Stigma against mental illness is a scourge with many faces, and the medical community wears a number of those faces.

Mental illness" is among the most stigmatized of categories.' People are ashamed of being mentally ill. They fear disclosing their condition to their friends and confidants-and certainly to their employers.

Those with dissociative disorders face a big enough battle living as multiples and dealing with past trauma. Like everyone else, they deserve to be heard and recognised, not stigmatised.

Stigmas speak to the idea of difference and how difference shames us and those we know.

In my community, mental health isn't taken seriously enough. Therapy is replaced by prayer. Tears are a sign of weakness. When you are different, you are told to change. And really, what does that do? It isolates desperate, vulnerable people and creates victims.

I can understand why some people might look at me and say, 'What's she got to be depressed about?' I get that a lot in Britain, where mental health issues seem to be a big taboo.