Our contest is not whether ourselves be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on Earth for the civil and religious liberty.
-Samuel Adams

In our society, our image to the out side world is a rich, powerful, and perfected country full of rich perfect people. We as people always aspire to be the best, the perfect people of the society. Our weakest lie in the the shadows, unattended. We only look at the outside appearance of things and never venture to look at what is inside. For centuries we judged and thought bias thoughts. We thought people who were eccentric where practicing witchcraft, we thought plagues were sent from God to punish our sins, and then we thought that the blacks, or the colored people were inferior. Now the first world countries put their extreme mentally ill in asylums, and tell our depressed and anxiety filled people to “suck it up”. Third world countries, or war torn countries are even worse of in terms of treatment for the mentally ill.

The mentally ill have forever been in the shadow in parts of the world. They are viewed as a plague to the image in some countries. Countries like Siberia have their disabled and unstable tucked away, where no one can see them. The inhabitants of these mental hospitals are like the prisoners of Allegory of the Cave [Plato]. They live in darkness, never seeing sunlight, never feeling hope. They see only their shadows and the rocky walls behind it by firelight. In both scenarios, they are chained, both physically and mentally. The prisoners were chained to each other, feet to feet, and hand to hand. The inhabitants in the mental hospitals in Siberia where sometimes tied to the bed, for hours at a time. [Dark Side of Serbian Mental Institutions] Their minds are dragged down with the lack of hope, or the wish for a better day. The mentally ill in these poor excuses for hospitals receive no treatment, no medication, no therapy, and spend the majority of their lives in a room, with beds packed like sardines. In less fortunate countries, and countries who keep the stigma leave their depressed without treatment, or their anxiety filled, full of worry, with only the thought that this was all the will, and strength of mind that has brought this among them.

Alternately, on the other side of the planet, in fortunate countries like America, we treat our mentally ill with real treatments and medicines, making them live their everyday lives with happiness. In 2006, people taking a poll about mental illness such as depression, addiction and anxiety. 67 percent of respondents believed that major depression had a basis of a mental disorder versus the 54 percent in 1996. People in first world countries also have a higher treatment acceptance. 79 percent of americans support treatment, up from 61 percent in 1996 for alcoholism. Depression treatment jumped up from 65 percent to 85 percent. Although mental illness treatment is widely accepted, and people accept that depression, and such is a true illness, people still try to avoid the phrase “mental illness”. [Amanda Gardener]

Although, treatment acceptance and acceptance of the disease, people still try to avoid mental illness in general. A test shows that people still try to avoid a child with a mental disorder rather than, a child with a physical illness. [Amanda Gardener] The information broken down means, if we had two children, and one (hypothetically) had cancer, while the other had schizophrenia, people are more likely to avoid those with the schizophrenia rather and sympathize for the child with cancer. Some can say, “That it is not exactly the same thing” but the child with cancer has a problem with his/her DNA, while the child with schizophrenia has a “brain problem”. This is an example that the stigma for mental disorder still exist. To non perfect children, and yet someone sympathizes one above the other. An argument made is that the mentally ill child can “hear voices”, making that child “weirder” than the other, while the child with cancer is perfectly “normal” and only has a disease, therefore making the child with cancer more easy to sympathize for.

People say, “Lets us bond together to create a perfect world.” this saying, though a nice thought to ponder about, it near impossible. A society is built with individuals. Each individual has its right to thought and speak what he/she thinks. We cannot ever change the individuals thought, but we can always educate them to have more just thoughts. Even when people are educated, some people live by their prejudices, and cannot follow the “flow” of good in the world, and only then, all we can do is provide hope, and kindness to those, and show our support. Now days, all we can do is strive to create a near perfect world, and try to tolerate the differences and the sameness. Different things to hate against will pop up every generation, but let us hope, that the next, new generation will know how to tolerate these differences and learn from our mistakes.