Do you think there needs to be more awareness of mental illness?

Mental health is often overlooked when talking about medical problems. I have been in situations where people have voiced their opinions on certain illnesses, such as thinking people who say they have anxiety do so because it is 'an excuse to get out of doing something' and describe depression as someone simply 'being sad'.

Most people do not tend to think of these problems as genuine illnesses, when in fact these disorders are caused by a variety of factors such as hormone imbalances, with some even being genetic.

Do you think we need to increase the world's knowledge of mental illness so we can defeat these common misconceptions?