There is more awareness, but I have found that some people - my own family included - are completely unable to stand outside of themselves for a minute and imagine what it (or another physical or psychiatric condition) might be like.
When I was hospitalized 9 years ago, bordering on a psychotic depression, my mom was ****** off at me. When I was admitted, she turned to me and sneered, "How are you going to get yourself out of this one?" In her mind, I was just running away to the hospital because I made some bad choices/decisions. Nevermind that I had never been hospitalized for anything before in my life, or that I never exhibited attention-seeking behavior. Almost 10 years later and she's *starting* to understand that bad decisions didn't make me depressed; I made bad decisions because I was so severely depressed. And it wasn't like they were earth shattering, life threatening bad decisions. I quit my job - with a 6 week notice - plenty of time to find another. That was the "bad decision" I was running away from, in her mind. And I can't tell you how many times I've explained it, broken it down, given her things to read, etc, ad nauseum.
And to this day, easy child wasn't really depressed if you ask her. He just didn't like the guy I was dating. That's why at 11 years old, he was going to go to his dad's, pretend he was getting something out of the basement, get his gun, and shoot himself in the head. Nevermind that he started seeing a psychologist and was prescribed medicine for depression 3 full months before I started dating this guy.
Sigh...
Sorry to hijack your thread, Pepperidge. It just brought some things up.