I agree with a lot of what has been said. For me, I've had to deal with people who just simply afraid. Most of what people hear/know about MI is from the media, and they rarely say anything that doesn't involve someone--I don't know how to word this--but, most of their stories involve tragedies--shootings, murder-suicides. And that's pretty much all that people hear. Very few well known people have come out of the closet so to speak, and until everyone gets rid of the stigma, many people are just going to be afraid or just not understanding. I've had someone tell me "oh, I've been depressed, but I felt better a couple of days later" "you'll feel better in a couple of days". They just don't realize how debilitating MI can be, whether it's depression, bipolar, schizophrenia,etc.

I know this is off-topic, but somewhat related. Bullying has become a campaign now to stop it, but when I was younger all I heard was "just ignore it" or "kids being kids". Now that some kids have committed suicide over it, it's become more of an issue out in the open.

Similarly, MI needs to be portrayed as it really is--not just the stories about violence and the mentally ill.