My friend Katie Shoener was diagnosed at 17 with bipolar 1 when she tried to kill herself the first time. When she was 29 she successfully committed suicide. Her father wrote her obituary in an attempt to stop the stigma. Feel free to google the whole thing but here is the important part.

‘So often people who have a mental illness are known as their illness. People say that "she is bipolar" or "he is schizophrenic." Over the coming days as you talk to people about this, please do not use that phrase. People who have cancer are not cancer, those with diabetes are not diabetes. Katie was not bipolar - she had an illness called bipolar disorder - Katie herself was a beautiful child of God. The way we talk about people and their illnesses affects the people themselves and how we treat the illness.’

Several members of our high school soccer team started a non profit called 5Kate. The mission is to stop the stigma of mental illness after her father put a spotlight on the issue.

Words matter CC. We don’t call things ‘gay’ we don’t call things ‘retarded’ and we shouldn’t call things ‘OCD’ or ‘Bipolar’ or ‘schizophrenic.’

So the question for you all to consider and debate... what will it take to change the narrative? How is the stigma ended? Not using the words as an adjective is a good start. But what other steps should be taken? Healthcare? Open discussion? More people publicly disclosing? What do you think?