Rhetorical Analysis of Project 3

I don't think I've written more on one subject in my entire life. This blog post is a novel. My fingers hurt. Maybe I have carpel tunnel? I should treat myself to ice cream once this beast of a post is finished. I earned it right?

Author

1. Background

• I'm extremely interested in researching mental illnesses and I actually hope to one day become either a psychiatrist or a psychiatric PA (Physician's Assistant). 

• I'm currently majoring in Psychology (B.S.) and I'm double-minoring in Deaf studies (ASL) and pre-health. 

• Besides the psychology of mental illness, I'm also very passionate about Deaf culture and Women's rights (fellow feminist here).

• Academically, I need to keep above a 3.5 GPA in order to graduate with honors and keep my scholarship to stay in school. I also hope to get accepted into a PA graduate program so along with a high GPA, I need to make sure I take all my prerequisite science classes and get enough clinical hours (hopefully by getting a job in the hospital next year) in order to apply by senior year.

• I currently follow the debate on the necessity of the cochlear implant and how it's destroying Deaf culture and making "being deaf" a disability instead of a group of people. I also follow the abortion debate (obviously) and the "Black Lives Matter" movement since I'm a bit of a social justice warrior. Not to mention the debate about failing mental health programs in college campuses across the country. Also, the stigma around mental health still.

• subjects of personal interest or study:

• Hobbies: hiking, drawing, religiously jamming out in my room with the blinds wide open, Bible studies, and watching Grey's Anatomy on Netflix (hello Dr. McDreamy).

• I've mastered the art of sleeping in until 5 pm (true story), I actually like working out sometimes (mostly running), and I try to draw as often as I can (which is almost nonexistent but it's chill).

• The only books I've read recently are all John Green books (most importantly Looking for Alaska) and they're usually accompanied with an existential crisis.

• I traveled to Europe for two weeks and I fell in love with the UK and I'm determined to live there for at least two years before I die. I'm a huge nerd for traveling and I have a bucket list that's a mile long and I fully plan on checking off every last item. Just watch.

       2.     Personal Bias

• I come from a huge, loud Mexican family so family values are very important. In a Mexican family, everyone is very close and loving to one another, even if I've only met them once in my life. I love that everyone in this culture is so close to one another, but it can also be a lot of pressure to live up to everyone's expectations of you.

• I don't come from a wealthy family at all. In fact, if I hadn't gotten a full-ride to UofA, I wouldn't even be in school right now. I'd probably still be living at home and working a full-time job in order to save for community college.

• I was raised half in the older side of Peoria (AZ), and half in the white-washed city of Gilbert with a whole lot of cows and a Mormon temple. These two cities are very different from one another with Peoria being a more dangerous place to live, but more of a sense of community. While in Gilbert, it's very conservative and if you wore shorts you were frowned upon. Plus there's a lot of farmers and agriculture kids who go out and spend their nights camped out in an abandoned field. Very interesting.

• I was raised with no real religious views, but my friend took me to church and I became a Christian my junior year in high school. But I grew up in a place that was predominantly Mormon and they are a very exclusive religion that created a clique in my high school.

• Most of Gilbert is very conservative (along with very, very religious people) and Republicans are very exclusive and shun everyone who doesn't agree with their political beliefs. When I told my parents and grandparents I was a libertarian I was almost disowned. Honestly, I had to camp out at my friend's house for 3 whole days before my parents would let me back in the house. No joke. #socialjusticewarrior4life

• I am currently at the very opposite end of cultural power. I'm an 18-year old libertarian Latina girl with only a high school diploma to my name. I'm the exact opposite of who's at the top of the food chain: a white, middle-aged, Republican man.

Audience.  

• I'm planning on making this project for college students, faculty, and the psychology department as well. This entire argument will be fashioned around who is actually listening. The college student will be able to relate, and the psychology department and faculty will have a call to action at the end of the argument.

• The college students will side with my argument since I'm standing up for the mental health rights of the student. Students are overworked and overstressed as it is, I'm simply agreeing with that fact and bringing it to the faculty's attention.

• The psychology department will agree with my argument since countless studies have been done to prove this fact that students are dropping like flies because of the stress and stigma around mental illness and getting help. Now it's the faculty's turn to listen and to take action.

• I will connect with the college students since I'm also a student and I can relate to the workload and stress of school. Also, since I suffer from a mental illness, I can connect with the demographic of students who admit to suffering from a mental illness and trying to balance school in top of it. I can relate to the psychology department as an honors psychology major (even though I'm only a freshman). Hopefully I can reach out to the faculty as a student representing students with mental illness and get them to listen as a body of students in one person.

