Thanks to Sarah Judd, a British mental health worker trying to help rid mental health victims of the stigma of mental illness, for the theme for this headline.

"Speaking ahead of Stress Awareness Day on November 3, she said: “Mental health first aid is similar to physical first aid. It teaches people to spot the early signs, so that a problem isn’t going to deteriorate into a worse state."

Thinking through this new concept, how could this awareness and aid come about? It is always much easier to plan and study about an illness, in any form, than it is to actually get involved. Will not the person rebel against a bunch of co-workers trying to interfere into their lives? It is well known that mental illness is seldom, if ever, mentioned where work is concerned. Employees fear of not being hired and this is kept a secret when being employed, and co-workers are not supposed to know about this pre-supposing condition.

At the present time, the above questions are valid arguments, but with a better understanding of mental illness, especially Bipolar illness, where in between manic or depressive episodes, there are years of normalcy. But with an awakening of the need for the world to address these concerns, the stigma of mental illness will dissipate. This would not take long if everyone started being truthful about their family histories and their own encounters with less than normal thinking.

As Judd said in her article that I read only hours ago, “I’ve lived with bipolar disorder for more than 20 years. I’ve had so many different jobs because my illness has really stopped me from discovering a career. Doing this is part of reducing the stigma.”

The fact that the world is so afraid of mental illness, that terrible disease that does peculiar thing with the mind, it has developed a pattern of out of sight, out of mind. In fact that is what many did with the victims around one hundered years ago, or less. They locked them in rooms in attics, put them into assylums, pretended nothing unusual was happening and went about their own lives.

Out of fairness, one must admit that this was the best thing that could have been done then, but now, the times are changing. Science is moving right along and there is scarcely anything left unknown about the human body. What affects the body, affects the mind, and what affects the mind affects the body is the new thinking being offered. Plus this trail-blazing thought, there ought be no more shame connected to having a mental illness than there is in having a physical illness.

And again, it is only fair to say that this attitude of shame was perpetuated out of fear of the unknown, and not out of the cruelty it actually is. It is simply that the world has raced ahead with its technological knowhow and its scientific researches while using its old thinking mechanisms. LIfe is precious, it must come to believe, and what affects one, affects all. No longer can it afford to go on with irrational pretensions, those advocating for mental health enlightenment believe.