Our society is blind sometimes...

Bipolar is a misunderstood mental disorder that is sometimes looked at in different and bad ways. One of my good friends has this disorder. I find that sometimes it can be hard to put up with it, but that’s because our society doesn’t teach us very much about this disorder and usually we think of them as “psychos”. Is this really a way of treating another human being? I talked to my friend about the issues that she comes across in her life.

One of the main problems, that my friend tells me, is that there is not enough education on the issue and people tend to believe that they are “emo” or just being a teenage girl. Bipolar is really just a disorder in which the person, without their medications, is prone to extreme highs and extreme lows. The mood swings are uncontrollable, unless the medications are taken. My friend and I believe that there should be education and awareness on how to react and take care of a person with bipolar because when people are faced with the problem of a bipolar person they do not know how to react.

Another question that I asked my friend was how do you think society looks at you? She responded with multiple answers saying that the people that knew nothing about bipolar deemed her as “crazy” or that she is faking it whereas even the closest of her friends do not always understand her. She sums it up as that, “the majority of people I know view me negatively most of the time.” So our society isn’t used to the problems of confronting a bipolar individual. Our society has failed to educate the people on this problem and the media does not help either (portrayal of people with mental disorders as crazy lunatics).

Since society has failed my friend, I asked her how she deals with having this mental disorder day to day. She says she does take nine pills (five different kinds) a day to keep her moods in place. She tries to educate the people around her about her problem. Another part of this burden is that there are many lies involved when she gets upset, so that she can mask her true emotions. The only way that she believes calms her down when she did not take the medicine is listening to music which, she says really helps. Maybe if our society knew how she feels they would understand and not call her “crazy”.

In conclusion, I believe that Canada, or the whole world for that matter, needs a better education about people who not only are bipolar but really any other mental disorder because our society is ignoring them and we need to do something about it.

Sicko

Michael Moore’s sicko was an excellent film that portrayed the American health care system “crisis”. He compared the American system to not only ours but also France, England and Cuba. Finding people across America with stories of how their health system failed them. I believe that Moore brought up a good point that for a country to function it needs it s people healthy, so that country should take care of them. Overall, it was a good film.

Well… I had some problems with the fact that he praised the Canadian health care system as perfect. Because as we all know, it really is not. There are some serious problems that need fixing. These problems are that of the long waiting line in emergency rooms when getting medical attention is the most important. Although I can understand Moore was just trying to make the American health care system look bad, he should have made a note on the current issues with our health care system.

In addition, this film made me think about the best country on earth, France. Even though I stayed there for 6 months, nobody really explained to me what their health care system was about. In Sicko, I learned that it has the best health care system in the world! Maybe that’s why their country is one of the only countries in all of Europe to have a population that is increasing instead of declining.

So is there any hope for the American health care system? Well Michael Moore does not answer this question but for all the people that are suffering because of a bad system, I hope that their new president will try his best to fix this problem.

Redifining Aging Article

1. According to this article, what attitude shift is occurring with respect to aging?
The attitude shift that is occurring is the way the baby boomers view aging. This attitude is called conscious aging, where they want us to accept that we are coming to an end in our lives and eliminate the ideas and thoughts of extending our life.

2. Why do some of the experts cited believe this attitude shift is important?
This attitude shift is important because it would get rid of our obsession with youth culture and take into appreciation what the definition of old age is. It would also eliminate stereotypes of old people; instead of believing that we will just be useless and forgetful, they would believe that old people are very wise and intelligent.

Questions from David Foot Article

1. What impact does David Foot believe the aging baby boom generation will have on the health care system in communities such as Toronto?
The Baby Boomers will put major pressure on our hospitals and health services. Hospitals will have to be expanded and new ones built.

2. What solutions does he propose to deal with these issues?
David Foot proposes that we should integrate. He uses the example of using a system that gives people drugs easier, like pharmacists that can prescribe medicine, instead of going to the hospital first to save the health care system time and money.