I’ve talked about it before.

This whole issue surrounding mental illness and it’s stigma.

I told my story in a previous post (the short and sweet version) but still I hear of so may of those suffering and who are pushed aside.

These aren’t celebrities.  These are your everyday people.  Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, lawyers, doctors, police officers, men and women who serve our country, and I could go on.

To belittle a mental illness takes us back to the days where they would not bury mentally ill people in the church yard because they had “demons”.

This illness is real.  To ask for help is hard.  To accept you are ill with something no one can “see” is harder.

When someone shares the fact that they have mental illness, they trust you.  Trust you enough to not turn away in disgust or pity.

And even if help is given and accepted, we have setbacks.  Just like every other illness.  Sometimes treatment is a life long thing.  The battle is a daily one.

People with mental illness need to know they matter.

We don’t want to be treated differently.  But we do want people to understand.

Sometimes our bad days are really bad.  To go outside and face the world too overwhelming.

We didn’t chose this.  We didn’t ask for it.  We don’t want to “stay that way”.

We are sick.

We are human.

We matter.