Mental patients are becoming active on their own behalf to counter the forces of ignorance, fear, and discrimination. The days of considering the mentally ill as psychos, maniacs, and weirdos are still here. Intensive public education is needed to get rid of these widespread misunderstandings, and increasingly activist mental patients are prepared to do much of the educating. Mental illness is not emotional instability. It is not a moral failing or a character weakness.
Mental illness is a physical illness.
Medical science has established that malfunctions in brain chemistry are the cause of most mental disorders. This is the same medically as if someone had heart or kidney failure. No one accuses a heart patient of being a screwball because of his illness. No one accuses a kidney patient of being a wacko because of her affliction. But the mentally ill are commonly referred to in the most cruel and degrading terms.