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!

Not heard this but linguistically similar to 'dietary requirements', which has become a standard term in place of 'special', 'restricted' or 'particular' dietary requirements. We all have dietary requirements - and mental health - of some sort.

If you use the word suffer you're acting like a victim - "I suffer with mental health issues" makes you sound miserable and negative. It sounds more positive to say "I live with mental health issues " or "I manage my mental health issues."

But lots (including me) so suffer from mental ill health SugarIsAmazing

If you use the word suffer you're acting like a victim - "I suffer with mental health issues" makes you sound miserable and negative.

I don’t agree. People do suffer. People also suffer from heart disease etc.

We all have mental health. It depends if it's good,bad,somewhere in between.
Do you have mental health? Yep.

Just like everyone has (physical) health of various degrees. You don't ask people if they have health if they've been ill,do you?

And yes some people do suffer,some live,some manage,some barely survive. Nothing victimy about it.

'I suffer from mental health' does make sense. As the key word there I think is suffer.

This doesn't make sense. You can suffer with your mental health in the same way you can suffer with your health. You don't hear people saying they suffer from health so putting "mental" before it doesn't change the grammar. I think it's a bit like people who think you must use "I" rather than "me" after "and", regardless of the context.

@SugarIsAmazing meh. I'll stick with suffer. I get all the arguments, I've sat through then often enough, but when I'm having a panic attack, it's definitely suffering and certainly doesn't feel managed!

So to me it just seems easier to say I suffer from anxiety. Rather than I have anxiety, or I live with anxiety.

Nothing wrong with any of those, at least from a grammatical perspective. Not so good or easy on a day to day basis.

I used to work in medical communications, and we wouldn't use the word "suffer" in reference to patients, even if the condition in question was something that obviously causes suffering. For e.g. we wouldn't say "COPD sufferers", we'd say "patients with COPD". Also wouldn't put the condition before the person, e.g. "a Down's syndrome baby" should be "a baby with Downs syndrome". But if someone wants to describe themselves as a sufferer (or not) then that's their prerogative, surely. I while ago i had a newspaper article published and i mentioned "my Deaf daughter", who was culturally Deaf (used bsl as first language). Editor changed it to "daughter who is deaf", which was quite annoying as it was incorrect in this context!

Oh my god I hate this too!
Yes it is definitely used by some people to mean mental illness or mental health problems. When it simply is a term to differentiate from physical health.

Drives me nuts. Everyone has mental health, some, however, have poor mental health or mental health issues.

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”

This. I completely agree with you @dangermouseisace

I would never say I have ‘mental health problems’ (or mental health ) because that seems to be a term thrown around to describe feeling A Bit Down or Slightly Nervous.

Years ago, I remember reading leaflets on depression which clearly differentiated between clinical depression and feeling a bit under the weather because you can’t fit into your jeans (that was actually the analogy they used). Now it seems that everybody has experienced depression and ‘mental health’, in many cases self-diagnosed and as you say, cured by yoga and a vegan diet.

I suspect IABVVVVVVU but I find it frustrating that ‘mental health problems’ are the zeitgeist when I had to give up a good career, endure multiple hospital admissions and have to take medication for the rest of my life to manage the debilitating condition that is bipolar disorder.