Sixty-eight percent of Americans..what??

Soooooooo

Thirty-eight percent of Americans are unwilling to be friends with someone having mental difficulties

What????

Sixty-four percent of Americans do not want someone who has schizophrenia as a co-worker

What????

More than sixty-eight percent of Americans are unwilling to have someone with depression marry into their family

WHAT????

WTF??? I don't even know what to say to that, that number should not be that high. I would love to hear from these people as to why they are unwilling to have someone with depression marry into their family. I want to hear their reasoning behind it. It just doesn't make sense to me. What are they afraid of?

Most likely they are afraid of violence. There is like this image floating around out there of mental illness and violence holding hands and skipping off into the sunset. They don't go together like that. But I'm too tired to get much more into that right now.


So the panel today went well. I told my story, I answered some questions. All that jazz. What was most satisfying was what came after the discussion. Multiple people came up to me after to talk. Some just to thank me for speaking, some just to tell me how brave I was. Then there were a couple people who shared their stories with me. I'm trying to figure out how to put that feeling into words. I don't think I can. I was able to make people open up, I made people comfortable enough to share some pretty personal things. I had one woman talk to me about something she has had to deal with for 30 years, something she hasn't talked about with anyone. It's just an amazing feeling, I don't think I can really say it another way.


Source for the facts above: Pescosolido, B.A., Martin, J.K., Link, B.G., et al. Americans’ Views of Mental Health and Illness at Century’s End: Continuity and Change. Public Report on the MacArthur Mental health Module, 1996 General Social Survey. Bloomington: Indiana Consortium for Mental Health Services Research and Joseph P. Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, 2000.