People's attitude towards mental illness

[PimpMyHippo]

I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say here... just that I keep reading things on here (and hearing IRL) things along the lines of "she sounds like an utter loon"; "she is unbalanced"; "bonkers - avoid avoid avoid"; "life is too short to bother with a crazy person" etc etc. And I know they're just talking about someone who's behaving in an unreasonable way, not someone with a mental illness (that they know of), but I don't know if that makes it better or worse. None of my colleagues or acquaintances know about my MH issues, I lie about psychiatrist appointments and scars and stuff, because I don't want them to think "better back off from her, it's not worth getting involved with someone so unstable"... and I wish that was just me being paranoid, but it's obviously an attitude that a lot of people have, and that depresses me. Basically, I'm just saying I wish people were a bit more careful with the pejorative language they throw around when it comes to MH.

[amillionyears]

It may be a nice idea to post this on say chat, if you are brave enough.
[I think most, if not all, the people on the MH board are suppourtive of people with MH issues.]

There will always be some people in rl and on MN who will be use unreasonable behaviour and speech.

Some are just joking, but maybe not thinking through properly before they do it.
And some are being flippant, but are well meaning when they are asked to be.

Actually, thought of another group. And they are the ones who are afraid, They fear what to say, and to some extent they fear they may "catch" it, iykwim.

[RabbitsMakeGOLDBaubles]

I recognise the comments from a thread and I think you shouldn't worry.

There are people who have mental illnesses, then there are people who exhibit behaviours that are clearly not acceptable but who don't have an illness, simply choose to be that way.

I guess the language does not clearly make the definition between the two and I can see why you would be upset, but I don't believe the intention is to say that all people with mental illness behave unacceptably.

I would never use the words loon, nut, bonkers or crazy to describe a person with mental illness, they are not appropriate words. Neither is mental illness something to be ashamed about, I quite openly talk about mine in the effort to make it seem as acceptable as being ill in any other way.

We are in a difficult stage, where the majority of people view mental illness as such, an illness to be treated, but there are still people out there who don't judge it so, and so there is stigma connected to the terms.

I can't really conclude because I am guilty of using the terms, about manipulative unkind people, or terrible behaviour. I guess maybe part of the reason I find the terms inoffensive is because I don't view mental illness as offensive in itself and certainly wouldn't connect those words in particular with it anyway, except in a historical way.

I don't think that you should be paranoid anyway, that particular kind of behaviour is chosen behaviour, they act that way because that's who they are, most mental illness is not chosen behaviour and thus very different. It's a different kind of unstable completely. I mean, my health is very unstable, I get ill loads, but no one has chosen not to be my friend because I get sick, same for mental side of things too.

[Crawling]

i couldn't agree more words like spastic phlid mong these words also used to be used to describe someone clumsy yet they are not so different to look psycho crazy being used to describe someone who acts in bizarre way yet one is considered unacceptable on here and in rl while the other is fine why is that? i also heard jokes on here about mental illness the cyclepath one sticks out i can just imagine peoples reaction to a autistic child joke yet everyone laughed at the cyclepath one. (I don't want jokes around special needs my dd is going through a artist assessment just using it to show the comparison with something simlar)

[Crawling]

sorry my dd is going through a autistic not artist assessment. and look should be loon