Thursday, April 1, 2010

Reflection

Five years ago, when i was in the 5th grade, I became aware that my sister, eight years older than me, had been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, a mental illness that causes shifts in a person’s mood, energy and ability to function. The illness was so unknown to my family and me, yet it seemed so highly influencial to both her and us. Back when it was all new to us, I wasn't quite a teen, but my older brother was. It wasn't as evident to me how his actions reflected by my sister's diagnosis, but years later as it's ever-so-present in my family, I can see how my actions are completely affected by her life long illness.
I was surprised at how revealing this project was, although I found that the actual results didn't show me much compared to the insight I found. Once I found the topic to research, which was the influence of Bipolar Disorder on teen caregivers, I was instantly inspired0. The results to the questions I came up with, gave me some broad insight to the mental illness topic, but I would have hoped to find a little more about it all through the questions specifically. I learned that the more we give in to caring for the people we care for, the more likely it willbe to define our identity. If there was one thing I learned personally, it was that I must find a balance in learning about myself and learning and caring for my loved ones, like my sister. That is something I will value keeping for the rest of my life.

Recomendations

Based on the results I got, there could definitely be further research on this topic. The actual evidence based on the actions of how teen caregivers are influenced by Bipolar Disorder is very undiscovered. The topic on caregivers in general is quite undiscovered. More specifically, the small group of teens that also has to deal with caring for people with this disorder among many other personal transitions is something that would be very interesting to investigate.
I noticed many things from results. Many people seemed to choose the neutral choice given, in fact, it was the second highest chosen choice in both of my questions. It was if they disregarded the topic, which led me to thinking that people with an opinion could have possibly been taking advantage of the only action needed was choosing an answer choice on a survey. Its understandable though, because as such an undiscovered topic, (mental illnesses) could pass over many peoples' heads. I believe this means we need to take action in learning about something that is ever-so-increasing. Right now, in the U.S., Bipolar is found in every 1 in 20 people, and in that fraction, 1 in those 5 commits suicide by the time they're 25. It's obviously an important topic to learn about all the way to how it affects other people.