Ableist language and mental illness

This thread at Feministe discusses the issue.

My comment in currently stuck in moderation. It was:

I generally don’t object to the word “crazy”, at least in most contexts. Where I start feeling my hackles rise is when people use it to imply that the “crazy” person is untrustworthy, dangerous, unreliable, or pitiable. It’s great that a lot of you feel that that’s trivial, but for those of us with severe episodic mental illnesses, those stereotypes being attached to that word does genuine harm. I might have a week or two where I’m not quite communicating or experiencing in the “acceptable” ways, but when I come back I do NOT need people who saw me muttering or freaking out drawing a direct parallel between a display of mental illness and the idea that I can’t be trusted, might be dangerous, and should be pitied. People might not get locked up just for being labelled “crazy”, but people DO lose their jobs, their kids and their friends because of the joining of that word, their diagnosis, and those stereotypes. I think most people who have a mental illness can vouch for the fact that being labelled someone’s “crazy ex” pretty much destroys your chances of sympathy.

So: That word? Potentially problematic, but not the big one.

Schizophrenic. Delusional. Psychotic. Bipolar. Manic. Etc and so forth. Use of these words as derogatory terms, or to label the behaviour of someone who is being irrational, unrealistic, obnoxious, confused, or is in general fucked up or an asshole, is not cool. I had an exchange with another feminist blogger about her problematic usage of “schizophrenic” a while back, and while she was pretty cool about it, I’ve since seen other bloggers using the word in similar circumstances (or worse… one is currently using an actual, non-metaphorical schizophrenic person who has the misfortune of knowing her to somehow validate her anti-trans stance). It’s pretty simple: if a word refers to a marginalised group of people who suffer discrimination and aren’t you? Not your word! Don’t use it in problematic contexts!

As for corwin3083:

Being crazyis a bad thing. Try it some time if you don’t believe me. Hell, try taking lithium for a month if you don’t believe me.

Tried it. Don’t agree with your labelling system.

Mental illness is an incredibly challenging thing. No-one is arguing it’s the most! fun! ever! But the line needs to be drawn between “crazy is not fun” and “crazy PEOPLE are (insert negative stereotype here)”.

I tread a line between struggling with a rare and debilitating mental illness, and being all about the mad pride. At this point? My illness isn’t a “bad thing”, it’s part of me and of my life. Sometimes that’s a bad thing. Sometimes it’s just a thing. Labelling a disability or illness as “a bad thing” bothers me.

corwin3083 says:

Let me add something to my previous posts:

Mental illness is a Darwinian process, red in tooth and claw. Sucks, but there’s not much to be done about that. You have to be strong to survive it; the weak kill themselves, ergo the abominable statistics on suicide rates for the mentally ill.

On one hand, I agree with you. My personal little madness goal is for one day to have people hear “I have schizophrenia/bipolar disorder” and respond with “Wow. You must be one tough person.” rather than “Stay away from my children/pets/stuff.”

On the other, you’re being an obnoxious jerk. I’m sure it makes you feel supremely awesome to think you’re better or stronger than those of us who commit or try to commit suicide, but you’re not. You’ve just never been at that point where you will do anything to make that pain stop. I hope you never are.

I’m not “weak” because of my suicide attempts, any more than any other person who dies from the symptoms of their illness is “weak”.

Complaining about the use of “crazy” as an insult is in itself an insult to the strength that it takes to live despite a mental illness.

No, objecting to problematic and stigmatising language surrounding mental illness is a step in correcting the prejudice that surrounds us and makes dealing with our particular burdens even harder.

Thank you for posting this, Jill.

Red Nose Day

Red Nose Day is coming up on the 27th of June.

I remember, when I was a kid, Red Nose Day being huge. You'd see the damn things everywhere. Maybe I was just more excited about clown noses then, or maybe they're just concentrated around places kids tend to be, but the day doesn't seem to be embraced as much these days.

It's a shame, because as I got a bit older we found out just why Red Nose Day and the SIDS is such a big deal. My firstborn niece, my dad's firstborn grandchild and my sister's only daughter died from cot death... even more tragically, it happened while she was left with a babysitter. The effect on our family and on my sister's already not-that-great mental health was immense.

SIDS and Kids, the dudes behind Red Nose Day, have been a major face in infant health promotion and safe sleeping over the last twenty years, helping to reduce sudden infant death syndrome by a staggering 90%. Infants still die every year, however, and SIDS and Kids provide absolutely invaluable bereavement support, crisis lines, community support and education, and practical advice on preventing SIDS, as well as continuing to fund research.

Quite a few of my friends have become parents over the past few years. It puts the concept of infant mortality and survival in a very different context than was seen by my young self when our family was affected by SIDS.

