Language is powerful. How we talk about the world signals to us how we engage with it. How we use our voice lets us express where we situate ourselves in the world, how we view ourselves, and what we want others to perceive of us. We use language to get a message across, however, and whatever that message is. With the advent of social media and other online forms of communication, the way we use language has changed dramatically, how we craft our messages for others continues to evolve. And yet, one thing has remained the same: language is powerful.
In my first semester of graduate school, one of my professors assigned an article with the word “schizophrenic” was used in the title, as an adjective. Now, neither the assigning professor or the author of the article had the professional or educational credentials to be able to speak meaningfully about schizophrenia, and yet there was that word. Of course I and the other readers encountering this article knew what the author was trying to get across with the use of the word as an adjective. Schizophrenic was meant to elicit a certain extreme response, and yet the use of the word did something more than that. When we use words like “schizophrenic” or “schizo” or any other amalgamation, we are calling attention to the lenses unpredictability and fear that we view mental illness through. Mental illness is the monster we don’t want to confront, the monster that we find entertaining in horror movies and mystery novels. Mental illness is the monster that we give credit to when there is a mass shooting by a white man because we can’t fathom that such death and violence could be anything else. Mental illness is scary and mysterious, we don’t really get it as a society. And YET, at any given time approximately one in four individuals are dealing with a significant mental health issue. One in four. That is a quarter of the population. And yet even with that statistic, we are still scared of it.
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Several months ago I was talking to a girl on an online dating app. And in our conversation, the topic of an ex-girlfriend came out and she described her as “bipolar”. Of course, at that moment I was done with this girl, totally turned off and unmatched her. I was sitting on the other end of that comment with a body controlled by psychiatric drugs for bipolar disorder.
I am confident in saying that you and I have both read numerous articles and heard numerous news segments and had several conversations talking about our current presidential candidates. Works like crazy, psychotic, and sociopath are not void in these conversations. I am guilty of this too; I have called the large, orange monster crazy, too.
Using mental illness diagnoses as descriptors for things, people, and ideas we don’t like, understand, or agree with is dangerous. When we use “bipolar”, “crazy”, “schizophrenic”, or “psychotic”, etc. to describe these things several things happen. First, we create a connection between a mental illness that effects a physical organ to describe something more than unsavory, and in doing so we create a culture of fear around mental illness. We change the meaning of what we understand mental illness to be and turn it into something we begin to only understand through things like a mass shooter, a bad political candidate, or ludicrous ideas we don’t agree with. When this happens those living with mental illness, myself included, become vilified through the use of this language. We become the recipients of your fear.
What also happens is that because we use the language of mental illness so freely there becomes a false understanding of what mental illness is. I am sure that when I come out to people that I live with bipolar disorder they immediately start to piece together ideas of what that is for me. Bipolar disorder, like anything on the bipolar-schizophrenia spectrum, carries a distinct set of preconceived notions. It isn’t hard to find a movie, book, or some kind of adaptation that shows a character with such a disease. Bipolar disorder is often portrayed as this romantic series of highs and lows, accompanied with unpredictability and self-indulgence, not excluding promiscuity. The first response I get from people when I come out about my diagnosis is that they know someone that has it, so they get it. I am rarely asked what it is like for me. Rarely am I asked more about my experience, because after all these people know. I am negatively impacted by our willy-nilly use of the language of mental illness.
Language is so powerful, it separates us, and categorizes us into hierarchies. Mental illness language is no different. Okay, so what about other illnesses? What about using the word “cancer” as a descriptor. Cancer is different than a mental illness. There are cancer foundations and research teams all over the world fighting the good fight. We all know someone who has fought cancer, we have all read a book that shows the experience of cancer where the sufferer is portrayed in a negative light, we have all liked or joined a Facebook group dedicated to someone with cancer, and at one point in our life we have all donated to a cancer charity of some kind. Cancer is studied. Cancer has many, many fundraisers for the sufferers and for research to cure it. When you find out someone has cancer our emotional response is different: we offer to help out, we send money, we send food, we send flowers, and we stay somewhat involved. I don’t think I could name you one organization or foundation trying to cure a mental illness like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. And knowing this on those nights where my body hurts and my mind is racing because I am in another bipolar episode I get angry. I feel forgotten.
When we use the language that should just be used to describe and talk about mental illness as adjectives and descriptors we take away from the sufferers and those living with mental illness. After all, we don’t use the R-word as a descriptor for similar reasons that we don’t use the N-word, because those two words have weight and power that negatively impacts the lives of those who are living with developmental delays and are African American. Using language that should be reserved for conversations and people that are living with significant, chronic mental illnesses. We should be able to delineate the boundaries of the use of that language, we being those who are living with these mental illnesses. So for the record, that person in your life that you don’t like or agree with, that may be radical and extreme to you isn’t “bipolar” or “schizo.” Use your words better.
