I have mental health

I don't have mental health.

I suffer from depression with psychosis and cPTSD.

I have mental Ill health!

Saying you have mental health is saying you are mentally healthy, surely? If I said I have physical health, then I'm inferring I'm physically healthy. Although, everyone has 'health' but it could be great, poor, middling...

Yes! It drives me insane.

Customers in work say to me “I have mental health” and I think yeah okay I have mental health too, what’s the matter with your mental health?

YABU, almost everyone (apart from MN) say it. Some MN are nosy & want to know what MH issues people have, that’s why they say that it doesn’t make sense as it just won’t be acceptable in their nosy little world 🐱

Logically it makes no sense, but colloquially it means I have non specific mental health issues. It has just become a catch all phrase that is constantly being used whether or not any conditions have been diagnosed. Drives me mad. It’s used as an excuse for everything from bunking off school to taking drugs and worse. It diminishes those who have actual mental health issues……..but this is sadly the case for tons of things now.

It's a bit of a pointless saying because we all have mental health, whether that be good or bad, like we all have physical health, whether it's healthy or unhealthy. When people say 'I have mental health' I just think '... okay? We all do? Congrats on not having had a full frontal lobotomy I guess?'

It's not really any different to saying "I have a temperature ". It's not strictly informative but in context we all know what it means.
OTOH I frequently assume it is shorthand for feeling bad, low, sad, anxious etc. rather than having a diagnosed psychological or psychiatric disorder.

I haven’t read it but (what’s worse) I have heard it used in real life! Agree it makes no sense and IMO it makes the speaker sound a bit thick.

I have noticed this too OP and it bemuses me.
People use the phrase to mean poor mental health but this makes no sense.
We all have mental health - it might be good, healthy & robust or might be problematic. For the state of one's mental health to be described, at least one more word needs to be added!

It's just people being thick, as usual.

It really annoys me! It's said on TV a lot.

YADDDDDNBU OP! Mental health seems to be something people now suffer from, while I grit my teeth to avoid saying ‘Congratulations’!

@Makeitmakesensetoday you’re right, it means nothing to say that one has ‘mental health’ as we all have it whether good, bad of indifferent.

There is a push to talk about mental ‘fitness’ rather than mental ‘health’ in counselling circles but that would still need to be quantified as in “I have poor mental fitness/good mental fitness” so not sure it would help much.

But that's like anything in life, some people don't know things. However, most of the people you will hear saying this are in the media, so presumably are fairly well educated. So there's no harm pointing out the correct way. Otherwise, how on earth do people learn anything?

I'd guess that, yes, people are entitled to use this phrase as shorthand for 'poor mental health.'

But, equally, people are entitled to find it incredibly irritating and meaningless.

Oh it bugs me too. And the Ariana grande song that says 'right now I'm in a state of mind' what state of mind??!!

I hear this a lot, and it annoys me. Physical and mental health are either good or bad. However we do use the phrase ‘Your health is your wealth’ so I think of the word ‘health’ on its own as being good/positive.

In days gone by we just said that a person was mental 🤣

@Jumpingthruhoops

But that's just it. Anyone with a genuine mental health disorder/condition/illness will know to say it the correct way

Come on now.

People get things wrong. People don't know things. People with mental health problems do not always know the right way, in fact they may have learning disabilities too, or maybe they haven't been basic educated. Not all people with medical problems of any description know the correct terminology.

I think this thread is in bad taste, imagine sitting in your darkest place and going online to see a group of people ripping apart the fact that you done say 'problems, issues or bad' when you say mental health.

Along similar lines, my mum and her friends like to claim "I have blood pressure". I always want to say good - if you had no blood pressure you probably wouldn't be feeling all that great.

I think it's just a poor grasp of the English language. I'm sure we can all think of examples we may do ourselves which don't quite make sense when you dig down into it.

I work in the nhs and I see it in formal papers and presentations eg “patients with mental health” end of sentence. I always correct it or send it for revisions with the note that it is an unfinished sentence. I’m waging a one-woman war in my own department.

I do notice this. “I’ve got mental health” sounds positive. There needs a be a “bad” or “issues” in there somewhere.