I'll be making a donation. I do so every few years. It should be every year. I'd love to know some of you were doing the same, or shelling out the couple of bucks for a stupid red nose or badge this month.

Sex Work Decriminalisation petition for those in the UK

I'm generally sceptical about the usefulness of e-petitions, but as this one is hosted on a government hosted site and is being promoted and pushed by UK sexworkers I thought I'd do my bit and put it out there. I can't sign it myself, but they're over 500 signatures already.

Clicky: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/sexworkers/

Medical Rape

I'm a little late to this.

As Debs has quite reasonably password protected her original post, you can read a summary of the recent saga here. In short, a woman made a post about a traumatic medical experience. What should have ended there didn't, as some asshole decided to criticise everything from her definitions, to her perspective of her own experience, to her feminism, and then branched into the delightful territory of Well How Do You Prove A Woman Isn't Lying About Rape Anyway.

Charming. I'm not linking to him, you can find his posts fairly easily if you really want to read them.

Instead, I'm going to tell a story.

I was raped when I was quite young. It was all the things rape usually is: horrific, traumatising, painful, violating. I healed as best I could, and went on to have a fairly troubled teenage period, which was influenced both by that rape and by a great many other factors and events. In this, I was not all that unusual.

When I was sixteen, and had been having consensual and reasonably emotionally healthy sex with people of various genders for... erm... well, let's just say a few more years than the Australian government would say is legally acceptable, I mustered my courage to go and have my first ever Pap Smear. My mother had beaten interuterine cancer, you see, so while I was not exactly issue-free on the concept of the Pap Smear itself, I was certainly not unaware of the risks associated with women's reproductive organs and the big C. That consensual, reasonably emotionally healthy sex I'd been having had come with a few hang ups (again, some from the rape, some from completely unrelated areas) but as I'd managed to build a more-or-less healthy sex life around them with a few clear rules around certain types of touching for partners and much openness and discussion about my history, I figured a clinical examination would be a walk in the metaphorical park.

Not so.

I went to a male doctor. I told him ahead of time that this was my first Pap Smear, that I had in the past experienced sexual assault, that I was feeling rather panicky about the procedure, and that while I was going to try really hard not to freak out I hoped he would understand if I did so. He seemed extremely understanding, listened to what I said, and indicated that this was not the first time he'd had to deal with this sort of information from a patient.

And then I got on the table.

I was shaking before he even approached me, feeling vulnerable and exposed. When he touched me to begin the procedure, I started making an involuntary high pitched noise. That, apparently, was a big enough no-no for him to ignore the most significant thing I'd said to him, repeatedly: he grabbed my leg with one hand and held me down.

I'd told him I had flashbacks when pinned down in any way. I'd expressed concern that this would happen during the procedure. He had acknowledged those fears by asserting that this would never happen. But there he was, hold my leg in place, whilst penetrating me with a medical instrument.

I had a flashback right there on the table. For a few moments I had no idea who was touching me, doctor or rapist. I was frozen, unable to move, unable to say anything except for "Stop stop stop stop..."

He didn't. He finished the smear, released me and turned away. He didn't ask if I was ok. He did tell me I could get dressed and go. I managed to. I never managed to go to that doctor's surgery again and, more significantly, I couldn't bring myself to get another Pap Smear until I was twenty-three.

That's a big seven years... and three missed routine Pap Smears.

A lot changed over that seven years. I healed a lot more, much of that through growing up, and a lot through sheer hard work. I think that applies to anyone who goes through that kind of trauma. A lot of the safeguards I'd put in place to feel safe and un-triggered during sexual encounters were no longer necessary... and, finally, I saw another doctor, a woman with a genuinely understanding attitude, and had a flashback-free Pap Smear. It still wasn't the most fun experience of my life, as I doubt Pap Smears ever are, but the difference between that experience and the previous one was immense.

Like Debs, and many other women, I do not definitively label my bad medical experience as rape. I did, however, label it like rape: it felt horrific, traumatising, painful, violating. My withdrawal of consent was ignored, as were my instructions on how not to trigger a PTSD flashback in the first place.

Arguments about whether or not I or any other woman is drawing an erroneous connection between a violating medical experience and "actual rape", especially arguments that assume we don't know all too well the similarities and differences between the two experiences, are not only insulting and belittling of very real trauma but completely missing the point. Medical staff who act in such a fashion, who ignore women's complaints about unnecessary pain or distress, who disregard the withdrawal of consent or the conditions attached to it in the first place are the ones who are doing something wrong and trampling on boundaries, not the women who are identifying and naming their own trauma. Arguments over their (our) rights to do so continue the normalisation of that wrong, when what we should be doing is attempting to move to a model where those medical staff who are acting this way through honest ignorance are educated, bodily autonomy is respected, and the behaviour itself is recognised as damaging and unacceptable.