What so many people just don't want to see is that people who are getting treatment for mental illness are probably healthier than those who are hiding from it and afraid to see that it might apply to them. Those of us who have diagnostic lables and are in therapy are working to better ourselves.

I don't know if stigma can ever be erraticated, but the thing that will make more difference than anything else is for those of us who have mental and emotional disorders and function well and contribute to our communities to let people know who we are so that they can see first-hand that we aren't so scary.

I've heard it told as a joke, the statistic that one in three people suffers from mental illness. The joke says "Think of your two best friends - if they're okay, it's you!" I guess there is some truth in that. But the point is there are so many of us, and nobody wants to think we're right there along side them. They would rather conjure up that image of somebody completely disfunctional locked away somewhere. Somebody not like them at all. But we're just like them, just maybe with a little more self-awareness sometimes.

Rap