To think we should put a stop to terms like 'toxic', 'narcissistic', 'gaslighting'...

Some people might use it that way, others might be making a decision after years of abuse from a family member. As I said further up, I know one person who I strongly suspect is a diagnosable narcissist and it's been quite freeing for me to be able to predict her behaviour and react accordingly. We are NC with her now and her previous tactics to get our attention are not working because we recognise them for what they are.

With the rise of these terms has come a rise of women recognising their partners are abusive, display red flags, or are just not good enough.

I do understand what you mean, but it’s not entirely negative.

I’ve got a friend who’s very keen on describing every failed past relationship as having been ‘toxic’. When I ask what happened in the relationships - and she’s always eager to tell - it turns out to be that her and the bloke didn’t get on, or she thought the boyfriend was selfish and inattentive.

Since ‘toxic’ would include criminal level coercion, control or violence it’s a very misleading way to talk about unsuccessful relationships.

That’s absolutely not the case. If people are making armchair diagnoses of else’s behaviour, they are just rehashing half-understood magazine pop psychology and memes to try to make something sound objective and more serious.

Mostly ‘she’s narcissistic’ means ‘she’s not nice to me’, nothing more.

It's really not.

It takes people about 15 seconds to notice if someone else is ND. They just generally process it as not liking that person but not being able to put their finger on why. I'd much prefer it if people could recognise that they have immediately taken against someone not because of their incredible instinct to identify someone with bad vibes but just because the subject of their dislike is autistic and they need to work on their prejudice.

Also recognising when someone's behaviour is narcissistic is very helpful in avoiding enabling.

But only if you happen to be a psychologist or a psychiatrist, or if the person you are talking about has received a clinical diagnosis of one of those conditions.

Calling people a psycho dates back at least to my own childhood in the 90s.

As for noticing traits, it might be only a psychiatrist who can formally diagnose but it's not complicated to be able to recognise traits of narcissism or many other disorders. We can all access to DSM quite easily. I think I only know one true narcissist, and reframing her behaviour in this way helps me to deal with the destruction she causes and avoid getting sucked into her drama triangles. "Diagnosing" her in this way only affects my response to her behaviour, it doesn't involve me "treating" her in any way.

I take anyone saying their ex is a narcissist with a pinch of salt, as if they were all correct about 90% of the population would be narcissists. But if it helps people to process pain and avoid abuse then that's positive.

Toxicity is a very broad term and can apply to a wide range of unhealthy situations.

I'm thoroughly fed up with people using these terms.
fair enough, but can't police what other people use.

"Psychopath" is used widely, the song ^sweet but psycho" was everywhere at one point, I don't think anyone expects it to be the description of an actual clinical diagnosis.

It's like people using the term "OCD" it might irritate some, but it's still going strong for behaviours that are not actual OCD

People know it's not an accurate description, the same way most women will keep using the word vagina - they know technically it's vulva, but they want to stick with vagina. Everyone understands perfectly what they mean, so who cares? I mean it might irritate some, but most people won't care.

It's marginally irritating when people use clinical words to make themselves look more important, but just ignore.

I agree with you but think problem isn’t the word it’s the behaviour.

It feels like we’ve reached a point where how someone feels matters more than what’s actually happening. Feelings are treated as proof, and resilience is presented as self harm. The system has ended up rewarding people for stepping back rather than helping them get back on their feet. Meanwhile, anyone who is resilient or does get back up is brushed off as just being 'lucky', conveniently ignoring the hard work and effort it took/is taking.

When relying on other people’s money or support becomes normalised - and even encouraged - as the first stop, there’s not going to be much motivation to take responsibility or try to move forward.

We do need compassionate support system for those who cannot push through or who are on the edge but the figures don't lie - the current system is broken. More importantly, it's unsustainable.

Exactly.

These pseudo-psychiatric terms (‘pseudo’ in the mouths of amateur diagnosers) don’t help the few genuine cases and just obscure the truth about the vast bulk of everyday behaviour.

They are not terms l use, but how on earth are you going to put a stop to them?

