From East to West

From the East Coast to the West, I am sending love and prayers and good energy out to those affected by the senseless tragedy in Colorado. This movie theatre madness speaks to many things: and I'm not talking about the obvious issue of gun control as a swift response to this ridiculousness...I'm wondering about what this says about the way we treat the mentally ill in this country.
It's all been said before, but can you imagine saying to someone with cancer: "Just snap out of it! What's wrong with you?! Why can't you just be a little more normal...tow the line...fit in...try harder, etc?"
You can't. I can't. And yet we do it all the time, in this country, in our cities, even in our own lives. 
Mental illness is just that---an illness---and we need to shift our perceptions and reach out a hand to help when we can. God only knows what could be averted; or what kind of a difference we could possibly make in the lives of countless others.