Peer Response

150-200 words long… Do you believe there are any forms of mental illness and/or psychological experience that can be approached and comprehended without considering their social context? Actually, both Yes and no. I say yes, because my best friend has schizophrenia, and she’s had it ever since sophomore year of high school. It has absolutely nothing to do with her social context, it’s just a family thing. I had no idea until she started taking medication and telling me how weird she felt. In contrast though, I do believe that some mental illness and health issues are a DIRECT result of social context. For example, Africans. A lot of us are emotionally unavailable, depressed, and also a bit selfish. Why? Because that’s the way we were all raised. A lot of your opinions and dreams don’t matter, because you have to go to school to take care of your family and send money back home. It doesn’t matter if you’re tired or exhausted. It doesn’t matter if your relatives are constantly telling you how useless you are. The only thing that DOES matter, is that you get good grades, respect your parents, and be seen and not heard. Of course I cannot speak for everybody, but I know that a big majority of us feel that way and most likely, we’ll treat our kids the same way. Why is that? Because unfortunately, that’s all we know. Requirements: 150 words