I am in constant
contact with someone who has mental illness and for the purposes of this blog
we will name her Mrs. Allen. In the case of Mrs. Allen she struggles with the
chronic mental illness called paranoid schizophrenia. Mrs. Allen. is an African
American black women in her late 50’s who got displaced from New Orleans due to
her home being destroyed by the Hurricane. In the case of Mrs. Allen she struggles with
the chronic mental illness called paranoid schizophrenia. This illness has impacted
her life significantly because when I go to pick her up she leaves me standing
outside for about 5 minutes after looking out the window 2 or 3 times. This condition
keeps her locked up in her house 24/7 and from being with her loved ones. According
to her family, before this horrible event she weighed about 250 pounds and now
she barely weighs 100 pounds because she is so paranoid that someone is trying
to poison her. This illness has affected her ability to work, eat, and give
love to her family. I have been told by her family that she was plagued with
this illness after the disastrous Hurricane Katrina. This information inspired
me to find out how many people suffered mental illness after encountering this
horrible event. I found in doing my research
that hurricane survivors whose homes were either badly damaged or completely
destroyed had higher rates of Moderate Mental Illness (MMI) and Severe Mental
Illness (SMI) (Sastry & VanLandingham, 2009). The results also showed that the
residents of New Orleans had high levels of mental illness. The sample in this
study showed that nearly 40% had probable mental illness 1 year later and half
of these illnesses were severe (Sastry & VanLandingham, 2009). This study
went on to say that these rates were substantially higher after Hurricane
Katrina than before the storm and that blacks had higher rates of SMI than
whites. I have learned from being around Mrs. Allen that mental illness
definitely causes a lot of stress in the family and this compounded with her
not being on medication just makes her symptoms even more unbearable.
Sastry, N. &
VanLandingham, M. (2009). One year later:
mental illness prevalence and disparities among New Orleans residents displaced
by Hurricane Katrina. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2774198/