Not everyone, but many ordinary taxpayers and people who own one home did exactly what successive governments encouraged them to do: work and/or go to uni, pay tax, buy a home, and save for retirement. Liebour is repeatedly trying to make them believe that they are the broad-shouldered wealthy, and that the results of their productivity, their home, pension, or savings, represents greed, luck, unearned wealth, asset hoarding, or under utilisation of assets. This is then framed as behaviour in need of correcting so they can 'pay their fair share'. As if income tax, higher-rate income tax, National Insurance, VAT, tax on interest, tax on private pensions, stamp duty, VAT on building work, and council tax do not already count.

We are where we are because of decades of policy and regulatory failure, spiraling welfare costs, and genuinely wealthy individuals and large corporations that do not pay their fair share. Shifting the burden onto the same group of ordinary workers and homeowners, and trying to make them believe that they are the problem is gaslighting.

They are shorthand for a specific pattern of behaviours, not just being selfish. Most people who use them recognise they aren't a diagnosis.
Ban them by all means, but you need to propose what to replace them with, otherwise you just make it harder for people to recognise abusive behaviours, discuss them, or work out how to deal with them.

I agree, I'm so stuck of therapy speak and pop psychology, self indulgent and meaningless. But people think it's more impressive to call their mother in law narcissitic, than just say she's a selfish cow and I don't like her.

You think Labour is trying to make everyone in the country doubt their own sanity? Don’t be ridiculous.

YABVU
A couple of these terms were appropriated from the ancient Greeks by professionals to describe patterns of behaviour people kept encountering. The language isn’t the problem. it's the behaviour that made the language necessary in the first place.

I use and will continue to use gaslighting in respect of Labour because it is an apt descriptor:

I am rather more concerned about that percentage of humanity whose vocabulary seems mostly to consist of vulgar four letter words and little else.
Fortunately, that is more prevalent on facebook than mums net.

Of those you mention, I believe narcissistic/narcissism is useful and doesn't have relevant synonym.

Hard disagree. My brother sexually abused my sister and me. Her for decades it turns out. His parents carpet sweep for him to maintain the family image. Actually that was the first thing my mother said when she found out about the abuse I experienced, what would the family think if they ever found out. She then went on to explain how I’d ruin his life and every one else life if I spoke out. Her complete lack of concern for what I had experienced as a young child and her ability to centre herself and her ego as the victim in what had happened was so unbelievably hard to deal with. It turned out she need not have worried because plenty of people were willing to turn a blind eye and stay silent to keep up appearances which is what so many victims of abuse experience.

My husband’s father in law physically assaulted my mother in law many times in front of his children, used a tonne of coercive control on her for decades, abused her mentally and psychologically.

None of these people have ever been diagnosed with anything and as is typical of those with personality disorders it is their victims who end up in therapy not them.

Just because you have not been exposed to abuse or abusers why do you feel you should be allowed to “gatekeep” the language that those of us who have been abused use to speak about the abuse we have experienced. I honestly find people who deny and minimise and enable abusers by attempting to shut down language because of their own discomfort at putting patterns of behaviour together really upsetting.

Their willful ignorance shouldn’t still amaze me after what I have experienced but it really does sometimes and willful ignorance is not a charming trait.

Sounds like a boundary to me, OP.

yes, the terms are overused. But if even a small percentage of the population genuinely has narcissistic traits, then statistically there are plenty of them on any large forum. It makes you think about the ones who get especially defensive or try to police how the word is used

Actually, I think it has the opposite effect. It is valid in your case, but hear all the time where it is clearly exaggerated, and people just end up rolling their eyes, dismissing it and moving on.

If somebody tells lies they’re a liar, dishonest. If somebody disagrees with you, they just disagree with you.

In neither case does ‘gaslighting’ say anything useful or even make sense.

If somebody’s a cheat they’re unfaithful. If somebody uses violence they’re a criminal guilty of assault or worse. If somebody disregards you they’re selfish.

In none of these cases does ‘toxic’ or ‘narcissist’ say anything useful or even make sense.

Those vogue words are just means of following fashion and cover up being too lazy to find proper words to say clearly what someone’s done.

You don’t have to be a professional psychiatrist to recognise, through widely-discussed and agreed aspects of behaviour, that a person is displaying one or more of the specific types of behaviour that lead you to use the correct and specific adjectives associated with these, to describe their behaviour towards you.

YABU. And clearly don’t understand correct use of adjectives!