STRESSFUL EXPECTATIONS

Stressful Expectations is a typography project that takes a look into how the societal, parental, professional, and educational stresses are leading to the development of mental illnesses in our high school and college age youth. The reason that I decided to do a typography project so as not to use any photographs of people, because I did not want to associate these illnesses with a person.I have a deeper connection to this problem because I am affected by it, so this project allows me to really make the voice on an unheard issue that I struggle with, heard. But what is mental illness? According to Mental Health America, “A mental illness is a disease that causes mild to severe disturbances in thought and/or behavior, resulting in an inability to cope with life’s ordinary demands and routines” (Mental Health America 1). Mental Health within high school age, 14-18, and college age 18-22, people is rapidly evolving into a national and global epidemic. It is not an exaggeration to say that a metal health crisis is confronting our youth. This group age of Americans has a much higher anxiety level and mental health disorders than in the country’s history. With the problem growing so rapidly, this is a public issue that needs to be discussed openly and presented to the public in a way that is easily understood by everyone.

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For this project, I explored the topic of mental health in the United States and across the world using statistics, studies, and anecdotal evidence on the ever growing problem that America’s adolescence and young adult population is facing, and has been for some time now. What’s the correlation between these young adults and adolescents developing Mental Health disorders such as anxiety and depression and the stresses that they feel at school? According to the ADAA, or the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, teens and college students are easily affected by anxiety due to trying to maintain good grades, working a job, having friends, and their responsibilities to their families all while trying to figure out the rest of their life (ADAA p.1). Some statistics that the ADAA provides to back up this claim are that; fifty percent of lifetime mental illnesses begin by the age of fourteen, that seventy five percent of all my phone mental illnesses begin by the age of twenty four, the second leading cause of death in youths is suicide, and fifty percent of students age fourteen or older with mental illness drop out of high school (ADAA p.1). These statistics all seem to point to the conclusion that school high school and college contribute to mental illnesses in adolescents and young adults. It’s not yet known if school is a direct cause of mental health issues in teenagers, and in some cases a good academic atmosphere has been proven to help students who are struggling with mental health disorders.

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The thing with mental health disorders in any age group or society is that there’s this social stigma surrounding it that says it’s not something that we’re supposed to talk about it’s not something that were supposed to reach out to others to help us with. Mental health issues are something that you keep to yourself and is something that you’re only supposed to talk to doctors about. Really it is weird when you think about it because a mental health disorder is just another way of saying that your brain is sick that your brain has been disease, but most of the time society doesn’t treated like that. Society doesn’t see mental health disorders and illnesses has the same as they do with other diseases like cancer or even something as simple as the flu. Because Mental Health diseases and disorders and illnesses, or whatever else you want to call it, are not seen as issues on the same level in seriousness in our society as these other diseases are, is a little bit harder for people to realize how big of an issue these problems that the children are having are.

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The graphics of this project are a visual representations of the stresses and illnesses that many high school and college age students struggle with, often in silent.