Imagine if your best friend or someone else you’re close with is living with undiagnosed psychosis or another mental illness. How would you think they feel about seeking help, especially when they live in a society where psycho or crazy are words that are used every day in casual conversation? Your friend may avoid seeking help because they feel horrible about themselves or because they don’t want to confirm that they are, in fact, “psycho” or “insane.” Words like these keep your friend from finding solutions and support. Now think about how many millions of people don’t seek help for this exact reason.
We don’t think much about using off-the-cuff words to describe other people famous, infamous, or without any fame at all. But words like nuts, crazy, and psycho do more damage than we know, collectively. These three words are just a few examples of how mental illness is further stigmatized by popular culture. Using words like psycho insane is no different than calling someone fat or ugly, though many of us don’t stop and realize that’s what we’re doing.
For those who live with psychosis, these kinds of pejorative terms only stigmatize and “other” their mental illness, even more, giving them less of an opportunity to relate with others experiencing similar circumstances. (For more information on psychosis, visit https://www.mind-diagnostics.org/blog/psychosis). According to Scott Bea, clinical psychologist, “When we are tossing about these words to describe other behaviors, it can make people who have these disorders feel very diminished. It can trivialize mental health.”
Mental illness is more common than many people think; twenty percent of Americans live with some form of mental illness every day. Yet, many of us don’t talk about it, hiding it so that others don’t see it. When we talk about it, it may be casual with words like psycho, bi-polar, or OCD thrown out there to label people as dysfunctional or different.
So while a good portion of us live with mental illness, many of us don’t talk about it with others because of the stigma continually reinforced by calling each other names like these. The other issue with using clinical terms in such a casual way is the labeling effect using these words creates. Each person coping with psychosis is different from the other. Although the underlying symptom trend may be similar, individual experiences with psychosis are not the same. But by calling people psycho, an insulting umbrella of craziness is cast over people who live with the illness.
Individuals living with psychosis are so much more than their disease. They are ordinary people with the same trials, tribulations, loves, and interests as others. However, they have other battles to overcome when it comes to mental illness like psychosis or other conditions. When people use mental health-related words as a negative label, it insinuates that people who live with mental illness are bad people or less than. It deepens the stigma and discourages people who have a mental illness from seeking help.
While words like psycho, nuts, or crazy won’t disappear overnight, we can slowly make a change by refraining from their use. We can challenge ourselves to be fairer and more accurate with our words when talking about people we know. We can encourage others to be more thoughtful as well. We don’t need to condemn people who use these words, especially since their use is usually not ill-intended. But with a little more mindfulness on the effects of these words, we can all do our part to reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness.
Marie Miguel Biography
Marie Miguel has been a writing and research expert for nearly a decade, covering a variety of health- related topics. Currently, she is contributing to the expansion and growth of a free online mental health resource with Mind-Diagnostics.org. With an interest and dedication to addressing stigmas associated with mental health, she continues to specifically target subjects related to anxiety and depression.
