Journalism
When I was eighteen, I decided to take a course on freelance journalism. At that time, I didn't know what type of writer I wanted to be, but journalism sounded like my best shot at being a writer. This was before I knew about self-publishing for authors or platforms like Amazon Kindle to assist authors in their journey. So I began my course and learnt the fundamentals of journalism. I enjoyed writing articles but I couldn't let go of creative writing. A year and a half later, I completed my freelance journalism course, feeling proud of myself. I haven't pursued a job in journalism but I'm happy I took the course. It's just more experience and another area of writing that I can do.
Articles
People you may know are fighting an invisible disease in their minds everyday of their lives. Depression, OCD, Anxiety, Bipolar and Schizophrenia are just some of the mental illnesses people go through in their everyday lives.
According to the Australian statistics one in five Australians will experience a mental illness each year. This mean twenty per cent of Australia’s population is going through a mental illness. Fourteen per cent of Australian children and adolescents aged 4-17 have mental health or behavioural problems according to Mindframe.
In 2014, there were 2,160 males (18.4 per 100,000) and 704 females (5.9 per 100,000) that died by suicide, a total of 2,864 deaths (12.0 per 100,000), which equates to an average of 7.8 deaths by suicide in Australia each day. These statistics were referred by Mindframe. These may seem like small percentages and numbers but this has a large impact on everyone, children, adolescences, adults and the elderly.
A mental illness not only affects the diagnosed person but also affects the persons’ family. They need to be aware of what is happening to their loved one and try and seek help. Mental illness can lead to suicide and that affects the individual’s family and friends. We can help make this suicide rate go down if we make everyone aware and talk about this subject.
Readers may be thinking, why is this a relevant article? Good question, this article raises the issues of mental health and its effects. This is such a taboo topic and the reason why is because no one takes the time to try and understand mental health. People would rather go by in their perfect little lives and not see the invisible disease that is drowning some of our lives. This is why this topic is relevant, because it could save lives.
A few coping mechanisms to help with depression and anxiety are listening to music, going for a walk, talking to someone and learning to calm your breathing. These are coping mechanisms that I have tried and I found them to be quite useful. Everyone has their own way of dealing with this so I suggest you go on these available helplines for coping mechanisms and find the ones that are right for you. To anyone out there who is suffering from a mental illness, there are support helplines available.