I've had this same friend since the 7th grade and we are both mid 20s now. He firmly used to think that mental illness is just something that people can and should get over. We lived together when I was hospitalized for psychosis and he just thought I was fucking around or I was on hallucinogens or something. When I got out I was super depressed and I was on some heavy APs and he thought that I should just stop taking the medicine and I would feel better. He was raised in this environment where you just suck it up. He was really against me taking medicine for a long time and he wouldn't believe that I actually had a mental illness or that mental illness was even real. It's been 3 years since then and there has just been incredible character development. We hang out all the time and he's seen me act crazy, he's seen what it's like when my Goedon wears off. He used to know me as a friend that he had to walk on eggshells around and in the last 3 years he's seen me regain mental health. I'm 10 times the friend I was able to be in the past and he knows that a lot of it has to do with medicine. We used to fight all the time but now it's been so chill for so long. Now he totally agrees that mental illness is a real thing and that some people just have to be on medicine their whole lives. It's just really cool and I wanted to share this. It's not always someone's fault that they don't understand mental illness just like it's not our fault that we are bipolar. It's mostly just how they were raised so I think awareness is really important but I think it needs to be on an individual level mostly. I digress