So much stigma surrounds mental illness. When we think about mental illness, we may struggle to find the language to discuss and understand it. But I believe it is important for people to talk about how mental illness is perceived in society.

Before I was diagnosed with schizophrenia, I saw human behavior as a binary of “normal” versus “abnormal,” with psychiatric patients as “abnormal.” This perception led me to believe I could never be mentally ill. When I was eventually diagnosed with severe mental illness, I thought the doctors were wrong. How could I, a perfectly normal person, have schizophrenia?

A crucial moment in my life was when I realized that I could have schizophrenia and still be a “normal” person. Understanding this enabled me to accept my diagnosis.

From the start, my schizophrenia was severe and treatment resistant. Because the illness affected my ability to concentrate and read, it took me from a competitive university scholarship winner to a college dropout, with my best efforts producing failing grades. I became unable to work the easiest job (though I may have appeared able-bodied). I heard voices every day for period of two full years before an effective medication eliminated them.

But even through all of this, the illness has never rendered me a member of an “abnormal” group of people. Today, I am confident that being diagnosed with mental illness does not define me, or limit what I can do.

Unfortunately, over the years, I have interacted with many people who consider themselves to be “abnormal” people living within an otherwise “normal” society because of mental illness. People who suffer from mental illness sometimes see themselves as unworthy or unfit for inclusion in mainstream society.

When psychiatric patients begin treatment and rebuild their lives, it is important for them to know that the diagnosis does not define them. My own recovery involved recognizing that mental illness was a disease I had suffered from, but that I no longer suffer from. Today, I take medication that imposes some limitations on my life (I sleep at least twelve hours every night, I don’t drive) but there are no telltale signs that I have ever been mentally ill. Most people in my life today do not know that I was once mentally ill until I disclose it to them.

But I also know that even if I experience these symptoms again, I will never be a member of a group of people who are different from everyone else. Truthfully, there is no group of people who are different than everyone else. There is always a risk that the symptoms may return (though my illness has been successfully treated with medication for eight years) but these symptoms can never render me an “abnormal” person.

Stigma says that all individuals with mental illness are “abnormal” people, different from everyone else. The truth is that each person with mental illness is a special individual with much to offer, and fundamentally no different than any other person. When we recognize mental illness as an illness, and not as an abnormality, or an identity, the stigma disappears.