To Billapiacere: While I disagree with your viewpoint, I can see where your "I don't believe it if I can't see it" logic comes from. However, I think part of it is an unstated bias against anything that's described as a mental illness. Many people who have no experience with it say they don't believe it exists, and well, the nice thing is that you don't need to accept any mental health treatment. Live and let live. Just don't interfere with my ability to access MH services. BTW, regarding your discounting of illness that can't be physically shown- would I be correct in assuming that that extends to most forms of back and neck pain? Lupus, Fibromyalgia? Science just isn't there yet as far as providing specific 'tests' for a lot of things, and for disorders of the brain, well, its the most complicated and least understood organ in our body. You state that you could go into a doctors office and lie to get anti-depressants. Well, that's probably true, at least for a while, because it's primarily diagnosed based upon reported symptoms. But you could say the same thing about some other conditions that we accept as 'more legitamate' because they don't involve the mind - like the aforementioned back pain. You mention society being afraid of normal feelings - well, normal feelings don't qualify as psychiatric disorders. That's what the word 'disorder' means. It is an admittedly fine line at times, but properly diagnosed mental illness should exceed normal bounds. Also people certainly can say 'I am mad or sad" without being considered suicidal. Virtually everyone in therapy says they are mad or sad. Only a very small number are considered at high risk for suicide. In fact, in our current insurance cliamate, even stating "I am suicidal" is sometimes not enough to get you admitted to a hospital. Finally, your example of the nurse giving you improper treatment, is exactly that. It's an unfortunate incident, but I don't think that's indicative of a greater trend in physical medicine to ascribe psychiatric causes to things.