thanks billie

I have a lot of respect for Ayo's no-nonsense approach to debunking the many excuses that come far too easily in the avoidance of personal responsibility for our behavior and its outcomes.

As a clinical psychologist and a sufferer of mental illness. my vantage point is somewhat different. I do think there is a strange fascination with "mental health" with many people claiming one form of dysfunction or another. In that we all "talk to ourselves" in ways that do not promote our best lives, the "mental" (or I would say cognitive) dimension has merit.

However true mental ILLNESSES are underdiagnosed and undertreated. They are of such severity that expectations of certain levels of functioning are the same as MS or Parkinson's. They are serious, they impair functioning and energy, and they "flare."

Most of the people I have treated do not use their limitations as an excuse. They are mortified, stigmatized by their conditions and people's responses to them.

I have trouble with the term mental health, because I think it obscures

"problems of everyday living" and very real, debilitating, dangerous ILLNESSES. I have won national award s for patient advocacy --as a sufferer and a professional. For 30 years, I have written. spoken, and appeared in national media about the stigma of Mental Illness. Little has changed. Perhaps the faddish quality of "mental health" and "self improvement" has increased--but the suffering of people who are cursed with various forms of mental ILLNESS is only intensified by judgments based on limited facts. Thanks for writing back.

I do not believe there are two sides to every story. Some are just wrong. I don't particularly care about this for myself. I live the life I can and am grateful for it. But I am privileged in so many respects and am so distressed that this issue comes up again and again. I respect Ayo and his compelling voice on many issues. The fact that he does have a platform, and the fact that he strikes me as a compassionate guy, makes me want to shake some sense into him on this issue.

martha