Mental health

[Tonnerre]

... is increasingly used to mean mental ill-health. It always makes me do a double take. It's obviously not something you can really pick people up on, so I thought I'd have a quick vent on here.

[Whatwouldbigfatfannydo]

Makes me irrationally angry. Everyone has 'mental health', same as 'heart health', 'oral health' etc!

[Flippetydip]

Yes, I'm with you. Surely everyone has mental health to some degree or other. The other that always makes me think twice is "he's on the spectrum" to which I always think (and indeed occasionally say) "surely we're all on the spectrum somewhere".

[Bronzegate]

When people use "mental health" to mean mental illness or mental health difficulties, they are saying the opposite of what they mean. It undermines the discussion and hinders understanding.

[Ironoaks]

Flippetydip
We are not all on the autism spectrum.

The spectrum is not a scale of severity of autistic impairment.

Everyone on the autism spectrum meets the diagnostic criteria for autism; the spectrum illustrates the different ways in which this manifests.

[CustardySergeant]

This has been annoying me for ages, although when I started a thread similar to this one on MN no one agreed with me. I don't know why they think it makes sense. No one ever refers to someone who has a physical illness by saying "He/she's got physical health" because it's obviously not true, yet "He/she's got mental health" is now frequently said and written to mean the opposite. Increasingly, people don't think about what the words they're saying actually mean (as with "would of" etc).

[Flippetydip]

Ironoaks" but they never specify autistic spectrum. I do take your point though.