please start questioning why you call bad people “psychotic” or “crazy” or “nuts” or “insane”.
please start questioning why your automatic response to someone who is visibly symptomatic is to dismiss them as “crazy”, roll your eyes, and mock them as though they are subhuman.
please start thinking about why you associate mental illness with being evil or cruel or mean, why you use words like “insane” or “crazy” to mean something that bothers you, something you don’t like.
this shit matters. words matter. slurs matter. this isn’t about people choosing to “get offended”.
the semiotics involved in continually associating badness with mental illness is what leads to mentally ill people getting killed by police, abused by their family members, losing custody of their children, going to jail instead of getting treatment.
It leads to losing our jobs and our friends, to our partners infantilizing and invalidating us.
it leads to being associated with mass murderers, to violent and horrific acts being explained away by mental illness, to reputable news sources calling for taking away our privacy and forcibly institutionalizing us.
STOP USING THE WORD CRAZY IF IT HAS NOT BEEN USED AGAINST YOU IN AN EFFORT TO TAKE AWAY YOUR RIGHTS OR INVALIDATE YOUR HUMANITY
In case anyone finds themselves confused about how using words like crazy or insane can actually be very harmful, even if it’s not “intended” to be.