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I find it troublesome that the gradient of mental health is so often presented to society as a dichotomy of "healthy" and "ill" and I know from personal experience that the arbitrarily chosen boundary between "healthy" and "ill" greatly impacts the way a person is perceived and treated. I'd like to share a personal example that our conversation on Monday got me thinking about and that I think is relevant to this idea. My mother has been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). This mostly manifests as a major preoccupation with symmetry and order. Everything in our house needs to be symmetrically placed in relation to other items, and my mom gets anxious when things are out of place. While it is annoying when my mom rearranges items in my room, and while my mom does spend a portion of each day ensuring her treasured symmetry, her compulsions are not actually disruptive to her life. She's generally happy and healthy, despite her "illness". However, people see my mother fixating on the position of an object and automatically judge her. I've witnessed how they get frustrated with her "weird" behavior, how they take her less seriously than they would have if she was "normal". Meanwhile, none of these people realize that my mom is not that different from "normal" people, myself included. I have never been diagnosed with any sort of mental illness. However, I've realized that I exhibit milder versions of the same behaviors of my mother. I don't actively obsess over achieving symmetry. However, I am extremely particular about the placement of items in my personal space. This goes beyond just being a "tidy" person. For example, I'm so particular that I can automatically tell if someone's been in my space without my knowledge because I notice the small changes in items' placements that might result if the person brushed up against something, etc. I recognize that this isn't "normal"; none of my friends or family are this particular, except for my mom. However, because my particular nature never manifests itself into noticeable "bizarre" behavior patterns or anxiety, I am "healthy". People see me and they think "tidy", "detail-oriented", "organized". They agree that my eye for small details will be very useful to me as a physician. My behavior is only a hair's breadth away from my mom's, but the way people characterize us is so different. I benefit from my desire for order, while my mom suffers for the same desire from the judgments of an ignorant society. In my opinion, the only way this will change is if each of us reflects on our own behavior and feelings and recognize the similarities between the "healthy" and the "ill". There isn't that big of a difference. Of course, society most likely will never do this because it really all comes down to power. When we realize we're all a little weird we can no longer lord our "normality" over the "not normal" and claim for ourselves a higher place in society's hierarchy.