I notice a lot of people use terms like “psychotic” or “psychopath” as insults and negative descriptions on here. These are clinical terms that are used to describe real people with difficulties, not boogeymen! I don’t disagree with the sentiment that these people are doing wrong, but if you wouldn’t use the r-slur or “autistic” as an insult (which you shouldn’t) then you shouldn’t use these words either. And I get the idea of calling someone delusional, but take care that you don’t just mean “I disagree with them.” Though by posting on neurodiverse I imagine I’m preaching to the choir.
Sincerely, a casual schizoaffective disorder haver.
Unfortunately very normalised in society. Even I was only alerted to words like “insane” being very hurtful a few months ago. I’m a big “absurd”, “ridiculous” and of course “unserious” user now.
Good post,
hopefully there can be selfcrit and waning usage of these terms in harmful contexts.
I usually open people’s eyes on the term crazy when I have the right audience because our discourse around that term is the obvious stuff but also it implies that someone should be locked up or deprived of rights but it’s also very common to use it to imply that someone “deserves” to be taken advantage of (“our prices are crazy” and “we’ve gone completely mad”).
Kinda gross when you think about it, especially in the context of the stats on mentally ill people being abused and exploited.
“lame” and “crippled/crippled by” were pointed out to me by a friend who has muscular dystrophy a few years ago, they are also both incredibly common. I’ve sadly had quite a bit of pushback when trying to correct comrades on it (even in the old r/CTH sub)