I have read the SOP. The reason why I put it here is because I think it's the best place. I have already, posted a thread in Ask the Administrators for a Mental Health Activism Group. I see, like many on this site, a rising of spirit of rebellion. I'm not just talking about Stigma, I'm talking about everything. The ignorance, The Apathy, The Bullying, the denial of self-determination to so many of us who are actually capable of it. The homelessness of so many who aren't. I don't know if you yourself have to live with any sort of diagnosis or have problems with mental health but I KNOW much of the stress that people like us deal with comes from a society that does not see us as equal to them, not really anyway. I put this here because I've been living with many of the same issues that are talked about commonly in this group. Thoughts of Suicide, Depression , Stigma, the painful willful ignorance of even one's own closest family. It's time that we pushed back. It's time that we demanded what is ours by Birthright. The OP was meant to be empowering and it was also meant as call for the community of mentally ill and neurologically disabled to come together improve things for ourselves as a group. Perhaps I could've posted this elsewhere. But I knew the best way for it to get to the people who I most intended it for was to post it here. It's time normal people realize that we aren't something they can just push off into a lonely room whenever our presence becomes inconvenient. We have a right to live our lives based on our own goals and dreams. We also have a right not to be shamed, stigmatized, or dehumanized for what we are. Ultimately the only people we can rely on for empowerment is ourselves and I think the first step in doing so is openly say what is often the case for many. That Normal People as a whole don't really care about our rights very much. The only thing they care about is that we don't cause them trouble. I realize those last two statements is painting with a VERY broad stroke. But with what I've seen, the people I've known, and than you add on the statistical facts and this is the conclusion that I've come to. It's one I find intolerable.
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