[Lady Ruthven]

Sorry if there is a post like this somewhere already, I might have missed it.

Basically, I want to encourage public awareness and treatment of mental illness of all kinds. I think the disparity between the level of understanding and care for physical health and mental health is shocking. There have been huge steps recently in the levels of awareness and support of rare (physical) illnesses, so why can't we make the same kind of progress with mental health?

I'm not belittiling the fact that many rare (and not so rare) physical diseases are still greatly misunderstood, it just seems like the various awareness movements have made so much progress but sort of missed out mental illnesses.

It's tragic that so many people suffer from mental health issues but are afraid to get help or support (or maybe haven't even been diagnosed) because the care is just so frankly crap. There is massive stigma against sufferers because of the lack of awareness. People think that just because you can't see anything wrong with someone, there's nothing to worry about.

As a sufferer of bipolar disorder and survivor of several suicide attempts and various types of care, this issue is very important to me, as I'm sure it is to many people on this forum. So why aren't we being more militant about it?

Unfortunately, I'm not in a position to run any kind of campaign or petition myself, but there are plenty out there. I know that the UK charity Mind has a particularly good awareness program going. All this kind of thing needs is more support, so please do something people!