I agree with LizardLady ... I think diabetes is an excellent comparison, specificially type II diabetes. But that's not what MotownJohnny wanted to hear.

In answer to the question about why having a mental illness DOESN'T make one a bad person, I can offer one small example of the kind of every day decency I have witnessed regularly in people who have been diagnosed with severe mental illnesses.

In the course of my job, I had to take a patient to the state mental hospital, back in the days when the state hospital offered decent treatment for voluntary patients. The guy I was escorting ... he'd had a psychotic break and busted up a school event, making quite a scene and the police handed him over to me to do something with rather than sending him to jail. So I rounded up another escort -- never do that kind of thing alone -- and off we went to the state hospital to deliver this fellow. He was willing, even eager, because he'd embarrassed his kids at school and he felt terrible about it.

As we entered the ward, the heavy metal fire door slammed on my hand. I squealed. Loudly. It took two orderlies to release me from the door. The pain was unbelievable. I was pressing my hand to my chest and doing a little dance making some groaning noises for a minute or two. It was bad.

The patient I was delivering gave me his only clean handkerchief to wrap around my hand, which was scratched, swelling fast and turning purple. As we were checking into the open ward, I asked the supervising therapist, a woman I'd met before, if there was ice available to put on my hand to stop the swelling.

Her response: "We don't reward acting out."

I was flabbergasted. He tone, body language and facial expression were so cold, I could have used that as an ice pack. I showed her my blackening hand and she went back to filling out paperwork, without saying a word.

A bundle of rags lifted itself up off the ward floor and slowly assembled itself into human form. He shuffled across the room without saying a word, knocked on a window, whispered, and gave someone inside a dollar bill from his pocket. In exchange, he received a paper cup full of ice. He shambled over and offered it to me wordlessly, not looking at me, but he made eye contact with the patient I was escorting.

The two mental patients fashioned an ice pack for my now black and purple hand out of the ice and handkerchief and gave it to me. When I offered to replace the dollar, the bundle of rags shook his head and shambled off to a corner where he sat facing the wall. The therapist huffed and asked if it had really been necessary for me to upset the patients.

I told the guy I'd taken there that we could find some other place. I didn't want to leave him at the mercy of that therapist. He said, no, he wanted to stay. He was sure he'd be all right and he nodded in the direction of the rags. He said, "The right people are here."

As far as I could see, the mental patients showed compassion and acted to help me without fuss or bother. They saw pain and they acted with decency and kindness. They did the right thing. The allegedly mentally well person didn't. That Nurse Rachet-type therapist couldn't take the decency or goodness out of those mentally ill patients with her coldness and lack of caring. It was in them. It came out of them normally and naturally as soon as it was needed.

I've experienced the same kind of decency and kindness over and over again while working with the mentally ill and undiagnosed street people. I've been protected by a group of street crazies forming a circle around me when three guys in a van decided to take me for ride against my will. The street people saw danger, they saw my vulnerability and they chose to keep me safe.

That was proof enough for me that having a mental illness does not make someone a bad person, not if they already have some kindness and caring and compassion for the suffering of others inside them. It doesn't always show, but that goodness keeps coming out instinctively, often when it's least expected. It's saved me more than once.