Oh. I see where you're coming from. When the brain is involved, there are shaming issues attached. Even with children, notice that most playground taunts we hear them hurling at each other are some variation of "your brain doesn't work." Look at one word in particular that I hate very much, "retard."

To use epilepsy again as an example, when a friend was diagnosed as a child, her mother said to her, "No wonder the other kids won't play with you. There is something wrong with your brain." It too used to be considered a mental illness, and as such faced a heavy stigma. In previous generations, people kept epileptic relatives locked away in the attic and never acknowledged their existence to others. I think this is where a lot of ghost stories might have come from. Aunt Margaret would have a seizure, a visitor would notice the groans and thumping noises, and rather than tell the truth, the family would explain it with, "We have a ghost in the attic." The same was true for relatives with true mental illnesses--they were hidden away and not claimed.

I've heard it explained that the purpose for medication is to bring the patient up to the level of functioning where the therapy *can* work. From my angle, viewing depression as an illness on par with cancer, epilepsy or diabetes is actually empowering. I don't know about others, but there is definitely something wrong with my brain--like pgrundy, I've found medication helpful where therapy alone fell short--I don't see it as making me "defective" or "broken." It's a medical condition that needs management, that's all. People with epilepsy aren't "defective" or "broken" either. Grrr to the mother who said that to her daughter.