Wish I had the answer but have wondered myself. I know other people have asked this same question. Have a friend with 7 kids...one has a mental illness and one time one of her other kids broke his ankle playing baseball. She noticed he got positive attention and her daughter with the mental illness got her usual negative attention. We talked about it for a while. She came up with the idea that people can relate to physical pain, but people do not want to even acknowledge mental illness for all the stigma it has. Last time I visited was a few months ago and even went to a piano recital the daughter was in. She played beautifly and got lots of admiration and clapping. My friend said "wait, watch the stranger's reactions when we go back stage. Sure enough her daughter had a meltdown and you could see the strangers move away. I was puzzled until her daughter told me herself how she loved recitals and just gets sad the recital is over because people react strangely when she cries about it.