Destigmatizing vs. Diminishing Mental Illness When We Speak
Mental health advocacy and mental illness awareness, particularly within the past year and a half, have become more mainstream points of conversation as a result of the consistent turmoil experienced as a collective. Despite the circumstances, this is incredible. I believe no one should feel shameful for experiencing dips in their mental health, no one should feel stigmatized for living with mental illness, and should feel free to speak of their mental health with full agency and autonomy.
However, what is alarming is the rise of the normalization and the diminishing of mental illness in our day-to-day speech, and the devastating consequence this has on those living with mental illness.
Terms like “manic,” “bipolar,” “ADHD,” “borderline,” etc. have become increasingly misused.
As someone with lived experience with Bipolar Disorder, it breaks my heart when I hear roommates who are simply excited about going out, or have forgotten to clean their rooms, refer to themselves as “manic”.
To see peers label someone on the street who is singing loudly, or someone who is dancing passionately at a club as “going through a manic episode,” is a gross reduction of what these altered states actually mean for those who have to operate within them.
It continues the norm of addressing mental illness with judgement and misunderstanding in regards to symptoms that can be inevitable with mental illness.
When we reduce complex disorders to simple moments, we are hurting the mentally ill community. When you complain that your sister is “being so bipolar,” when really, what you mean to say is she has been frustrating you with her indecision; when you refer to yourself as OCD because you enjoy keeping your room clean, you are actually further misrepresenting the experiences of neurodivergent folks and the gravity of what it means (and doesn’t mean) to live with mental illness.
It is so beautiful that we are having more conversations about health and wellness than ever before, and that terms I grew up ashamed to speak of, such as being triggered, experiencing a depressive/manic episode or even dissociating, are commonly known and (somewhat) understood terms now. I do not take this for granted.
But with this increased awareness, a greater sense of responsibility, care, and sensitivity is required from all of us. In order to truly destigmatize mental illness, we cannot diminish or misrepresent it in our speech. We cannot continue to use ableist language (words that have historically been violent representations to describe those living with disabilities such as crazy, sociopath, stupid or mental) when we speak.
Because the reality is, language matters a great deal.
I believe we must take care of one another, and an incredibly simple yet powerful way to do this, is through practicing care in our speech, and understanding the weight that our words hold.
A few steps you can start taking today include…
Begin to become more mindful of how you speak, and take note of what words/expressions are and aren’t readily available in your vocabulary.
For example, do you constantly use phrases such as “I want to kill myself” over minor inconveniences, and not when actually contemplating self harm? How often are you using verbiage meant to describe serious mental illness for circumstances that do not demand it?
Educate yourself on different mental illnesses and disorders directly from trusted sources (i.e. individuals who have lived experiences with those specific disorders, psychologists and educators).
Some Instagram accounts you can follow today include: @projectlets, @juliefast, @dlcanxiety, @drjenpsych_, @theanxietyhealer, @iampayingattention, @i_weigh, @bpmagforbipolar, @realdepressionproject, @theautisticlife, @decolonizingtherapy, @browngirltherapy, and @therapyforblackgirls.
Make it a goal to only use vocabulary associated with mental illness (i.e. manic episode, splitting, disassociating, etc) when you are in fact describing precisely just that and not anything else. For example, as opposed to referring to yourself as OCD when you really mean “meticulous” or “neat,” you would use those words instead.
Cleansing out ableist language such as “crazy,” “stupid,” and “dumb,” and replace them instead with words such as “unreasonable,” “outrageous,” “frustrating,” or “obnoxious.”
In taking this extra care, and being mindful of our speech, we can all play a role in ensuring we are not perpetuating harm and misrepresentation towards an already immensely misunderstood and stigmatized community. We can also use this as a chance to interrogate our use of language, and explore how to say what we truly mean.
