Is mental health now interchangeable

[Stoveding]

as a phrase with poor mental health, or mental ill health?

I keep hearing people on radio and tv saying 'people with mental health need xyx' or 'I suffer from mental health'.

Shouldn't they be saying 'poor mental health' or 'mental ill health' if they mean illness?

Driving me mad!

YANBU. I get really annoyed by this, too.

Mental health issues is the norm particularly when generalising

Oh I haven’t heard that yet. It isn’t quite accurate is if? But I guess it’s just an abbreviation. Can’t say it would bother me all that much.

Is it? Not is if?

You’re picking on the grammatical correctness of people suffering with mental health problems?

That’s really nice.

Its more about the broadcasters actually, not the 'sufferers' (of which I am one)

Well, yes, the examples you've given would be incorrect but I haven't actually ever heard anyone say that.

I suppose it’s similar to people saying they have a temperature as a shortening for high temperature.

YANBU. I have a diagnosed mental illness and this is driving me mad. We all have mental health the question is, how healthy is it? It’s just sloppy.

Yanbu.

I suppose it's no different to people who have "blood pressure" when they mean high blood pressure. If they didn't have blood pressure, they'd be dead.

It initiates me, though, because it's a euphemism. We still can't say "I was mentally ill" "she is mentally ill" without stigma.

"She's got mental 'elf" is still more socially acceptable than "she is ill." And I think that is a problem. If you can't name it, you're not really talking about it.

this is driving me mad. Lol. Sorry.

Why can't we talk about the madness? Because people are scared. So it's been sanitised to "mental health" to make it sound less scary. But if we can't talk about the madness, how do we treat and prevent the madness?

Yanbu.
Everyone has 'mental health'. It's just that some of us have good mental health and some of us have poor mental health.

Yanbu this annoys me too. It’s like saying I have cardiac health if you have a bad heart and that absolutely makes no sense.

yes totally gets on my nerves too !

I work in mental health and I swear all nurses, social workers etc say this and it irritates me every day!

I've noticed this too. It's weird!

It's like when people say "I've got blood pressure.". Ofcourse you do, if you didn't you'd be in serious trouble!

YANBU, I've noticed it too and it's weird.

@GardenGeek some people don't like the word 'suffer'. I've sat through meetings discussing it.

Personally I think it's fine. I suffer from anxiety, that's a perfectly accurate description.

Really annoying. I have a mental illness

I've noticed this too. It annoys me! Instead of "I suffer from mental health", it should be "I suffer with my mental health", or "I suffer from mental health problems".

It's like saying "I suffer from health" if you have a physical ailment, doesn't make sense!

Someone asked me the other day if I have blood pressure (whilst telling me they have high bp.

I said that I assumed I did, or I would be dead.

I have also been asked if I have 'mental health' too.

You can look after your mental health, but you have a mental illness.

Unless of course, you have some bullshit self diagnosed issue like “high functioning anxiety” ie getting a bit worried sometimes, or “high functioning depression” being a bit down...I thought that’s what people allude to when they have “mental health problems”

It pisses me off too- I have a mental illness that has, for long periods, meant that I couldn’t function on a day to day basis. Anyone who goes on about their mental health problem, that they recovered from without any medication or outside help, usually by ‘reading and doing yoga’ can shove their bloody books up their arse.

Ahem.