Mental Illness in the Family, Term Paper Example

Introduction

Many American suffer from mental illness. Mental illness is defined as a disorder of thought or reasoning that makes a person unable to cope with ordinary day to day life. Some people with mental illness may intentionally or unintentionally hurt themselves or others. Often people suffering from mental illness may threaten to hurt themselves. Some people suffering from mental illness are unable to attend to their basic needs of clothing, eating, maintaining shelter.  Drug or alcohol dependency may also stem from an underlying mental illness.  Sadly, many people who suffer from mental illness are unaware of their conditions. Many of them do not believe they are ill and refuse to take medication to control and treat their symptoms because they lack awareness of their mental condition.  It is best for the state to intervene and force people who are suffering from extreme mental illness to receive treatment.

Observation

I believe that people who are suffering from mental illness should be forced to receive treatment because their mental capacity does not allow them to understand that there is something wrong with them. This issue is particularly important to me because I have several family members who suffer from mental illness. I have a sister who suffers from schizophrenia and has been unable to care for herself since she was a teenager at the onset of the disorder. She does well when she is taking her medication, but she often refuses to take her medicine. When she has been off of her medicine for a period of time she becomes violent and paranoid. She attempts to hurt herself, as well as anyone else around her. She will refuse to eat because she believes she is being poisoned. Without forced intervention, it would be impossible for her to live. Although I never like to point this out, she is adopted. Her mother suffered from mental illness brought on by prolonged drug addiction.  Likewise, I have another sister who is married to a man who suffers from drug addiction. Through therapy, he was able to discover that his addiction was a combination of mental and physical illness. He suffered from bipolar disorder prior to becoming addicted to cocaine. Had he not been forced into drug treatment, they would have never known that he suffered from mental illness. He had repeatedly tried to stay clean, but relapsed over and over again. In treatment, he learned about bi-polar disorder and how to control the symptoms. After being placed on medications for the regulation of the disorder, he has been able to maintain his sobriety.

Sister

Much of my adopted sister’s mental illness stems from genetics, I believe. Her mother had an issue with mental all her life. Several of her aunts and uncles had issues with mental illness as well. However, it is difficult to determine if this was more genetics or just drug induced. The majority of people in this family were drinkers and drug abusers of some sort. My sister’s mother was even drinking and using drugs while she was pregnant. All of these factors could have led to her mental illness issues. Also, as a small child, my sister was dropped causing a serious head injury. I believe this could have been directly linked to the onset of mental illness. Before she was adopted by my mother, she was shuffled from one foster home to the next. During this time, she was raped and molested repeatedly.

Brother-in-Law

My brother-in-law suffered from drug addiction as a teenager. His mother said the onset of his drug addiction occurred shortly after she separated from his father. She informed me that she and the father had a very difficult relationship and he was abusive. The father was very stern and strict with my brother-in-law. Whatever he tried to do to please him never seemed good enough. As a result, he felt unloved and neglected by his father. Later in life he found himself being and overachiever and over indulger. Whatever he did he went to the extreme. He was a perfectionist on his job, but overdosed numerous times because he just did not understand when to stop.  He discovered that he had ADHD, which caused him to be hyperactive as a child. As a result, he often found himself being corporally punished by his father. He counselor expressed that using marijuana was a way for him to try to self medicate those tendencies he could not control. Eventually, that drug led to the use of other drugs and before long he was hooked on several different drugs. However, his drug of choice became cocaine.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I believe that forced treatment is important and should be enforced in severe situations. I also believe that counseling is just as important because the person is able to come to terms with issues that may be causing the mental illness.  When a patient is unable to care for themselves, at risk of hurting themselves or someone else, or cannot provide adequate day to day living accommodations, forced treatment should be enforced. By forcing them to take treatment, the mentally ill patient may be able to provide these accommodations for them.  Although to many, it may seem that forcing treatment upon the mentally ill is an infringement of rights; however, it is a risk to society to allow mentally ill people to hurt unknowing citizens. It is also an atrocity to continue putting mentally ill people in prisons for crimes they have committed. Often mentally ill people live their lives in and out of jails and other have lived most of their adult lives in prison. I believe the greater good is to medicate these individuals.  In terms of my sister and brother-in-law, I believe that counseling has been more beneficial to them than medication. Both of their problems have their root in unresolved issues.