Dear FallDuskTrain, thanks for your comments. You are certainly right on, that cancer and MI are different sorts of hell, although I myself have not had cancer. Members of my family have, though. And you wrote, "Unfortunately until one has MI his/herself, he/she has absolutely no idea of the dark, cold hell in which we live." I'm sure you know as well as the rest of us with MI that there are those who would say, "Just get over it, already." I had a good friend who told me she pooh-pooh'ed depression until SHE got it! She took Prozac, and never again looked down on any person with MI.

But I stand by what I said in my original post in this thread, that the behaviors that many people with MI do, that "affect other people" are so -- what shall I call them - a variety of exasperating, heinous, frustrating, insulting, disconcerting, confusing.....so many things....that is why MI does not attract sympathy the way cancer or other physical illnesses do.