[smt88]

I'm also concerned about the stigma that people with mental illness receive, but it's partially a problem with the definition.

We use "mentally ill" to describe people who are unable to participate in society in a sustainable and positive way. We don't have a perfect way to decide whether someone even is mentally ill, but it usually involves an inability to behave the way the patient, the patient's family, or society itself (in the case of crime) would like.

That could include someone with OCD who loses a lot of time to washing her hands, but it also includes people who harm others for pleasure.

Until we have different words for those categories, people with illnesses like depression are going to be under the same incredibly general umbrella as people who poison others.