Mental Health and It's Limits


    Mental health is described as our state of mind and it’s emotional, psychological, and social well-being. Our mental health is what determines if we are in a good or bad mood, tells us how to follow social norms, and leads us to the decisions we make. Downsides of mental health are the illnesses and disorders that come with it. Depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), etc, are all examples of mental illnesses that have an effect on our actions. Sometimes those actions could positively or negatively affect one in the long run.

   Over the past few years, the news has been filled with places such as schools, churches, concerts, and even marathons that have been scarred and tarnished because of shootings. Unfortunately, most people are quick to blame Muslims, label them as terrorists, and even use them as scapegoats, but that is not always the case. People with mental disorders sometimes let their thoughts run wild, which could possibly lead to them losing control of their words and/or actions. It is definitely not an excuse for the negative things they may do, but it is the start to an explanation for their actions.

   June 17, 2015, a young white supremacist, Dylann Roof murdered nine African Americans at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal in Charleston, South Carolina. Roof’s childhood was definitely not a normal one. He came from a broken home with separated parents. At first when he was younger, he’d play outside, help his neighbors with their yard work, attended integrated schools, and overall lived the life of a typical middle-class family. Then, things took a turn for the worse. His mother was evicted from her home, he began to struggle in his classes once he started high school, couldn’t hold a job, started getting in trouble with the law, and eventually took an interest towards white supremacy websites.

    According to The New York Times, Roof does not seem to be professionally diagnosed with a specific type of mental illness, but one can definitely tell he is not mentally stable. With a background as rough as his, no person can overcome that without professional or some kind of treatment. Taking those nine lives in Charleston is not a pass for the rough childhood and teenage years he had, but it gives a partial explanation as to why he chose to act out in such a bold, harsh manner. Due to people like Dylann Roof, background checks should be done when trying to buy a firearm so that tragedies like that can be avoided.                                      Mental Health and It's Limits

Comments

  1. TomRApril 6, 2018 at 1:18 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Julie Quinn TACApril 7, 2018 at 11:44 AM

    I agree with Tom that to really bolster this post, go ahead and add your sources/hyperlinks to some of the data that you're using.
    Now I have a challenging question based on the use of one example of a shooter with "possible" bu not diagnosed mental illness. Why do you think it is that so many in the media are quick to diagnose a white shooter with "potential" mental health issues because of a rough childhood, but then they don't do the same with a shooter who comes from a minority community? Is there some sort of bias happening in how we talk about white shooters and subconsciously diagnose the shooter (there must be a "reason"), whereas other shooters are just "evil"? Is this even a thing?

    ReplyDelete
  3. TomRApril 22, 2018 at 9:07 AM

    This post contains some good points. The focus on one specific example instead of a generalization of the topic was interesting. The details of Roof's home life and upbringing and sudden turn around prior to the incident was also good. In the sentence that speaks concerning most people being quick to blame Muslims for such events, while possibly true, without statistics to back it can be considered a bandwagon fallacy. If it is a popular idea, it has no bearing on it being actually true. There weren't any hyperlinks in the text. The italicized New York Times citation was the only in-text citation. The citations at the end did not refer to what part of the text that they were citing. The New York Times article had a lot of good information in Roof's childhood friend's testimony and how his lawyer believed that he was competent to stand trial. Another source is, "www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/us/dylann-roof-charleston-killing-mental.html. It reveals how Roof chose to represent himself so that the evidence of his past mental health would not be revealed.

    Over all, the angle is good and there is more information out there that could definitely help this post to become a really good one.

    ReplyDelete

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