Buy a thesaurus: Stop using mental illnesses causally

Using the names of mental illnesses casually or as figures of speech has become common in conversation, and this needs to stop.

I wish I were exaggerating, but I hear someone use a mental illness term in an incorrect and colloquial way at least once a day. This is harmful for so many reasons.

Using mental illnesses casually categorizes these illnesses into positive or negative illnesses. It makes the illness sound significantly less serious than it is and further contributes to the stigma of mental illnesses.

When you use a mental illness casually, this categorizes mental illnesses into two categories: those that are acceptable to have and those that are not.

People often say those who have an organized closet or clean home are OCD. If your mom is happy with you one moment and yelling at you the next, you might refer to her as bipolar. This makes OCD sound like a positive trait to have and makes bipolar disorder sound like a negative trait.

Not only do those people not have a mental illness, these illnesses strongly affect an individual’s daily life and are not positive.

Casually using a mental illness in conversation dilutes the seriousness of the illness and makes it sound like much less of an issue than it really is.

For people living with these illnesses, their lives are often consumed by them. Their illnesses can keep them from living life the way they want to.

Just because you could not sleep one night does not mean you have insomnia. Insomniacs often cannot sleep for weeks.

Just because you got scared because you lost your keys does not mean you had a panic attack. My panic attacks make me feel like there is a 50 pound weight on my chest and like I might die of asphyxiation.

These illnesses are serious and should not be spoken about casually because you do not have a better word to use.

Using mental illnesses casually further promotes the stigma already attached to them. Physical illnesses are often ranked as more important than mental illnesses and this proves that.

If you had a cough, you would not tell someone that you had bronchitis or pneumonia unless you had been professionally diagnosed. Why would you treat a mental illness any differently?

Being a psychology minor, I hear people use these terms incorrectly and all I hear is ignorance. I know that I cannot expect someone who has never taken psychology classes to know the definition of these illnesses, but they are much more than you are making them out to be.

The next time you want to use a mental illness casually, pick up a thesaurus instead and choose a better word.