Selling Mental Illness

Is there such a thing as oversensitivity when it comes to mental illness? A lot of people refer to 2015 as the year that the world was offended by everything. Is mental illness a part of that? 

In today's society, people make light of mental illness by making jokes and misusing terms that pertain to it. For example, people often tweet "KMS" or, "killing myself" as a joke when something doesn't go their way. Even large corporations plan a role in this. Target sold a shirt that said OCD in huge letters and then under it "Obsessive Christmas Disorder". Urban Outfitters, a store that I get a lot of my clothes from, is constantly under fire for their controversial designs. These designs include a crop top with the word "depression" printed all over it in different sizes, a Kent State University sweatshirt that has blood splatters all over it, and a t-shirt that says "eat less" in pretty cursive letters. Celebrities, or in this case "politicians", often help add to the stigma of mental illness. For example, Donald Trump released a statement saying that he believed the reason for gun violence stems from the mental ill, or "sickos" as he refers to them, targeting areas with loose gun laws (yet another reason to not like him.)

While working on my project, I've become more aware of the way mental illness is portrayed in the media and throughout my school and workplace. In a way, I think I've become even more sensitive to certain terms people use to describe mental illness and the overuse of illnesses, mainly OCD and depression. Some people might think of this as a bad thing, but I don't. I think the world would be a much better place if people acted with more compassion and took the time to think about what they say before they say it, or design it. 

Target t-shirt: 

Urban Outfitters:

PSA Projects

Over the past week or so, we've been working in groups to create PSAs on a variety of topics. My group is creating a PSA on digital wellness. We decided to focus on not letting social media control your happiness/body image and perception of the real world. We decided that the most effective PSAs are those that contain little to no narrative and have words flashing up on the screen, so that's what we're making. So far, the hardest part has been trying to find music that is labeled for reuse and fits with what we're making. While my group members focus more on the video presentation, I'm creating a website that will serve as our "call to action" and will be shown through a link at the end of our video. We tried finding a website that incorporated articles about how what you see on Instagram isn't the real world, upbeat videos about photoshop, and some sort of movement or something our peers could physically participate anything. When we couldn't find anything, we decided to build our own website so we could put everything we wanted in one place. Our actual video isn't complete but I think the website is pretty much done. If you want to check it out, here's the link: http://yourselfworth.weebly.com 

Talking to Kevin, An LNC Alumni

It's always kind of been expected of me to go to college and get a degree in something that will almost guarantee me a job, whether or not it's something I can truly see myself doing doesn't always seem important. Kevin, someone who has built his own business, makes his own rules, and decides what jobs he wants to take when they're offered to him, loves what he does. Yes, he has a degree, a very useful degree, but he said himself that the work he does now doesn't really have anything to do with what he went to college for. Kevin has the ability to jump around from project to project, constantly finding new things that he likes and is good at. I find this to be really cool and I kind of admire him for having the courage to just go out there and explore. He turned what he's passionate about into a job he gets to do everyday, and unlike most people, it's not some chore he hates doing. 

Kevin also suggested that create as many personal ties to people as possible; the more connections the better. He said something my teachers and mom have said repeatedly; offline connections are just as important as online connections. Kevin's advice doesn't just apply to my project and making it a success, it applies to everyday life, especially applying to colleges. It seems as if the world is becoming more and more competitive and it's becoming harder to keep up. You have to find a way to set yourself apart from everyone else and I could definitely use Kevin's advice to do so. 

Community Pitch Event

Our community pitch on Friday went really well and I got some really good feedback on my project. It went so well I almost felt ridiculous for even being nervous. Presenting my project to people and having them ask me questions motivated me to do even more and to really get moving. Now that I know I have audience of people that seem genuinely interested in what I'm trying to do, it makes me want to work harder to have something to show them. Here's what my poster looked like: 

Genius Time Update

This week I have finalized my interview questions, gathered up more people to interview, and created a digital image to use at the community pitch. While creating the image, I really struggled to find a way to put down "conversation starters" for people to use. I realized that I could use my interviews with people as a resource for that. By actually asking what people respond best to, I can give my audience the most realistic, accurate answers. For some reason I viewed this as a pretty big step in furthering my project. I'm not nearly as far with my project as I feel I should be, but I would say I'm definitely making progress and I met my quarter 1 goals of finding a mentor, coming up with interview questions, and finding people to interview. Next week I'm planning on starting the actual interview. I'm really excited because I think once I have a few of those complete, my project will really start to come together. 

