If someone has a weak heart, that individual will require heart
medication and that person's heart will not function properly,
also an illness or ailment that is easy to understand, even
though, like mental illness, it is not seen. But mental illness
is different, even though the irrational behaviors of the
mentally ill make perfect sense as the brain controls actions
and thoughts and if it is not functioning properly, then people
are going to behave in ways that do not appear normal to
society. No one who is mentally ill asked for the illness, but
it is the hand they were dealt and must live with. An estimated
26.2 percent of Americans — more than 57 million people — age 18
and older suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given
year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
Mental disorders are the leading cause of disability in the
United States. In 2004, 32,439 people died by suicide in the
United States. More than 90 percent of people who kill
themselves have a diagnosable mental diso