In Annie Baker’s 2013 Pulitzer Prize winning play The Flick two men, Sam, a thirty-five year-old who has been stuck in the same job for years, Avery, a twenty year old black man with a obsession for movies, and Rose, a confidant yet itimidating woman who works in the projection booth. As the play progresses the characters relationships are formed forcing their fears, dreams, and desires to slowly surface. In scene six of The Flick Avery has a conversation with his therapist on the phone. Towards the end of his monologue, which takes up the entirity of the scene, Avery has an epiphany, saying “Well yesterday I had this thought. I was like: okay. Maybe it’s never going to get better. Maybe I am gonna live with my dad for the rest of my life and like the actual problem is just that I’m waiting for things to change. Like maybe I’m just gonna be that weird depressed guy and I should just like accept it. And that’ll be the life I get. And that’ll be okay”. Though I belive this whole scene could easily stand in for the entire play, these particular lines of dialogue seem to illustrate an overarching theme in the play. When looking at the question Why This Play Now, it is clear that the issue of mental health is an important one to note. A recent study done by the National Alliance …show more content…
on Metal Illness reported that over 80 percent of college students addmitted to feeling depressed. Out of that 80 percent, half said that they did not seek help, even if it was directly effecting their school work. Even more disturbing, a 2009 eight study published in the Archieves of General Psychatiry showed that 6.2 preccent of students have considered suicide and 1.3 have attempted it, making suicide the third leading cause of death amoung people ages 18-24. These numbers are slowly rising every year. Most students do not seek help for their mental illness, weather this be because of the emberassing stigma placed on mental illness or because help is not readily offered at their university.
Many of these students, like Avery, may belive that there really is no light at the end of the tunnel, or that they are “just gonna be that weird depressed guy” and “should just accept it”. Not only is this belife self-destroying but it is also untrue. It is of vital importance that students suffering with mental illness are made aware that what they are going through is not permanent and that there are resources available for them, something many univercities and colleges need to make more
apparent.
The play Sisters, by Wendy Lill, is set in 20th century Nova Scotia at an Indian Residential School. The play focuses on a hopeful 17-year-old farm girl named Mary who was dating Louis at the time. Along with the present Mary who is currently in interrogation with, the duty counsel, Stein. She has been accused of torching down the Residential School, the place where she worked for fifteen years. There are various factors contributing to the impulsive reasoning behind Sister Mary’s act of burning down the Residential School such as, the actual truth to why she committed the sin, the contrast relationships with others that reflected upon her actions, and the overall punishment she should receive.
Throughout a lifetime, one can run through many different personalities that transform constantly due to experience and growing maturity, whether he or she becomes the quiet, brooding type, or tries out being the wild, party maniac. Richard Yates examines acting and role-playing—recurring themes throughout the ages—in his fictional novel Revolutionary Road. Frank and April Wheeler, a young couple living miserably in suburbia, experience relationship difficulties as their desire to escape grows. Despite their search for something different, the couple’s lack of communication causes their planned move to Europe to fall through. Frank and April Wheeler play roles not only in their individual searches for identity, but also in their search for a healthy couple identity; however, the more the Wheelers hide behind their desired roles, the more they lose sense of their true selves as individuals and as a pair.
Sex, love, depression, guilt, trust, all are topics presented in this remarkably well written and performed drama. The Flick, a 2014 Pulitzer Prize winning drama by Annie Baker, serves to provide a social commentary which will leave the audience deep in thought well after the curtain closes. Emporia State Universities Production of this masterpiece was a masterpiece in itself, from the stunningly genuine portrayal of the characters of Avery and Rose, to the realism found within the set, every aspect of the production was superb.
The stigma and negative associations that go with mental illness have been around as long as mental illness itself has been recognized. As society has advanced, little changes have been made to the deep-rooted ideas that go along with psychological disorders. It is clearly seen throughout history that people with mental illness are discriminated against, cast out of society, and deemed “damaged”. They are unable to escape the stigma that goes along with their illness, and are often left to defend themselves in a world that is not accepting of differences in people. Society needs to realize what it is doing, and how it is affecting these people who are affected with mental illness. If we continue to not help them, and to foster their illness, it will only get worse.
... problem can be easily solved when people start educating themselves about this issue. What is even sadder is that we live in the 21st century, where knowledge is at the tip of our fingers, yet we still fail to use our resources. Educating ourselves about mental illness and looking at patients with a different perspective can not only make the lives of the patients easier, but also solve the problems that Solomon brought forth in his article through the tragic story of Aaron Alexis.
In the United States alone, 57.7 million individuals suffer from mental illness. These illnesses range anywhere from mood disorders to anxiety disorders or to personality disorders and so on (The Numbers Count: Mental Disorders in America). 18 to 25 year olds make up about 30% of these individuals alone (Survey Finds Many Living with Mental Illness Go Without Treatment). These individuals require care from medication to psychiatry or even to confinement. However, of these 57.7 million individuals with mental illness, studies have found that less than one in three of these individuals receive proper treatment (Studies Say Mental Illness Too Often Goes Untreated).
There is a stigma surrounding seeking help for mental illness that needs to be broken. Mental illness is not to be taken lightly, it is a serious matter. These people need genuine help; help that they should be able to seek without having to worry about repercussions.
