One example I’m not sure works as well is usage of the word “depressed”. I could be wrong here, but hasn’t that word been used colloquially long before it gained a medical meaning? I was under the impression that “depressed” was actually coopted BY the medical field for that condition, not the other way around.

To that end, I am not sure saying “that’s depressing” or “I’m a little depressed right now” should be taken the same way as “Oh I’m totally OCD”. I think that using the term depressed in that way is entirely legitimate, and a word we do need to describe a non-medical sadness that lasts based on actual life circumstances.

The problem is conflating the two definitions, as you go on to point out. Someone says “I have depression” (a phrasing that I only hear in the medical sense) and what someone else hears is “I’m depressed”. Those are two totally different things with very little if any overlap, and shouldn’t be mixed up. However, asking that people stop using the word “depressed” as it has always been used is a bit of an extreme measure. It is far easier to expand than change a mind, so maybe we should be using a more clinical sounding term. “Clinically depressed” has been making great strides in clearing up that confusion, at least around my neck of the woods, but maybe we can do one better and come up with a phrase that removes the word “depress” entirely from the medical term.

It might also be over exposure to pain porn. I’m often completely amazed at the appetite for consuming someone’s horrible experiences. I often run into people who seem to want me to talk about nothing but how hard it is to be living with PTSD, and don’t seem to realize how objectifying it is to demand that I remain a tragic figure emanating pain 24/7. There’s more to me than that.

I’m not sure I see any evidence that war is taken less seriously BECAUSE OF such usage. It’s taken less seriously for other reasons, to be sure.

Further, mental illness terms are specialized language devised to refer to very specific things. “War” and “kill” are not.

I don’t oppose all metaphor. I’m a creative writer after all.

“I made a killing on the stock market”
“Stop it, you’re killing me!’
“There is a war being waged against intellectuals”
“I am getting killed with these taxes”
“The war on poverty is not working”

Also, what do you think about the word “mad”?

I also feel conflicted about ‘paranoid,’ because I feel that certain people (anti-vaxxers) are showing signs of real paranoia, particularly given their immunity to evidence, whereas certain people get labeled ‘paranoid’ when their behavior is really pretty rational – if you have any discussion about rape (which I get into frequently) a sizable contingent of men will label pretty much all women ‘paranoid,’ but absurd views with some political clout get taken seriously. it’s kind of a privilege game; thinking Obama is building secret FEMA death camps to kill white male heterosexual Christians is seen (in some quarters) as a reasonable assessment, but a woman showing some reluctance to allow a man she doesn’t know well to ‘walk her home’ is paranoid, or a Black teenager who runs from cops is ‘paranoid.’

Of course, assessments of mental health don’t take place in a vacuum. But yeah, it’s tough to know the right words sometimes.

Thanks smrnda. Those are very good points, and I’ll definitely take those to heart.

I generally only use the term “Paranoid” in reference to distinguish the conspiracy theories which continually expand regardless of evidence (i.e. Antivaxxers), as opposed to those which are constrained by the evidence (i.e. Watergate) . This is mostly because of the tendency for some conspiracy theorists to accuse those who oppose their position as being in on the conspiracy.

That said, I’ll continue to seek alternative descriptions that don’t invoke mental illness

I find ableism is often so mainstream it makes buzzwords out of serious mental illness within the mainstream culture, such that I’ve found myself listening to very privileged people talking in serious tones about how Traumatizing this or that menial but supremely difficult thing they just did, was to them, when the reality is that it was supremely difficult, they should feel the proper reward for their effort, but not lay claim to ableist language. I’ve had this happen so many times in my presence it’s teeth gritting every time. Of course I can fall prey to doing it to; such is the pressure of the wider culture.

What I’ve found, in the end, for my rule of thumb is that I needle myself to test people: if they try to say I’m being ableist for trying to make a joke out of my suffering to cope, then I know I’m dealing with a cruel asshole and a privileged clueless person, trying to pretend to be anything but those terms and failing badly. I’ve often found lots of people fit into this category: they’ll sound totally convincing, like they get what mental illness is, but then when I start joking about my own mental illness, even when they don’t have any actual diagnosed disability and a form of mental illness different from my own, they’ll try to hold me account to being ‘ableist’ or stupidly pretend like somehow I’m just making it all up because they naively believe survivors would never joke about what they’ve been through. I’ve seen that happen time and again too, and it’s really funny when it happens, because the person doing it isn’t aware they’ve just exposed themselves as either frauds to me, or clueless about reams of privilege that they have that I don’t have. It gets me everytime: makes me smile =)