Isearch Paper

Prozac Nation
Around 50% of American teenagers meet the criteria for having mental illnesses. These include things such as eating disorders, mood disorders, and more commonly, depression and anxiety. Our country has been deemed a “Prozac Nation”. M Why do so many young adults seem to be having mental issues all of a sudden? I know that the people of my generation are a lot more open to discuss this topic as well as admit to suffering from a mental illness. The media also openly shares stories about mental illnesses which brings more awareness to the subject. So many young adults in my generation have struggled with mental disorders compared to the adolescences of the past. In fact, it is proven that there were more depressed teenagers in the last decade than there were during The Great Depression of the 1920’s. The suicide rate among teenagers and young adults has jumped immensely in the past few decades. Why are so many young adults having trouble lately? I believe that its things like social media, school criteria, and culture may be causing so many teens to have trouble. It could even be related to all the stress we have. “The impact of mental illness on the American society is crippling our national identity” (Potarazu). I know firsthand that the models in magazines, stacks of homework, and expectations for others can seriously stress you out; I just don’t know why they do.
I’ve always wondered why are there so many factors lately that are causing added stress and troubles to teens. I don’t understand why our society that has so many privileges and opportunities can be so troubled. What gender is more affected by this mental disorder epidemic? What is the most common mental illness within teens? Speaking of disorders that are more noticeable, I wonder why it is stereotyped that mostly girls have eating disorders. What are the methods that professionals are using to help adolescents that are suffering? With our rapid advances in technology and knowledge what seems to be helping cure teens the most? I’ve heard America being referred to as “Prozac Nation”. Why is that? I have so many questions that I would love to have answered as I research why our generation’s young adults are showing more signs of mental illnesses and why this is occurring.
“Physiological problems among teens have been on the rise since the 1930’s and Americans’ obsession with material gains and success may be to blame” (Hutchison 1). One of the explanations for teen’s mental illnesses is that our society is obsessed with how we look and what we own. “Some experts say that we have raised our children with unrealistic expectations, the same message perpetually fed to us by media: we should feel good always” (Borchard). Magazines everywhere are plastered with pictures of men and women that we need to look like and things we need to buy. Who wouldn’t assume this might cause physiological problems in youth? Many teens can become depressed because they grow up looking and believing that they should look like the people on television and magazines; even if they may clearly be enhanced and edited pictures. Our culture promotes the tall, skinny, and tan as what is considered “beautiful”. This is causing young teens (boys and girls alike) to strive to look like the people that they idolize. This has caused an increase in eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Anorexia nervosa is a mental disease that causes you to starve yourself. This is harmful to your body due to the rapid decrease in body weight and lack of nutrients. Bulimia nervosa causes you to eat a lot in a short amount of time and then forcing yourself to throw it up. This can be very harmful to your body by causing rapid loss of weight, tooth decay, and eventually death. Though eating disorders are very common within young adults, it is not the most common mental illness that can be experienced in your teen years.
“The most likely culprit, the authors write, is that the changes in our cultural values are behind teens feeling more anxious, depressed, isolated, and stressed-out” (Hutchison 1). Our culture also puts a lot of pressure on young people. With all the new requirements for graduating high school and the pressure to pursue a stable career, many teens get very anxious about their future. Lots of kids participate in many activities outside of school nowadays. Sports, clubs, and jobs are very time consuming; and with added work in school, young adults can be easily overwhelmed. Anxiety can be very common in high school and college students because of their busy schedules. Anxiety can cause lack of focus, excess sweating, trembling, and even skipped heart beats. Developing anxiety in your school years can also result in a chain reaction of mental illnesses including anxiety-driven depression, bipolar disorder, and other mood disorders.
Bipolar disorders and other social and mood disorders can be adapted by traumatic experiences in your life. Many young adults adapt social anxiety or “cyclothymia” (a mild form of bipolar disorder) from bad long term experiences in school or in their social lives. Many teens can start to feel sluggish, unmotivated, and tired when they use so much energy switching moods all the time. This is not to be confused with the normal hormonal-driven feelings all teens experience when something goes wrong in their life. These mood swings cause kids to change who they are. They stop enjoying things they once loved, they change their eating habits, and they can even start participating in illicit behavior. Having an unbalanced chemical makeup in your brain is not to be confused with typical hormonal angst. These symptoms also closely resemble those of the all too common depression.
Depression is the most common mental illness in young adolescents. Symptoms of depression involve loss of appetite, loss of interest in activities you once loved, and oversleeping. You can feel hopeless, helpless, and alone. Depression can appear in your life for many different reasons. Things like traumatic experiences, difficultly “fitting in” and heredity can be the cause of depression. Teenagers so desperately want to fit in and comply with the social norms that are put upon us. Young adults are fragile and more susceptible to depression because they haven’t learned to deal with failure in their life. Many teens with depression go undiagnosed because their parents dismiss their troubles as something unimportant. “Approximately 20 percent of teens experience depression before they reach adulthood, and between 10 to 15 percent suffer from symptoms at any one time. Only 30 percent of depressed teens are being treated for it” (Borchard). The dangers of being undiagnosed is that you may be confused on why you feel the way you feel; which can cause someone to feel even more alone and lost. Depression is not something that you can simply “deal with” on your own without professional help. The mix of low energy, deep sadness, and crushing loneliness is a fatal mix.
Suicide and Self Injury are two dangerous things that teenagers are turning to when life gets too much. Self-Injury (or SI) is the act of harming yourself purposely for a certain reason. Things that are categorized under SI are things like burning your skin, cutting, reopening scabs, and abusing alcohol and drugs. Many young adults who suffer from a mental illness turn to SI to help them. Teenagers do it for a variety of reasons. Whether it is to punish themselves, relax, or make themselves go numb, so many young adults find SI as a coping mechanism. Most people who participate in SI are not suicidal. Teens who are suicidal on the other hand can be easily connected to those who self injure. Suicide is the 3rd most common way for teenagers to die. So many teenagers in the recent years have turned to killing themselves as means of escaping the bad situations in their lives. The tragedy has unfortunately become more and more common within America.

