I have always wondered why my father always tells me that my mother was born with mental illness. I don't know if this is carried through the genes of a family or not but I do believe that you should not be ashamed if you have mental illness. You should only be ashamed if you don't get help. Is anxiety or panic attacks a form of mental illness? You can be on medication and still live a normal life but it also helps to have support from your family. Through the years I always felt like my father did not support my mother the way he should have and I always felt like that is why she was in and out of the hospital a lot. My mother was a very loving and normal person when she was on her medication but I feel that my father would badger her and make her feel belittled and she would quit taking her medicine. I always said to myself that would not happen to me. I am taking medication and having therapy but my husband is very supportive of me and I really feel good about the progress that I have made over that last year and I don't believe I will be in a hospital any time soon. I am a very strong willed woman and very determined to make it. I feel strongly about peop needing to deal with the issues that lead to mental illness and the treatments for it. There are a lot of depressed people in the world today and some are not able to get the help and care that they need. Our world needs to be more concerned for people with these kinds of needs.