Flippancy and mental health.

A long time sufferer of Bi polar disorder I have seen many changes to the way that people talk and listen to things relating to mental health, yet in nearly 25 years of change I am still surprised by how little has. I am usually not one to rant on about my own personal experiences but in this instance it highlights a point that I feel is important.

Unlike many others I don’t mind the odd reference to a person being mental or a bit OCD or a bit manic and such as generally I can see that these people are just making a joke. That it is a bit poor taste I will agree but usually when I push them to be serious they will retract their statement or qualify it with how frustrated they are feeling or some other comment but there are times when if you push the person, they just keep on going with the same comment. Now I will be the first to admit that some people have mental health problems that are undiagnosed but still it is the way in which they then try and tell me that it’s all normal and the person will get over it that I get offended.

To my mind you don’t just get over mental illness and much as many people will come out of depression on their own I feel it inappropriate to just stand by and see them suffer with something so distressing, without at least acknowledging that these feelings and compulsions are extremely distressing far and away beyond what is normal. Life can be hell while you are getting over it and not just for the person who is ill and it would be good if people didn't make fun of this.

So why is that people feel it appropriate to be quite so flippant and dismissive of the problems of mental illness?

I can’t tell and really this is a problem I have noticed of the present age and not one that I encountered when I was first having problems. It is something new and really quite offensive. Can we put this down to peoples lack of knowledge or to the way in which psychiatrists have introduced new illness with symptoms such as grief or just to people feeling freer to use this language in public?

But regardless of how it has come about I am struggling to find a way to let people know that it is offensive.
I have read many articles/blog posts that have tackled this use of language and have never really felt that they have done anything other than appear to be overly politically correct or overly sensitive to the language and I don’t want to do that.

I am astounded by how people do not understand how distressing and crippling mental illness can be and how badly it can affect those who are suffering from it when such flippant references to it and to recovery from it are made. No one would consider making such a reference to cancer and it’s treatment or HIV but mental illness seems exempt.

The problem I have is how to explain this to these people who persist in using these comments. I can take a joke and I can take a certain amount of miss use (in my opinion) or these comments but what really offends me is their total lack of exploration of the term and how it relates to mental illness, it’s treatment and recovery from it.  

In my opinion if you want to use these terms then at least be open to talking about what it really means in terms of illness and be gracious enough to accept that what may be extremely annoying because your child wants socks that all come up to the middle of their calf’s and not too high or too short is just your child being fussy not because they are suffering from OCD.
I would suggest a few pointers for people who have no experience of mental health problems but I fear I cannot do it justice but mainly all I want to say is this

That if you are really are concerned about the impact their behaviour is having on their ability to hold down relationships or cope in social circumstances or that there are negative reasons why such behaviour is occurring and it is impacting on their ability to live a full life then use of such language is reasonable.

If you feel that this behaviour, routine or fussiness although frustrating, annoying and restrictive is all part of life then it isn’t appropriate to use it and you should refrain and find more appropriate words to express what you are feeling about these behaviours.

If however as many people feel that actually they are not sure which of these is appropriate then consider that having an open discussion with someone who has experience of mental illness and or the person concerned, is probably a far more constructive thing to do and may well help you and the person/child concerned get along better. Because I really don’t feel it is appropriate for people to say that someone who has mood swings is a manic depressive or that some one who likes routine and will only compromise a little is OCD because this is completely missing the seriousness of the problems that are considered to be mental illnesses. It also has serious connotations for mental illness being a choice which is definitely not.

Mental illness is not only about what you do or how you act but about what has prompted this behaviour, course of action and is not something that you can always change without constant medication and or long spells of therapy. If caught early enough less severe treatments may have the same results but joking about it can make it far harder for the person to seek help or to work out when to seek help or to accept if offered.

Am I taking this too personally?

Maybe, maybe not. One or two flippant comments fair enough but a litany of them with no real understanding of what mental illness is, is not appropriate to me particularly if they are as non descriptive as ‘mental’ but what I really don’t want to do is give you or anyone a list of things not to say because I feel that understanding really only comes from expressing and discussing things and is very dependent on tone and context and what may be offensive to some may not be to others as people understand things or put slightly different meanings on words. 

But I would really like it if people could find a few more words to describe what they are thinking and feeling about someone instead of mental, manic, nuts etc