Recently, October 10th, was World Mental Health Day, a day aimed at awareness of what mental illness truly was and what it truly was not. *Flutterings meant to post a news article about it featuring many deviations from many deviants in the hopes of bettering awareness. Knowing how busy she was with contests, notes, and tons of other things, not to mention the personally happenings going on in her life at the time, the new article had not been published nearing the end of the day. So, I posted my own, and in tune with her devotion, she was eventually able to post hers shortly there after, which was definitely much better than mine.

In each, we both adopted a saying "Fight the stigma", for me it was "Fight the stigma, spread the word", and hers "Fight the stigma, speak your mind". This has prompted me to start a new project. Mental Health Awareness and "fighting the stigma" of it should not be something done once a year, but something ardently done yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

I am working on a project, an e-book of sorts, that details different mental illnesses, the statistics of those mental illnesses WORLDWIDE, and gives a perspective into what those mental illnesses mean to the people living with them. In essence, I am hoping to create something that is a massive expansion on both my news article and *Flutterings news article, and to use the resources of deviantART to do it.

Utilizing both mine and *Flutterings version of the "mantra", I have split the book into two parts. This is the TOC I have so far:

FIGHT THE STIGMA – SPREAD THE WORD
MAJOR DEPRESSIVE DISORDER
- INTRODUCTION
- STATISTICS
BIPOLAR DISORDER
- INTRODUCTION
- STATISTICS
ANXIETY DISORDERS
- INTRODUCTION
- STATISTICS
SCHIZOPHRENIA
- INTRODUCTION
- STATISTICS
SELF-HARM
- INTRODUCTION
- STATISTICS
SUICIDE
- INTRODUCTION
- STATISTICS

FIGHT THE STIGMA – SPEAK YOUR MIND

In the "Spread the Word" section, I hope to make it clear what these illnesses are and are not, and have real worldwide statistics (which I could use some help on gathering).

I the "Speak you Mind" section (*Flutterings section) I hope to have deviations for people that do suffer from mental illnesses and would like those deviations included as a window into our world. Poetry, prose, pictures, what have you. Speak your mind on your illness through your work...

I do hope to make this a deviantART quality publication (eventually turned into a pdf, more on that in a second). An help with artwork, editing, revamping to make the right statement would be appreciated. I am pretty much a hack at poetry, and have extensive experience in creating technical documents, but nothing of this magnitude. Once finished, I do want to put it on deviantART, but more so, I want to try to submit it to each and every mental health organization out there to be a freely downloadable pdf book that can give suffers, families of suffers, and everyone else out there an understanding of what mental illness is and is not.

On a side note, and a very important note, the book will feature a suicide section, and in it I hope to include suicide help-line numbers for any and every country I possibly can. Any help here, would be IMMENSELY appreciated.

This is a very important project to me, and though it may take quite a bit more time without help, I do plan to accomplish it. With your help, I know that I can accomplish it better and quicker than I would on my own. Any an every bit of help anyone would like to offer, I would appreciate. I want to make this a true deviantART deviation, a true work of art that gives people insight into something they otherwise would not have. If enough there ends up being enough interest, I would like to turn it into a yearly publication that we all submit to the mental health organizations as an on-going community that wants to "Fight the Stigma". Let us make a difference, let us fight the stigma, let us be heard and hopefully through our efforts and voices understood...

- Make suggestions for things missed
- Submit deviations for a better understanding
- Offer your deviant master skills to make it into something more than I know I can alone
- Search out information to be included
- Spread to word to people that would want to contribute in some way

I ask now that you help me "fight the stigma" in any way that you can and are willing to...and I will gratefully accept whatever you have and are willing to offer.