fuzzy post-it

ghostisreal replied to your post ableism:

hm… not sure how to feel about this. i think your concern about mental illness being completely destigmatized is misplaced. also, mention of “help” is often used as a form of discounting what other people say under the guise of caring…

i don’t think it’s in any danger of being completely destigmatized (alas), but i think reinterpreting everything as stigmatization is unhealthy. the problem is not that mental illness has a stigma, it’s that it has an overblown and incorrect stigma. like, people think “schizophrenic” means “is going to stab you in the shower”, which is wildly wrong and makes for a harmful perception. but i still assume schizophrenia is an unpleasant thing for a person to have — or we wouldn’t need a name and psychs and drugs for it in the first place.

but telling a person “hey that’s cool no problem you’re among friends we love your thing whatever it is” is pretty much saying “you don’t need help, don’t bother seeking it”. like, why would you do that. if someone truly doesn’t need help, then by definition they do not have a mental illness. if they do have a mental illness, and you say they don’t need help, then you are lying to them to make them feel better about themselves short-term. this doesn’t make sense. we don’t do this with physical illnesses. “oh, no, it’s cool that you have bone cancer, we love you anyway, don’t listen to the ableists, it’s fine”

re “help”, that sounds like the same problem/trap as “concern trolling” — if many other people are using faux concern as a trick, what the hell am i supposed to do with genuine concern? not feel it? not express it? i do wish this person well, and i do hope he can find help for the problems that he himself apologizes for causing a lot of grief in his life. to do otherwise would be needlessly cruel.