Mental Illness and Stigma

What can be said to end the stigma of mental illness? Is it ever truly going to end, and will these individuals ever be given a rightful place in our society?
I write this not only for myself, but for my uncle, cousin, and one friend from the Autism community. I, throughout my life, have overcome many, many, issues. I've had severe depression and paranoia. I've cut myself. I've binge drank. I've sat in my car crying for hours on end. And sadly, what I've been through doesn't even scratch the tip compared to what I've seen in many family members and friends.
Luckily, my own issues are starting to dissipate, with my discovery of holistic remedies-not to mention that a lady that I serve alongside in the OHMR got me into EMDR.
Sadly, the same can't be said for many that I know.  
We've watched my uncle battle manic depression for years now. We've had a family member "go fecking mental in a Dunkin Donuts parking lot in Boston." And probably the most heartwrenching is the one young man I know, who is, I'm sorry to say literally hopeless. He's jumped out a two story window. He's called 911 multiple times on his neighbors convinced they were "out to get him."
We'll use him as an example of how badly those with mental illnesses are "swept under the rug." First of all, I'll start out by saying that his family finally had to call the cops on him. The police arrived,  chased him screaming up the stairs, and he was dragged to OSU Harding.
We eventually went to visit him at OSU Harding, and what a lovely place it was NOT. We've got a relatively small room, with paranoid, depressed individuals crammed into the small space. It's like it was a place to "dispose" of them-and it couldn't have helped the issues that they already had. As a matter of fact, it probably made it worse. He sure didn't look good when I saw him, that's for sure. He's been in and out of that place multiple times-and it's hardly his fault. It's like the doctors aren't even really trying-those with mental illnesses, I'm sorry to say, are still seen as subhuman.
Medications, for the most part of it, don't help in the long run. My uncle's been on everything-one of which made him disoriented to the point where he had to be hospitalized. As for me-I've been on everything. Many made me more depressed. On one, I intentionally almost crashed my car. I was even at one point on a birth control pill as a last resort-the details are graphic, let's just say what it did was wicked nasty.
Another issue I have is the incarceration of the mentally ill. As someone who majored in Criminal Justice, I've had to watch the documentary "The New Asylums" a number of times. It doesn't matter how many times you're required to watch it, it is still sobering. The only crime that these men and women have committed is having a brain that works different. What kind of a fecked up society do we live in to the point that the mentally ill are seen as criminals? Society doesn't care about them-so we conveniently lock them up with criminals.
As a side note, I'm a big fan of the Victorian/Industrial Goth singer (and autistic woman poster child :) Emilie Autumn. Her songs, many of which really speak to me, reflect her own time in a psych ward, which she compares to a Victorian "asylum" and struggles with her own issues. She also has a book out entitled "The Asylum For Wayward Victorian Girls" which is a great read, just be aware that it may be a trigger for some. But for those who can handle it, it's a great read to show just how severely the mentally ill are stigmatized, and how far we have to go.