Mental health experience

I have no formal prior experience to dealing with mental health issues or illness, however I do have a couple informal experiences. I have dealt with brain injury patients at work where they are depressed or become bipolar after their accident, and I know someone that has been diagnosed with manic depression. And it is funny that they were working with the mentally retarded and psychiatric patients as a social worker before they became depressed. I guess a psychiatric disorder can happen to anyone if you do not have the right coping and defense mechanisms in place to protect your own fragile psyche. As for clinical I am a little afraid of the patients because some walk very close to you and I think the can have an aggressive moment at anytime. However, most patients and people seem to be okay and come back to normal if they take their treatments like they are suppose to.