SPECTRUM NEWS VIDEO: Michele Brooks, the executive director of the National Alliance for Mental Illness Buffalo and Erie County, discusses how stigma turns to prejudice.

“It’s not just stigma, it is true prejudice. There is prejudice out there. People don’t hire people if they have a history or they have an inkling that someone might have a mental health disorder,” Brooks said. “People who don’t really want to talk about their illness, there are some very valid reasons that they don’t.”