon’s stand on his claim was due to the fact that the XO9 in his family was merely an idiosyncrasy in his family members. It, the OCD, does not threat any life but it does threaten the nerves of others in withstanding people with

OCD.
According to an article titled ‘Obsessive-compulsive disorder’ by Jonathan S Abramowitz, Steven Taylor and Dean McKay, it clearly states that there are five different types of OCD. The first is the obsessions about being responsible for causing or failing to prevent harm. The second one is the symmetry obsessions, and ordering and counting rituals. According to the XO9, Chabon’s son may face this problem since he feels the need to get the same amount of touch, as in the story, in both part of his body. Next is the contamination obsessions- washing and cleaning rituals. This OCD clearly happens in Chabon’s grandmother’s life due to the fact that her ‘addiction’ of spraying Lysol on everything she touch and wrapping her washed dishes in a plastic bag. The fourth type is the repugnant obsessions concerning sex, violence, and religion and the last type is the hoarding, which are obsessions about acquiring and retaining objects, and associated collecting compulsions, just like what happened in his father’s life. He had this type of obsession because of his habit of organizing furniture or collectibles in neat symmetrical order. All the life of the OCD ‘patients’ described in the story most likely give readers the thoughts that it is a burden people who contracted it have to face in their lifetime. Although, Chabon manage to change reader’s stigma of the disease when he deliberately claims the OCD in him helped him in his writing career. Thus, it shows a bit of light that the OCD does bring some benefits to those who have it. If we look from an optimistic perspective, we can see that the Chabon’s Grandmother’s fear of germs and dirt might give her the advantage of getting less diseases spread through contact and dirt. His father’s obsession with alignment and collectibles perhaps caused him to be more systematic and well-ordered in his life, especially with his belongings and collections.. In Chabon’s life himself, his addiction towards repetitive action and solving problems, perhaps, is his catalysts in becoming a successful writer because he clearly wrote in the XO9 that his obsessions helped him to not give up in his writing when he gets stuck in his career. Therefore, from all the examples provided, it supports Michael Chabon’s idea that the disorder might help in advancing one’s life, one way or another.
The two authors proposed fair and logic reasons for their opinion regarding the issues and we have to look both the author’s message in details to give a final conclusion. Rosie Anaya wrote the paper about depressions in college student and how to treat the disorder. Her objective in her writing seems to help students in coping with their problems because college students’ life are stressful due to the high competition among themselves and the piling assignment. These challenges might get in their head and disturb their sanity, possibly turning their depression into something more chronic and life threatening. On the contrary, Michael Chabon wrote a story regarding the inherited OCD in his family and himself and also how the disorder helped him in his writing career. He tried to change how the public sees the disorder by giving them a benefit of it by giving out his life as an example. Despite the message Chabon delivered, we cannot consider that all psychological disorder only affect the patients’ life the same as how OCD affects Chabon and his family for the disorder is merely an idiosyncrasy, a bad habit, in their life while the disorder in Anaya’s perspective are more lethal and chronic to the patients. For instance, someone with a serious depression might do something dangerous, to self or others, drastically if the person failed to receive professional assistance, whereas some person with an OCD still can live a good life even without seeking any help to cure the disorder. Although, people with ’obsessions’ can live a better life if they find help from a psychiatrists because they can have a better life, socially and personally, free of the extreme concern for their ‘bad’ habit.
As a conclusion, one should seek for professional assistance to help with their mental disorder due to the fact that they can have a better life free of the depressions and obsessions. Both author manage to give out their perspective in the issue, although life without any abnormalities, physically or mentally, will let one to live life to the fullest.