Ten things you can do to fight stigma and discrimination:

1. Learn more about mental illnesses, to become more informed.
    
2. Listen to people who have experienced mental illness-how they have been stigmatized, how it affected their lives.
    
3. Watch your language-avoid terms and expressions that can perpetuate stereotypes, such as 'lunatics', 'nuts' or 'schizophrenic'.
    
4. Monitor media and report stigmatizing material.
    
5. Respond to stigmatizing material in the media.  Protest such material to those responsible-journalists, editors, advertisers, movie producers - and provide more appropriate information.
    
6. Speak up about stigma.  When someone misuses a psychiatric term (such as 'schizophrenic'), tells a joke that ridicules mental illness or makes disrespectful terms, let them know you find it hurtful and unacceptable.
    
7. Talk openly about mental illness.  The more mental illness remains hidden, the more people will continue to believe it is shameful
    
8. Demand change from your elected representatives.  Speak up on issues such as insurance parity, limited funding for research and inadequate budgets for mental health services.
    
9. Support organizations that fight stigma and discrimination.  Join them, donate money to them and volunteer for them.
    
10. Contribute to research related to mental illness and stigma.
    
     

Source: Adapted from Telling is Risky Business: Mental Health Consumers Confront Stigma, by Otto Wahl, Rutgers University Press, 1999