The vast majority of mental health disorders emerge during one’s late adolescence and early 20s. Of course this is a turbulent time in one’s development—moving out of your parents home, going to college, getting a job, lack of sleep, and the potential exposure to drugs and alcohol. The scared and floundering post-teen struggling to navigate adulthood is so commonly portrayed. Is the onset of mental illness in late adolescence a matter of biology or environment?
Dr. Johanna Jarcho, from the National Institute of Mental Health, studies differences in the brain development between healthy individuals versus those struggling with mental illness. She maintains that 90% of adults with anxiety disorders developed it in adolescence. Therefore, the chances of developing an anxiety disorder in later adulthood are rare. Dr. Jarcho says that this is common with many mental health disorders, wherein they emerge during adolescence and then are carried into adulthood. It was once believed that the brain changes relatively little after early childhood, but research has now shown that the brain continues to undergo really profound changes up until your early 20s. Since the brain is so pliable, being exposed to different influences in the social environment can strongly impact the continued development of the brain.
So back to the nature versus nurture debate. Dr. Jarcho explains that certain mental health disorders are more genetically based than others. For instance, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have a much higher rate of inheritance than other disorders. That is not to say that having a first degree relative with schizophrenia means you will develop it. It just means you are at a higher risk, and there are things in the environment that can potentiate that. Other disorders, such as anxiety and depression, are less heritable and more contingent on environmental conditions.
The development of a mental disorder is not just biology and it’s not just the environment, it’s an interaction between the two. Young adults go through a lot of social changes and there are a lot of stresses involved. It is important to focus on the fact that there are ways to protect oneself against developing mental disorders, especially if you’re at risk. Regardless of one’s likelihood, the social environment could tip you over into becoming mentally ill, but in a good social environment you can actually thrive.
Dr. Jarcho says that it is important to first become aware of your own risk factors. For instance, having a parent with a mental disorder is a risk factor. Let’s say you had a difficult time engaging in your social world as a child; that is a risk factor. Other risk factors include: being sheltered by your parents and prevented from overcoming difficult experiences that teach you how to cope, and the type of parenting you had as a child can really affect the way your able to manage the challenges involved in navigating adulthood.
Ultimately, one of the most important things for individuals in their early 20s who are experiencing mental health concerns is to seek treatment sooner than later. Research has shown that if you wait on getting treatment, your symptoms become much more intractable. Once mental health disorders become established, they get strengthened over time and actually become more biologically based. They become more biological in the sense that they can cause harmful brain changes that make recovery more challenging. Getting treatment at the onset of any psychopathology mitigates the effects and greatly increases one’s chances of overall mental health.