We should kill everyone with a mental illness. Also Jews and homosexuals.

In all seriousness though, people with mental illnesses, ranging from OCD to Down Syndrome or whatever else, are obviously extremely unfortunate and deserve to be looked after and given a place in society as much as possible. In some cases that means taking them to a facility where they can receive round the clock care, because the burden on a family to care for someone in this condition is heavy. Not sure there's much of a debate on this one, presumably most folk have the same opinion.

You remind me of someone.

Mental illness is very much real, as someone who has lived with a person who had post natal depression can attest, contrary to what some 'ignorant' types (I am not sure what to call them) may think of as something you can just 'snap out of' or alleviate by going for a walk or heading to the gym. Theres a big difference from having a case of feeling down as to having full blown episodes where you want to kill yourself, your child, not get out of bed, not wanting to eat, been unable to sleep because anxiety is making it worse.

I don't beleive you can have one 'definition' of mental illness...other than saying mental illness is a disturbance of the normal workings of the brain.

Its obviously going to be different I think between cultures, say broadly looking at it from a Western veiwpoint or Oriental, African etc because they each have behaviours and standards that may be acceptable to them but not necessarily are geared towards what can be considered normal functioning mental capacities. Yet I think what can be considered as normal and irregular behaviours when it comes to mental disorders is rather subjective. What one person sees as acceptable responses, another is going to think of it as bizzare and highy irregular. I think as far as diagnosing and treatment goes it seems to be more geared towards a Western attitude.

lol, who does he remind you of? He reminds me of a pug...

I have extreme anxiety issues (my fits get spurred by dogs barking..) and schizoid personality disorder :D

Those kids with tourettes scare me a little. I know they don't mean what they say, but still. I feel bad for those kids, knowing that no matter how hard they work to succeed, they'll never be able to live a normal life.

Well, that's my brother. Is that it?

Yes, tourettes can be any number of involuntary movements, or vocalisations. The stereotypical version is the swearword one.