According to an article by Josephine Marcotty in Minneapolis’ Star Tribune from April 10, college students lead “hyper-enriched lives,” said Greg Kneser, dean of students at St. Olaf College. That’s what makes this generation of students distinct from its predecessors, he said. That is why more students who cannot cope with these feelings end up at college counseling centers with “increasingly serious mental-health problems.” 15 to 20 percent of college students nationally were diagnosed with depression. The second most common diagnosis was severe anxiety. According to the article, it is not unusual for mental-health issues to become apparent during a student’s college years.
Mental health is an issue that has been bombarded with unanswered questions and cursed with a social stigma. Throughout history this has created a social divide between mental health issues and the mainstream media. This disparity doesn’t only create a social separation, but a lapse in ethics, making it tolerable to look down on people in the mental health community. Historically, patients have been placed or forced into mental institutions in order to “cure” them of their mental obscurity so that they can function normally in the society, yet for centuries this has proven to be an ongoing struggle for the mental health community. With all of the new advancements in medicine and our ability to cure more physical and mental ailments than
“Life is random and fucked up and arbitrary, until you find someone who can make sense of it all for you-if only temporarily” - Matthew Quick, the Silver Linings Playbook novel. This quote construes the movie’s argument by emulating the individual mental obstacles that the characters will face. Patrick “Pat” Solatano Jr., and Tiffany Maxwell, two residents of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Both suffering from a variety of problems, such as their psychotic disorder, crummy relationship experience, dealing with personal emotions, and simply the act of dealing with, plus confronting their dilemmas. In the face of their support systems and misanthropist, these two mainly tolerate dysfunctional marriage problems also the effort to cope with everything they're experiencing. Silver Linings Playbook, directed by David O. Russell, illustrates how one corrupt person can nourish themselves or someone just like themselves no matter what their own circumstances are.
Although about 450 million people in the world currently are suffering from a mental illness, many untreated, the topic still remains taboo in modern society (Mental Health). For years, people with mental illnesses have been shut away or institutionalized, and despite cultural progression in many areas, mental illnesses are still shamed and rarely brought to light outside of the psychiatric community. The many different forms in which mental illness can occur are incredibly prevalent in the world today, and there is a substantial debate about the way that they should be handled. Some people are of the opinion that mental illness is merely a variance in perception and that it either can be fixed through therapy or should not be treated at all, and that treatment can have negative side effects. Other groups of people believe that mental illness is a very serious affliction and should be treated as a disease through a combination of counselling and medication because people suffering from an untreated mental illness are a danger to themselves and society as a whole. This debate is a popular one, discussed everywhere from the medical field to the dinner table, and it is such because of the numerous lives it affects on the well-being of fellow members of society and the economy. People suffering from mental illnesses are afflicted with anything from delusions, to manic periods, to periods of deep emotional darkness due to experiences and brain chemistry (Johnson). Due to the negative effects untreated mental illness has been proven to have on the human well-being and society as a whole, medication should most certainly be seen as a valid and sometimes necessary way to treat those who suffer from mental illnesses.
Can you picture the student voted “most likely to succeed” in your graduating class? This individual must have had everything going for them. They probably had good grades, popular, never in trouble, no health issues and socially and emotionally stable. However, twenty years later, after graduating college, a successful business owner, had a beautiful wife and three kids, he decides emotionally he is done and takes his own life. Mental health issues can manifest at anytime with varying degrees of significance on the emotional stability of a person. Factors such as socioeconomic status, biological and environmental issues all dictate mental health needs. Obviously, a variety of circumstances can evoke these mental health issues. Now imagine coping with these mental health issues and being expected to still be a normal student and conform to your peers around you. This is what we expect of our students dealing with a variety of mental health issues. The policies and procedures are established to meet the needs of all students. The mental health issues are recognized and evaluated based on the best placement for the student to receive an education. The public school system has the responsibility to provide a free and appropriate education. The school does the best they can to provide a whole school approach to deal with the increasing number of mental health concerns. However, the mental health concerns carry on beyond high school.
As the research analyzed suggests, there are an obvious number of students on college campuses that are exhibiting the detrimental social and academic effects of mental health issues. I wanted to observe whether the number of suffering college students is increasing or not to identify the severity of the problem on college campuses and determine the best approach to deal with these numbers. In a 2012 study directed by Mark Salzer, he states that college students suffering from mental health are “enrolling at increasing rates” which is alarming because this means there is a growth in the amount of students affected by mental illness (1). With the average withdrawal rate for non-affected students being nearly half of that for students that do
As it has been proven, students and depression across campuses are becoming more common daily, and it must be taken as a serious matter. There are many causes that result in depression, such as personal stress and academic stress. This severely influences a student’s life and can bring about extreme negative outcomes like suicide or eating disorders. Luckily, there are cures for this major issue. Counseling centers and mentors in the classroom and in residence halls can impact a student’s overall well-being and attitude towards his or her daily life. Depression, in conclusion, is an extremely dangerous mental illness that, if not cured with the correct treatments, could become detrimental to students across the globe.
Mental illnesses are plaguing the world. Because mental illnesses are not seen, society often writes of depression and anxiety as something that is not real. Mental illnesses are complicated and take a while to understand and diagnose. Mental illnesses need to be recognized at a young age in order to be able to treat them. When someone is asked to go out but the person is sick, it is immediately ok and the person will understand. But when a person says they feel down or mentally unfit, they shake their head at them, claiming they just needed an excuse There is such a stigma surrounding mental disorders. People with depression and anxiety often won’t speak out because they are afraid of being judged. People don’t take mental illnesses seriously.