Some people seem to use 'mental health' as an excuse for poor behaviour?

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I've just seen on my local Facebook page a shouty post from what I assume is a local young woman having a go at the man who questioned whether she should be in a disabled parking space. She admitted that she is not a blue badge holder but "I have mental health" and it's none of this man's business. She had needed to go to the supermarket to get some food, which now she couldn't eat as she was so upset, so this man had caused her to starve and she hoped he was happy with himself. It really was a huge rant.
Personally, I think she's just an arsehole. Looking at some of her previous posts on the community page, she is an attention seeker and often details at length about her problems in order to get sympathy, favours and, sometimes, free stuff.
Mental health issues are, thank goodness, beginning to be taken more seriously, although there are still huge improvements to be made. AIBU to think, with (maybe slightly lessening, but still) stigma attached to MH issues, it is not helpful for people using (real or self-diagnosed) MH issues to behave like arseholes?

1. No random person in the street should be policing the use of a blue badge.
2. There is definitely a drop in resilience and using poor mental Health as an excuse by asshats. You just need to look on the relationship boards to see so many women concerned with their shitty, shitty partners mh, rather than seeing theyre abusive nobs.

YANBU as such. It really doesn't help our cause when some people use theirs as an excuse for rubbish behaviour or the ones that may or may not make it up for those kinds of purposes. What she did was crappy regardless of if she has MH or not

Some people are just arseholes whether they've got mental health issues or not just like some people with diabetes are arseholes or some people with broken legs are arseholes there's always going to be arseholes in life and that's all there is to it.

Nope but I also can’t stand people who police potential blue badge holders ok in this instant she wasn’t. But Iv seen people being questions by the public posting about it far to many times also.

YANBU about someone with no blue badge using a disabled parking bay and ranting that they feel entitled to do so. You can get a blue badge for MH conditions that affect your mobility. So this woman was clearly in the wrong for using a disabled bag with no blue badge. She is even more wrong to not realise that was wrong and I hope her Facebook rant is turned in and she is fined by the local authority for parking there.

YABU to expect actual mentally ill people to behave well in public or social situations. There is a reason why they are mentally ill and it includes the incapacity to control behaviour and emotional responses.

YANBU to expect self diagnosed pretenders of mental illness to act normally. There are many assholes who do appropriate and claim to have mental illnesses that they do not have to excuse their conscious and deliberate bad behaviour.

I complete by agree that this man probably acted like a bit of a twat. Maybe he saw that he had no blue badge and felt he was doing the right thing, who knows? I do suspect that this woman was possibly exaggerating a bit though. Obviously you've not seen her previous posts (or if local to me maybe you have!) but she comes across as a bit of a professional victim and an attention seeker. She has to mention her mental health in every post, so for example:
Her: Anyone know what time X chemist is open? I really need to collect my meds
Reply1: Would you like me to Google that for you?
Reply2: it's just as easy to look on their website as it is to ask on FB.
Her: There's no need to bully me, I've got mental health, thanks very much, I'm going to be sick all day now.

I agree OP.
I think her rant would be mostly exaggerated to rationalise her asshole behaviour because she knows she was in the wrong.

You might call it attention, but it's actually just interaction for some people. We don't all have people to talk to in real life.

I never see the need for the likes of those two replies. It is quicker to ask on FB and you get the correct information. Websites etc aren't always accurate.

We seem to want people to suffer in silence and not talk about their issues. Whilst telling everyone to be open and that it's nothing to be ashamed of. Likewise after every suicide etc we all wonder why they didn't speak out.

You've diagnosed this person based on FB, what sort of person does that make you?

I've not diagnosed anybody?!

As someone with mh problems , it has made me behave in some wild and unreasonable ways in the past. Nothing to do with resiliance actually...i have survived and thrived despute of this but just has made me shouty in the past.
What is wrong is when well people do this.

Malificent, well done for overcoming your problems!
I have no idea if this woman is well or really struggles with poor mental health, despite the PP saying I've diagnosed her on FB. I am not judging anybody with mental health issues so i think my OP has been misinterpreted. My AIBU is about when people (well or otherwise) use MH (real, self-diagnosed or imaginary) issues as an excuse for poor behaviour, e.g. parking in a disabled bay without a blue badge or calling people bullies.
You see it on here sometimes, some posters suggesting that if somebody is behaving unreasonably it may be because they have MH issues when not all MH issues make people behave like arseholes and not all arseholes have MH issues!