Interview Questions

-What are some things you've heard people say about mental illness (stereotypes)

-What is your experience with mental illness? (personal or watching a family member/friend go through it)

-Did you open up to someone and receive help?

-Who'd you open up to?

-What made you comfortable enough to talk to someone?

-What's something you want people to know/understand about mental illness?

I want feedback from all kinds of people. The point of my project is to educate people enough so that they look at themselves in the mirror and are able to realize when they're contributing to the stigmatization of mental illness. What can you do to destigmatize mental illness?      

Here's one of my slides from the Keynote I created as my digital image for the community pitch:

The Meaning of Failure

As we talked about what it means to be a failure, it was really interesting to see how the people in my class defined the word. Some thought not doing well on a school assignment constitutes as failing, while others said they usually shake those types of things off. Overall, everyone agreed that letting your parents down is the ultimate failure. My thoughts on "failing" at school have changed a lot over the course of this class, not just within the last week. It helps to know that more and more people are recognizing that just because you're bad at math, you're not necessarily bad at life. It has kind of lifted my confidence a little bit because I know that at least two of my teachers, the ones teaching this class, know that all of us have different strengths and weaknesses and don't see any of us as failures. In both school and life, this past week has taught me to embrace the things I'm bad at just as much as the things I'm good at and to use my "failures" as learning experiences to better myself.

Professional Development Reflection

I presented the Google Docs app to the science department. I chose this because there have been multiple occasions where an app like Google Docs would've been useful, I just didn't know it existed. When we were told we were going to be presenting an app to the teachers, I was really nervous. I don't really like talking in front of people my age, let alone people that are older than me and happen to be educators (they can tell how stupid I may sound better than my peers.) The day of the Professional Development, one of my teachers told me that "teachers make the worst students," which only scared me even more. In a way, she was right. It was funny to see the teachers talk and "cut up" like some kids in my classes do. However, my presentation went really well and (most of) the teachers seemed really interested in what we all had to say. Even though we got positive feedback from basically everyone, I wish we would've conveyed the overall theme of collaboration better. Based on the survey, it kind of seemed like some of the teachers took at is if we were trying to introduce specific apps that we felt we really needed to incorporate into our learning environment, and to a certain extent, we were. It wasn't just about the apps though. The reason we introduced the different apps to them was to open their eyes to a new world of collaboration among students AND teachers. Other than that, everything went the way I hoped it would. I had two teachers tell me before the Professional Development that they weren't looking forward to it because they hate the schedule of half-days and having to stay after school for 2 hours when they feel like the day should be over. However, those 2 teachers, along with many others, told me after the presentations that they really enjoyed it and loved how it was all driven by the students. I honestly feel like we, as students, taught the teachers a lot, which is pretty cool.  

Twitter Chats

If I could moderate a Twitter chat, it would probably be one that I could use to get information for my project. Because part of my project is lessening the stigma that comes along with mental illness, I think it would be helpful for people to provide examples of some of the stereotypes that they've heard, or even thought. Yesterday when we participated in a class Twitter chat, it was really interesting to see how a social media platform allowed a group of people to discuss a series of questions provided by a single moderator. You don't even have to be in the same country as the moderator or other people in the chat to participate. It helps strengthen the global connection between people/brings people from all areas with the same mindset to a single place to connect. 

Shark Tank Presentations

The Shark Tank process made me realize that although I'm passionate about our oceans and the conservation of the ecosystems they contain, it's not something I consider "personal". When I told my class that I plan on doing my project on mental illness, mainly in adolescents, everyone was really supportive and I received some very helpful feedback. The goal of my project is to not only take away some of the stigma that comes with mental illness, but also separate fact from fiction and provide people with different avenues to get help. One of my teachers suggested that I start within the school and build an awareness of my campaign and once the documentary I plan on making is finished, I could present it to the student body. I wasn't sure if that would be asking too much of the school but then I remembered how awesome I thought the "elephant in the room" campaign was. Every English teacher played the video for us to see and our counselors were there to talk to us about what the goals of the campaign and to make sure we all understood that their door is always open to us. Every student takes an English course every year. Because of this, everyone saw the video and listened to our counselors speak, whether they wanted to or not. I loved that because the whole point of the video was to spread awareness and educate people about mental illness and the stigma behind it, and a lot of times, the people that don't want to listen are the uneducated ones. When I agreed that presenting my documentary would be a good idea, a classmate of mine said that he didn't think it would be affective because it's like the saying "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink". I realized that some people might view it as I'm shoving all of this down their throat, even though that's obviously not my intention. This made me realize how much the campaign last year meant to me because someone was finally talking about mental illness. I'm not trying to make anyone come forward and say they suffer from depression and need help, I just want to put it out there for them to hear and let them know that they have options. My goals for the near future include finding a local organization help me with my campaign, finding some people that are willing to be in the documentary, and writing interview questions for those people. 

