When someone just uses it as an expression. Example: you’re in an innocent conversation and the person you’re talking to says causally, “Man, that store was crowded, it was crazy”. Or, “Wow, that football game lasted forever, it was crazy”. I’m sure it happens to all of us.
Do you flinch? Or do you take in stride and not even bat an eyelid? Or do you experience a tell-tale lack of confidence? I run into this all the time, even from my family. Its not intentional, it’s just a part of the human language that gets thrown around. I used to not bat an eyelid and it was just an innocuous word to me with no special meaning. But now, when I hear it I have a reaction that people I’m talking to pick up on. And within 5 seconds it turns both of us defensive but I know I’m going to lose.
The context u used it in I don’t flinch. Like “that was a crazy football game!” I don’t think twice. But if someone says “he’s insane! He’s crazy!” When he’s not. I question their use of the word.
I flinch when people say it, not physically but in my mind. I say it sometimes because I’m so used to saying it and make myself flinch.
Even worse I was at a friends get together a few weeks back and there were some people there I had only just met and instead of saying crazy they would say things were “schiz”. I wanted to tell them to stop saying it but I thought they might know something was up if I said something about it
In some of the circles I ran in the word “crazy” meant a wild dude who would do almost any drug and who didn’t care what others thought of him. It was a compliment, of sorts. If someone said you were crazy it meant they liked and admired you. We had some pretty twisted values when I was young.
As in my dad broke up a mini-riot at my step-sisters graduation party when a bunch of uninvited drunk teenagers showed up and got out control of and started running amok and started destroying property. My 55 year old dad ran into the middle of them, with a beer bottle in his hand and grabbed the leader by the collar and yelled to the rest of them that unless everybody got the hell out of their he was going to brain their friend. Brave? yes. Crazy? Yes.
I use it… only as an add on to something positive like compliments… the normies are going to use it anyway… a shift in its context is the next best thing to it not being used at all…
I don’t think the word ‘crazy’ rises to the level of inherent malice that words used against the black community, gay community, women, and other minorities do. However, we (people with sz/szA) are also a minority, so if a person uses a word(s) with the sole purpose of trying to harm me, or our community, it’s troubling to say the least.
My first reaction to the word “crazy” is fear. Just means I’ve been a victim of one or more crazies. I have to reassure myself that it’s only a work, not an action.
It really only bothers me when someone says it about another person who hasn’t been diagnosed with a mental illness. Especially when someone who knows my diagnosis says it without considering how it would make me feel. However, I don’t react and I hide the fact that it bothers me fairly well. It doesn’t offend me that much but it kind of makes me feel bad.