To hate the use of 'mental health'

[BarbaraVineFan]

As someone who has mental health issues in their family, this is driving me increasingly mad (pardon the pun!)

Increasingly these days you see people saying or writing 'mental health' when they mean 'mental illness' or 'mental health problems'.

'I couldn't do X because of my mental health'- kind of ok.

'I couldn't do X because I have mental health'- incorrect and increasingly common.

Why is this? Is it because people don't like using the word 'illness'? It is baffling to me!

Ha ha I have been annoyed by this for ages! People saying they have mental health when they mean literally the opposite, that they don't have good mental health.

This annoys me as well. Also, using ‘postpartum’ on its own instead of postpartum depression

Yes, totally agree. Your mental health can be poor, good, complex, you can have problems or issues with your mental health or a mental health condition, or be grateful for stable mental health. Saying “I have mental health” means nothing!

YANBU
I remember seeing an episode of '999: What's Your Emergency?', and after a night in police cells for being drunk and disorderly, the lady that had been arrested said "I got mental elf".

Yes to both of these.
They make the person sound a bit dim.

'I've got mental health' omg drives me mad

I always mentally add an 'issues' to the end of the sentence when I hear it

i hate this ‘I’ve got mental health’ too!

The Secretary I work with constantly says it.. in the environment we work in she should know better. I have tried to explain it to her before by saying ‘we all have, do you mean poor mental health?’’ she just laughs it off like I am joking because she doesn’t get it.

Drives me nuts too - I tell people we all have mental health, I think you mean yours is poor at the moment?

YANBU but I fear it's a losing battle so I'm trying to just get used to it and suppress my wincing reflex when people say it.

YANBU! "She has mental health." Oh good for her!

I hate this too. I wonder if they think “mental” is the description? As in, my health has gone a bit mental

100% agree with the OP and I 100% agree with the above. I know I'll get slated for saying this but I used to go to a lot of baby groups with my DC and honest to god at times I felt I was the only person not claiming to have pnd or other "mental health " issues. I went through a fairly shit time with DC3 as she was a difficult baby and toddler and I also have an autistic child so I had a few years where it was a bit more stressful than I would have liked and I had a few very challenging days and was definitely fed up and bored but that's life. That phase passed as I knew it would.

I regularly get wound up by this. It just sounds as stupid to me as saying “I have physical health”. Just makes no sense. It either needs a “poor” before it or an “issues” after it.

Aside from that it’s also just incredibly vague!

This really annoys me too OP

I'm happy to say "I'm not doing this because of my OCD", when a relative wants me to pick up a sticky piece of cake out of a tray in their car boot....
😐
Taboo or not!

I agree. I posted on here months ago saying something wasn’t good for my mental health, so I wasn’t doing it and immediately I had posts assuming I had a mental illness that required attention. It was really odd.

I am so relieved to see that other people are annoyed by this, too. This has been irritating me for ages. It makes no sense!

This annoys me too. I did MHFA training and it was the first thing the trainer covered, thankfully!

Sorry but yabu. We all need to look after our physical and mental health. You would say 'I'm not going to eat lots of sugar to protect my health'. Likewise you might say 'I'm going to ask to cut my hours for my mental health' You don't have to have a diagnosis to protect your mental health.

Yanbu at people who say they have a mental illness when actually they don't. Or confusing normal feelings with serious illness . But all in all I think it's good that people can talk openly about mental health.

I suffer from both anxiety and depression and would have benefited greatly from an open dialogue in my younger years.

Agree with you completely.

And as if it’s still a taboo or mental illness isn’t talked about enough. Bollocks. For far too many people it’s all they bloody talk about.

Yep, it's an annoying (mis) use of language. You'd not use "physical health" or even just "health" in the same way - eg saying "I have my health" is counting-ypir -blessings language, or "I have physical health" is a good thing- but people do say "I have mental health" meaning they DON'T have good mental health!!!

None of this has anything to do with using the phrase "I have mental health" in place of "I have poor mental health".

I once heard DP telling the police (he was a witness to an incident) that he had “a mental health”.

English isn’t his first language and it annoyed me so much that I actually interrupted the conversation to correct him to stop him using it again 😂.

DP prefers to corrected and he’d obviously picked it up from someone else. The police officer raised her eyebrows though, I think she thought I was being picky but it didn’t make any sense at all.

Yes.

Sorry @TaraRhu, whilst I agree with everything you've said, you have missed the whole point of this thread.

Poor is an adjective