Mental illness affects a large proportion of the world’s population, it wouldn’t be farfetched to say that everyone at one point in their life or the other has been affected by mental illness. Statistics have it that the prevalence of schizophrenia is one percent, when this figure is quoted it seems so insignificant and far removed from one’ self, that it is unthinkable that this “most dreaded” of mental illnesses could ever affect any one you know. The figures are true but the translation of this is usually wrong.
   The rationale is simple, anyone that has a brain is exposed to the possibility of having something affecting it at one time or the other. This could range from being as mild and seemingly normal as anxiety, grief from loss or bereavement to depression or psychosis. The spectrum is large and we all fall somewhere along this spectrum at one point or the other during our lifetime. If we claim not to, then someone we know or are even close to someone who has at one time or the other fallen within this spectrum.
         Mental illness can interfere with our potentials but with support it doesn’t truncate it. Knowing someone with mental illness and showing compassion allows us to exercise our ability to show that we are human and allows the illness to have a human face. A lot of people with mental illness suffer needlessly when they could have gotten help due to the fear of stigmatization.
Mental illness is all around us and it affects those we hold dearest. It does not always have to stop us from becoming the people we were destined to be. It should be seen just as an ‘illness people live’ with but not what defines them. In summary love them and accept them, they are people too.