Fighting the Stigma of Mental Illness: Your Language Means More Than You Think It Does

A Clue.

Personally, I don't deal with a lot of stigma around my mental illness. I will explain things the best I can to the sincere, but I just do not have the patience for the willfully ignorant-- and it is intentional dumbness since information about not only mental illness, but the myths and stigma around it is everywhere. However, I have had it long enough, and have known others with it long enough to not only know it exists, but to understand how the smallest seeds, such as everyday misuse of language, grow into the darkest, thorniest, and scariest forests. People suffer.






Now, I am not advocating the death of all jokes. Having a sense of humor about my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has been critical to my regaining some kind of footing in this customized hurricane. What I am suggesting is some consideration; some real thought about how powerful language is, how powerful you are when you use it. Sometimes the jokes are just funny, but there is a cost we need to recognize because this society is getting no better at helping the mentally ill or at maintaining mental health.

Faded and Distorted

If we could see our spoken words exit our mouths and float through the atmosphere, then words like bipolar, OCD, paranoia, psychopath, sociopath, addiction, trigger, and many others would be so faded, they would be near transparent. They have lost both the power and function we need them to have. When you joke about your moody friend being "bipolar," or your "OCD" need to keep your bed made a certain way, those faded words float through the atmosphere until they land on someone who is suffering, not just from bipolar or OCD, but from a support network that just isn't; it is made up of people who misunderstand the seriousness of these disorders because the gravity of them has been so undermined. These things are disorders precisely because they interfere with the person's quality of life. The condition of one's life can be so painfully eroded because of the dis-order in his/her brain, that a "support network" made up of people who cannot, do not, or will not get it becomes its own torment.

As someone who lives with PTSD, the misuse of the word "trigger" particularly annoys me, and especially once the memes started. A trigger is no joke. A "trigger" is not something done or said which offends one's delicate sensibilities. A trigger is something that sets off an uncontrollable and hellish event in a traumatized person's brain and body, such as a flashback. A trigger might happen if you were to toss some lit firecrackers under the seat a war veteran. Yeah, like I said, that's not some funny shit. More bluntly: That's fucked up. Stop it. Same with "addiction." It destroys people, whether you believe that to be a choice, a disease, a response to mental illness, or a mental illness itself -- doesn't matter. Stop throwing that word around as if it means nothing.

One of these things is not like the other!

That's just something I wish people would learn in general, but especially when it comes to mental illness. Don't confuse anxiety with paranoia because that is calling anxiety, which is based on a real fear, something worse than it is -- paranoia, which is baseless. In other words, that increases a person's worry over their anxiety and that makes everything worse. In fact, that can make a panic attack. 

Dr. You?

Ooooh, such strong words that aren't even used in psychiatry anymore. You cannot read a magazine article or Facebook comment and decide someone is a "sociopath." Antisocial personality disorders are serious diagnoses, and require education, experience, and observation to analyze. I have known a real, live "psychopath." All I can say about that is it is severe talk. Don't throw either of those words around carelessly. It might be especially important to consider that you have no idea what is really going on inside a person's head. Mental illness can leave a person extremely vulnerable to suggestion, even to the thoughts inside their own minds. That doesn't mean calling someone a "psychopath" can turn them into one; it means you just might have shut down the only bit of will that person had to get help. It means shame. 

You might think your jokes, your language doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of the entire world. I hope I have you considering maybe it does matter. Because people suffer.