No offence but I doubt anyone of normal mind would post that on Facebook. Even if it’s attention seeking, it’s not normal sound mind behaviour. However she’s an arsehole for trying to use a disabled space when she doesn’t have a blue badge.

YABU to expect actual mentally ill people to behave well in public or social situations. There is a reason why they are mentally ill and it includes the incapacity to control behaviour and emotional responses.

What utter tosh. I'm a mental health nurse and mental ill health encompasses a huge range of conditions, symptoms and behaviours. To say mentally ill people have the "incapacity to control behaviour and emotional response" sells those who suffer incredibly short and excuses the behaviour of those who do use their mental health as a get out of jail free card to do whatever they please.

excuses the behaviour of those who do use their mental health as a get out of jail free card to do whatever they please.

Just to add that this a minority of people.

YANBU i know loads of people like this who have self diagnosed themselves with some MH issue or other and use it as an excuse to be an utter cunt to everyone around them and if you dare question their behaviour you get jumped on and accused of bullying them for their MH problem which they can't help even if no one mentioned MH in the first place they'll bring it up. Gives the genuine sufferers a bad name and makes it harder for them to seek help for fear of been accused of making it up

I'm confused, (apols if I've read it wrong OP). Her other Facebook post mentions collecting her meds, so she's not using 'self diagnosed MH issues as an excuse for poor behaviour', she has an issue she's on meds for. BPD & Bi Polar people I've met can seem very shouty/ranty, irrational & attention seeking on occasion, so as she mentions picking up meds, maybe she actually does have a MH issue that's causing her to behave badly re blue badge etc. It's not very logical behaviour is it to strop about being caught using something allocated to others who need it.

Yanbu

FormerlyFrik.
There ARE mentally ill people who cannot control their behaviour and emotional responses in public and social situations. That is all I said and what I meant by using the word “includes” (which you dropped to quote me out of context).
What is “utter tosh” to say that all mentally ill people can pass for normal all the time in public and social situations and that my comment is selling sufferers short. Not all can. And many can only do so on good days.
You sound like the gulag mental health nurse that tortured me when I was sectioned and a patient in a secure mental hospital. No empathy just unreasonable expectations that a sufferer should be able to mask and pretend they are not suffering.

I find it really bizarre that a substantial number of people seem to believe that you can have a mental health condition without deviating at all from normal behaviour. Or maybe is it just that you can be sympathetic to a person with a mental health condition as long as their behaviour does not impact you. Despite all the current wave of advertisements on the TV I think most people have a really poor understanding of the level of choice in mental health.

People definitely do this. Not most or even alot of people. But some do.

I know them personally.

I imagine her mental health issues perhaps cause her to have No boundaries
just hide her posts

Sadly a lot of people misuse the Blue parking spaces and it creates a lot of difficulty for genuine badgeholders, esp those with non visible ailments who shouldnt feel pressured in anyway to explain anything, but inevitably because of situations like this get pounced on.

Quite a lot of people who park illegally in blue card spaces say they have mh issues, she is just another one of those people ... the mh bit is a smoke screen ... she's been caught out doing something wrong and as a lot of folks shouted to cover up.

If she needs a badge she can apply for one, and get support applying if there are difficulties. Hopefully she can control herself better when actually driving!

YABU to take a single example of one woman’s behaviour, and use it to generalise across the population. Some people are arseholes. Some people have mental health problems. The two are not mutually exclusive, and mental health has little enough support as it is without people adding to the stigma.

YABU to expect actual mentally ill people to behave well in public or social situations. There is a reason why they are mentally ill and it includes the incapacity to control behaviour and emotional responses.

Some mentally ill people lose or never had the capacity to control their behavior. Many many more are capable of it, and you do mentally ill people a grave disservice perpetuating myths that suggest they are a homogenous group of people inclined to behave in the same way.

Only the tit.

I am one of the mentally ill, and so I think I have more direct experience as to what we can and cannot do?
Get real. A mentally ill person is not going to act strangely and unwell in public if they are able to control themselves at that time. Therefore, every time you see a mentally unwell person acting strangely in public, they are actually mental ill and not in control.
I was responding to the OP saying that some mentally ill people when they do not act appropriately that it can be because they chose not to control themselves. That is ableism and my statement is correct that she is BU in what she said.
If we can control ourselves, we do. And you don’t give us a second glance in public because we are passing for normal. If we are not passing for normal I’m public you can guarantee it’s due to symptoms we cannot control. To say we have control is ableism.