I care about cancer and mental illness because too often people with mental illness and serious medical comorbidities are seen through the lens of their psychiatric diagnosis and NOT as people first. Having worked with adults with serious mental illnesses for almost 10 years now, I think it is time to add my voice to the call to ditch the unfounded excuse that people with mental illnesses cannot commit to the often-extensive cancer treatments. I know and have worked with warriors who have beaten all odds and fought cancer with everything within them to the last moment. So, to the skeptics, I say everyone has the right to be scared and everyone has the right to be supported in the face of their fears