• If it was my friend who's also a college student and struggles with mental illness, I would tell her that she's not alone and so many other students are struggling with a mental illness, or know someone who is struggling with one, in college. It's heart-breaking that so many people can relate to this statistic and in order to bring down the numbers that won't seem to go down, students need to know that it's ok to reach out and get the help they need, despite the stigma around mental illness. Also, that the college needs to create a safe atmosphere and make resources readily apparent and available so people who are struggling don't feel as out of place.

Purpose/Message

1. Effect on Audience

• After watching my project, I hope my audience feels empowered enough to make a change. Whether it be a college student who feels empowered enough to seek the help they need, or faculty who sees it and wants to help make a change in the campus itself to bring to light and normalize mental illness.

• After watching my project, I would definitely want my audience to consider the effect that the mental health stigma has on the victims who suffer at the other end of it and feel like they're alone in their struggle and that they have no safe place to go, or trying to keep their treatment/illness a secret.

• After watching my project, I hope that my audience believes that the stigma around mental illness can be broken and that college campuses will continue to improve in the way they handle mental illness in the students.

2. What Needs to be Accomplished

• People talking about the stigma of mental illness need to be aware of the correct way of dealing with a friend or family member who is struggling with a mental illness. Also, that making people more comfortable with the idea of mental illness being normalized should always be the goal.

• People arguing about this need to keep in mind the power that words can have on someone who is struggling with a mental illness and to always be sensitive to whatever illness they're struggling from. Also, that the numbers of mental illnesses in college kids seem to be on the rise recently and nothing is making them come back down.

• The perspectives of the people who are against this issue have not been expressed. A lot of people who are ignorant to the mental health crisis continue to say extremely insensitive things like, "anxiety isn't a disorder, everyone gets anxiety!" or, "people who hurt themselves just want attention." 

 

• However, we can argue all day long, but in the end, we still need to hear from the people who are actually struggling. So many articles and case studies are performed by psychologists or doctors, but the voice of the person actually struggling continues to be overlooked.

• We still need to continue to gather case studies and articles that actually give the statistics of mentally ill students enrolled in college and various other statistics to aide in the argument.

What genre?

• I chose to shoot a video essay for project 3, which I am very excited about.

• Generally, this type of genre makes the audience expect to be entertained constantly not only audibly, but visually as well. Anything to keep the audience hooked is the expectation. To present the argument in such a way that it's interactive with the audience to keep them interested and not bored out of their skull.

• The only history I've had for a video essay is a medical documentary that I made about eating disorders that followed the story of a girl named Katie. It ended up winning 1st place (yay!), but that was back in junior year of high school so the bar is much higher now.

• Since I'm somewhat comfortable with the genre and so excite to finally make a piece that's what I have to say on the subject, not a complete analysis of what other people think, I hope I will have enough oomph to stay on top of the work and show my passion in my video.

• In my opinion, I think the two most effective conventions in a video essay are background music and constant scene changes. Of course the content itself is important, but if you can get the audience hooked with solid background music to set the tone and constant scene changes to keep them interested, the content should be 10,000 x easier to insert.

When?

1. Background Information/Evidence

• The American with Disabilities Act of 1990 protects people with physical and mental disabilities/illnesses from discrimination in the workplace, government services, public transportation, public accommodations, and commercial businesses.

• Also, the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons act of 1997 allows the US government to investigate other government facilities to keep the safety of people admitted with physical and mental disabilities.

• The US government spent $4 billion alone on mental health treatment for veterans involved in Afghanistan and Iraq between 2007-2012. That doesn't include any other veteran from a different time period receiving mental health treatment. It's a good thing we're not in a trillion + dollar national debt right now, right?

2. Who else is talking about this topic?

• Alyse Schacter held a Ted x Talk at UNC called "The Stigma of Mental Health"

• Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman held a Ted x Talk at Charlottesville called "Imagine There Was No Stigma to Mental Illness"

• Dr. Gregg Henriques wrote an article about the mental health crisis in students and how today's college student is most likely suffering from some kind of mental illness.

• Glennon Doyle Melton also gave a Ted x talk from TraverseCity called "Lessons from the Mental Hospital"

3. Counter-Arguments

• Greg Benson, a writer for the Elephant Journal, claims that mental illness is a "fallacious construct" in his article "Just Say It: Mental Illness Isn't Real."

• Wayne Ramsay wrote an essay called "Does Mental Illness Exist?" where he proceeds to say that the word mental illness is nonsense in itself and that "symptoms" are really just behaviors that are normal in people and animals.

• Jon Rappoport was nominated for a Pulitzer prize and has been an investigative reporter for 30 years and he wrote a blog "Mental Disorders Do Not Exist" where he states that since there are no physical tests to prove that a mental illness is there, it must not be real. Fact. Objectively, of course.