While writing this article, I found an abundance of new information on a topic I thought I knew a lot about. There are so many factors that contribute to why young adults are having so many mental problems. Things like eating disorders, anxiety, and depression have taken adolescents by storm in the past few decades. Our society is not helping prevent these illnesses, but are encouraging them via media and technology. We are constantly comparing ourselves to others and are getting more and more desperate to achieve what society calls “beauty”. Researching this topic helped me understand exactly how many teenagers are suffering and seeking help. It has also shown me how many teenagers fail to get help and turn to things like alcohol, drugs, and even suicide. There are so many facts I feel I left undiscovered, as there is so much to this topic. The only downside to writing this paper is I am now painfully aware of the people around me who are struggling with their own mental problems. I hope this paper enlightens others on how poor mental health is affecting America. The questions I asked in the beginning of this paper were for the most part thoroughly explained to me as I went deeper and deeper into my research. I wish I could have gotten more information on other methods of treating teen mental illnesses; but as I stated before, this is such a broad topic to fit into a 6-paged paper. The most interesting fact I found that I felt I could not incorporate into the paper was the use of anti-depressants on young adults. So many people, teens and adults alike are taking anti-depressants and other medication to sustain a “normal” life. “A staggering statistic is that approximately 40 percent of incoming college students at major universities across the United States are on some kind of medication for anxiety, depression or other mental health issues” (Potarazu). I found this very interesting and would love to research more on the topic of teens and prescription drugs. Writing this helped me realize that I am not alone in my struggle to live with a mental illness. There are so many people in America that are in the same position that I am. We are all a society living and growing in the Prozac Nation.


















Work Cited
Borchard, Therese. “Why Are So Many Teens Depressed.” psychcentral.com.
psychcentrral. 8 Mar. 2013
Hutchison, Courtney. “Today’s Teens More Anxious, Depressed, And Paranoid Than Ever.” abcnews.go.com. Abc news. 10 Dec. 2009.
Potarazu, Sreedhar. “How Mental Health is Killing America.” Foxnews.com. Fox News. 18 Dec. 2012. Web. 11 Feb. 2013