You Can't Diagnose Mental Illness from a Tweet

Today at the Daily Dot, I discussed the strange Twitter behavior of a former Paypal executive and the predictable mass rush to claim that it’s evidence of “mental illness”:

Is Rakesh Agrawal mentally ill? I have no idea, and neither do you.

There’s a long history of using mental illness as a multipurpose scapegoat when people do bizarre, harmful, or dangerous things. Mass shootings are frequently blamed on mental illness despite little evidence, as is homosexuality, kinky sex, atheism, and, apparently, weird tweets.

This accomplishes a number of things. First of all, where the behavior is harmless to others but is nevertheless not tolerated by the public–homosexuality, kinky sex, gender nonconformity–categorizing the behavior as a mental illness gives us a convenient excuse to try to change it. Second, where the behavior is harmful but we don’t want to deal with its actual, structural causes–mass shootings, sexual assault, spending too much money–categorizing the behavior as a mental illness allows us to feel like we’re doing something to prevent it without having to ask any difficult questions about how our society may be contributing to it.

Finally, when the behavior has (justifiably or otherwise) made people upset at the person, categorizing the behavior as a mental illness packs an extra punch to the insults directed at that person. That’s because mental illness is stigmatized. It shouldn’t be, but it still is. Calling someone “crazy” or telling them to “get back on their meds” or “check into the psych ward” is insulting because being the type of person who needs medication or hospitalization is presumed to be shameful.

Read the rest here.

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You Can't Diagnose Mental Illness from a Tweet
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