World Mental Health Day; National Coming Out Day
October 10 is World Mental Health Day (WMHD) (see U.N. , wiki .) We really don't have a mental health program in the United States. Like some other conditions, people with mental health problems are stigmatized and ostracized. Most people don't know what to do with a mentally ill person; we don't have common gradations between mildly affected and dangerous, violent sociopaths. The police definitely don't know what to do with a person who's mentally ill; they often shoot them. I have mental health issues, which is a rather indirect phrase; I am mentally ill. I have a lot of things wrong with me. Unlike some, I'm able to pass as mentally typical. In other words, I seem about as normal as your average Joe flying a Confederate flag. But I am not mentally normal. In my life, people who know my situation have been good to me. An untrained person probably can't tell by looking at me. In an America filled with exceptionalism, fetishized boot-strapping, and