Changing My Topic

Over the past few days, my classmates have started to pitch their ideas for their passion projects to the class. The "Shark Tank" style presentations allow the presenter to receive feedback from the class and our teachers. There is no doubt my classmates feel passionate about their topics, whatever it may be. Some of my classmates are passionate about things such as the environment, or helping people that live below the poverty line, others are passionate about issues within our society as a whole. Three of my classmates are doing their projects on some pretty "controversial" topics, such as feminism, education and acceptance of the different sexual orientations, as well as the transgender community. Everyone has a different opinion on all three of these topics and no one seems to want to talk about it, which is why I applaud my classmates for initiating a discussion. I think that these three people, along with the ones helping them, are going to provide a much-needed wake up call to some of the people in our school and community. I haven't gotten the opportunity to pitch my project to the class yet, and I'm kind of thankful. The more I think about my topic of "plastic pollution in the environment", the more doubtful I become about my ability to really make something out of it. Yes, I am passionate about our oceans and the thousands of ecosystems they contain, and yes, I do think they should be protected. I just don't know if plastic pollution is something that I would consider "personal". However, mental illness is. Mental illness is another issue people don't like to talk about and often sweep under the rug, and to me, that IS heartbreaking. So, instead of collaborating with an organization to keep plastic out of our oceans, I'm going to focus on mental illness among adolescents. I'm not sure what my end product is going to be because I can't expect teenagers to talk about being diagnosed with depression or dealing with an eating disorder on camera, but I have some time to figure that part out. My classmates really inspired me to put myself out there and talk about something that makes people, including myself, uncomfortable sometimes.

Passion Project Topic- Ocean Pollution

For my passion project, I am going to focus on the issue of pollution, specifically plastic, in our oceans. Instead of starting my own organization or trying to pass a law, I will (hopefully) be collaborating with an organization called 5GYRES that has been working towards eliminating plastic pollution in our oceans. My goal is to be the voice of the organization in North Carolina. Because 5GYRES is based out of California, I think using this blog and social media will play a big part in my project and will allow me to stay connected to the efforts on the other side of the country. I'm still not entirely sure what my actual "goal" is, but I do know I want to help 5GYRES expand by introducing the organization to our community. I chose this organization to try to collaborate with because they have been researching the subtropical gyres for years by launching 16 research expeditions. They have also accomplished a lot in the effort to end plastic pollution, including passing the first ever state microbead legislation and pressured 16 major cosmetic companies, including Johnson & Johnson, to stop using microbeads in their products.    

HeartBreak Mapping

Yesterday in our DigCit class, we started brainstorming ideas for our passion projects through a process called Heartbreak Mapping. The idea belongs to Angela Maiers, who believes in order to find your passion, you must surrender to heartbreak. We began creating our heartbreak maps by drawing a heart and putting the things we love inside of that heart. We then drew another heart around the first and listed the things we hate/what breaks our heart about the things we love. Around that heart, we put possible solutions to the things we hate. To do this, we used a list of questions provided by Maiers on her website. These questions include: what makes us happy, what things do we love to do, what is our favorite memory, and what things in our heart make us sad. Her approach to finding your true passion is different than most people's, and in my opinion, it's also more effective. By listing the things we love AND the things we would change about those things, we really get to visualize what makes us "tick". You get both the good and the bad. On my heartbreak map, I listed that I love wildlife (nature), people, and my family. The conservation of our ecosystems is something I feel very strongly about and I see a lot of problems with how we, as a society, treat the environment around us, so listing what I hate was very easy. However, I had a hard time coming up with a solution to "money ruling everything" or, "money over morals" because you can't make someone change what they believe. You can only hope that you can provide a good enough argument to persuade them to think another way. Another thing I feel very strongly about is people. Generally, I believe the majority of our society is exposed to constant stress and/or criticism. I find it almost shocking that people are surprised by the amount of people that live with mental illnesses like anxiety and depression. I believe that the best solution to this problem is to educate kids, and people of all ages, on what mental illness is and to encourage them to be nice, compassionate people. By starting this at an early age, the chance of them carrying it with them through their teenage years and to adulthood is much higher.