Friday, January 29, 2016
Mental illness doesn't have to be a negative thing. There are many ways people can make their lives great because of their disability. The media has portrayed mental illness in many ways, these ways range from having a positive and negative effect. I'm going to focus on the positive, which is very much probable for anyone to achieve. In the article, "Mental illness sans cliches", the author writes to empower and inform people on mental illness and the media. She found many examples with television characters who have mental illness. Well, I have an example to tell as well. In the movie Forest Gump, Forest is the main character and he's born intellectually disabled. This kind of disease makes Forest the perfect candidate for joining the military. Their strict rules on how to act and what to do make a perfect environment for Forest. He learns to always respond with "yes, sir" and to obey the drill Sargent. In one portion of the movie, Forest is the first to finish because is was told to complete the task as fast as possible and his only goal was to do that. Forest is smart because of this and, because of his intellectual disability, this is ironic. As you can see, people have found positive ways to cope with their mental disability. Maybe this is a goal everyone with a mental illness can try to shoot for.