Tiny survey/research question if anyone feels like helping
POSTED BY: PhoenixRose
UPDATED: Tuesday, October 4, 2011 01:37
VIEWED: 5670
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Hey everyone, I'm writing a paper, and I'd like to test one of my opinions a little before I build on it, so I have a question for anyone who cares to answer.
What is the very first thing you think when you see or hear the words mental illness? Just word-associate it for me.
(No snark, please. Any response of "liberal/conservative/specific person" won't really help me.)
What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.
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burden
As in the burden that everyone bears when one is mentally ill... the patient, the family and society.
Sorry, I'm a little jaded. I work with the public, and it seems like a lot of them are at least borderline mentally ill. Maybe I'm not entirely well either!!!
Good luck with your project.
"Why're you arguin' what's already been decided?"
Mal to Jayne, "Jaynestown"
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Quote:
Originally posted by Phoenixship:
Sorry, I'm a little jaded
I've worked with the public as well, jadedness is to be expected. Thanks for the response :)
What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.
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I was going to say "everyone," not as a snark but as something I genuinely believe, but then I saw the request at the bottom of your post and realized that might not be helpful.
So... unique?
I'm one of those people who think that it's the fault of society that some people can't function in it, not the people themselves, and that different ways of thinking and different definitions of normal are a good thing.
I can understand medicating and therapy but as someone who's had bad experiences with medication and therapy, I prefer to try to deal with things on my own. I don't want to give up my uniqueness and become someone else, even if that someone else was a happier and more functional person.
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Caveat: Please come up with your own immediate response to Rose's question and hang onto it before reading the following.
I'm not a fair representation of the "common man" either, given as you know I'm bipolar. So my response would be the same as Byte's, for a different reason. Over years of dealing with a mental illness and with several forums for the mentally ill, I've come to some conclusions of my own.
One is that the term is a pejorative for most people unfamiliar with actual mental illness. They have no actual concept of what it means, and it's become a derrogatory term overused to mean too many things.
Another is that the "science" is more an art, when it comes to diagnosis, so today there are people who are termed "mentally ill" who may possess one or more qualities of a particular mental illness, but who are not actually mentally ill.
On the other hand, and this is why my answer is what it is, I think we've gone too FAR in diagnosing mental illness, to the point where, if we continue on this path, I think "science" will eventually find enough diagnoses that EVERYONE will fit one category or another of "mental illness", which is pathetic to me because there is a vast difference between being somewhat compulsive and actually suffering from OCD.
I hope, having written this, that neither my response nor Byte's will color others' immediate reactions to the term, because I think I know where you're going. Come to think of it, as such, I think I'll add a caveat at the beginning. Thanx for asking, Rose, this should be interesting.
p.s. Byte; I agree with your last paragraph 100%.
Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off 
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crazy.
That's all, just plain "crazy."
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"What is the very first thing you think when you see or hear the words mental illness? Just word-associate it for me."
What one is labeled with when they can't grasp the entirety (the depth and breadth) of your thoughts.
Or crazy.
Crazy works.
"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies"
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Quote:
Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
crazy.
That's all, just plain "crazy."
Sorry, but could you expand on that a bit? It's a rather non-specific word. Just continue the word-associating a step more, if you would. What does 'crazy' mean to you?
What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.
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"Trouble"
This does not mean that I think that a mentally ill person will be trouble for me, particularly, but that the result of their illness may well be trouble for someone, or themselves. Guess I'm just paraphrasing a previous answer, "burden".
Of course, when I think of mental illness I tend to remember my cousins back in the 50s, who had a teenage daughter with a mental age of about three, and the things they were put through.
I realize that there are people who live with and function successfully with, mental illness as well.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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The "craziest" people were/are usually the people that change the world for the better.
World revolves around the sun? - crazy.
Evolution? - crazy
American revolution, on the grounds that men have inalienable rights? - crazy
Land on the moon? - crazy
Climb Mt Everest? - crazy
Beat Germany/Japanese war machine? - crazy
Sail around the world? - crazy
FLY around the world? - crazy
Yeah, pretty much anyone who has ever done anything worth doing, and in the process pushed us all further than we ever thought possible...
was called crazy by some low, short-sighted, ignorant, assclown.
Mental-illness? Sometimes its a just handle... other times, its a way of boxing in those better than the name-givers.
"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies"
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