Mental Health - Naira Agaronyan

Mental Health 

Stress, Anxiety, & Depression 

I have chosen to speak about mental health within our communities as a form of my Civic Engagement. Mental Health falls under many categories the three main ones being stress, anxiety, and depression. The reason I believe that this topic holds a lot of importance within our communities is because I began to deal with all three things early this year. Mid January 2016 I experienced an episode of seizing while I was asleep lucky enough that I live with my family the sounds of me seizing awoke my family. I was immediately rushed to the hospital and put on medication to help calm my nerves to prevent my from having any further seizures. Unfortunately, my mental and physical health were both so rough I had to drop all of my courses for the quarter and as my neurologist said “focus on myself”. The reason of my seizing is still till this day not clearly defined as to why it occurred but the three main components that were pointed out to me that are huge factors to having episodes like seizing are stress, anxiety, and depression. I think that this topic deserves to be brought to the attention of our communities since stress, anxiety, and depression are so common within all of us on a daily basis. It is also important to remember that each of us deal with all three of these mental health issues in a different way, shape, or form. 

Did you know?

- 30% of college students that seek mental health have considered suicide.

- Anxiety disorders are one of the most common mental health problems on college campuses. 

- Forty million U.S. adults suffer from anxiety disorder, and 75 percent of them experience their first episode of anxiety by age 22.

References: 

Pardon Our Interruption. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2016.

"Facts." Anxiety and Depression Association of America, ADAA. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2016.

“Anxiety and stress are two of the main ‘social issues’ I face on a day to day basis. As a teen I found it much more difficult to deal with but as I grew and matured, graduated  college, and found a career a lot of the anxiety and stress I dealt with began to diminish. I really think that a lot of us tend to overthink situations or don't know how to deal with certain things so as we keep them bottled up within us the more it affects our mental health.” -Nathan Watson

 “After seeing my sister, Naira, deal with how her physical health dealt with her mental health (anxiety, stress, and depression) I realized how important it is to take one step at a time. We all seem to try to keep up with this impossible speed of life that a lot of us are not built to keep up with and as we move through life trying to keep up it only affects us negatively. Life is very precious. Our communities should bring more awareness one big way of bringing in awareness would be through schooling.”  -Ani Agaronyan