All week you'll find a pretty little green ribbon on my shirt for mental illness awareness week. Mental illness effects approximately 61.5 million Americans and of those 13.6 live with a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
Until recently I didn't realize just how many people were actually living with a mental illness. While some are more severe than others, they should all be taken seriously.
Due to lack of funding there are many mental hospitals that are closing. When they close, the more severe patients are usually relocated to the closest mental hospital and others are left to fend for themselves.
(this is a pretty good representation of how we treat mental illness versus physical illness)
You never know who could be effected my a mental illness, so it's your job to be considerate to everyone. The video below does an excellent job of showing how common mental illness is and how people (especially young people) can be unaware. For someone who has never been effected by mental illness it can be hard to understand.
Just as cancer is something that you can not control, so is mental illness.
Love this!
ReplyDeleteyou're so right. I feel like things like mental illiness is taking so lightly or brushed to the side like "you don't have an issue.." and that pisses me off.
ReplyDelete