Hi, I'm not quite sure this is the right place to post this but it didn't seem to really go anywhere else. The other day I was at the hair dresser and it came up that I was a support staff in a psychiatry department. People started asking how I deal with those "crazy" people and if those nuts were making up their stories of their illness. They wanted to know how people were made mentally ill and how someone could all of the sudden get PTSD. I know that they were just ignorant to the issues of mental illness and they weren't meaning to be insulting, however, I found it very hard to have this discussion with them. I tried to educate them on mental illness and include a variety of theories around the development of mental illness and how it is just like any other illness. It was hard though especially their opinions about PTSD since I have it. What do other people deal with this when it comes up in casual conversation with people who do not know about your mental illness? I find that these situations just make me so mad! These situations remind me of how much stigma is still out there and how much I feel I have to keep quite about my problems whereas someone who had a purely physical disorder would not necessairly face the same stigma about it. I always fear that if it were to get out that it could ruin my job prospects as I hope to not stay in my same job forever.