Concerning confusion

DX'd - Other
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When I first told one of my close friends I had a psychotic disorder I remember clearly her reaction. “What?? No! I don’t think you have that. You never want to hurt or kill anyone right??”

I found out that she thought a psychotic disorder meant the same thing as psychopathy. Oh man. I explained that this was incorrect and told her what a psychotic disorder was, and also explained that even the majority of sociopaths were not violent individuals. She felt embarrassed to have made the mistake but was glad I explained it to her. But now whenever I’m talking to people online and it comes up I have a psychotic disorder, I’m worried they think that I mean I’m a psychopath…@.@ this is why we need psychoeducation

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Psychotic has bad connotations. I just wonder if you used the word "psychosis " instead, would it make a difference.

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I don’t know, the sigma seems to be in the “psycho” part of the word. Maybe.

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For online is the word as most jump to what they know so that’s all form the media tv films so everything that shows it in the wrong light.

Mix in the peoples seeming need to make you prove it and want all the details stories or that’s what I get.

Or there is the crazy girls are cool! Line of thought us so far form the true if it

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I never knew about the two terms being confused until I did a research project involving haloperidol (Haldol). People would ask me what that drug did, and I would say “it’s an antipsychotic,” or “it’s used for people with psychotic illnesses.” I would get responses such as “why would you care about those people?” and that confused me. It took a few such responses before I realized they were confusing psychotic with psychopathic. Sometimes, even after explaining the difference, people would refuse to believe that people with psychotic illnesses are not prone to violence. The problem is that the only time most people hear about psychosis is when something bad happens. If someone becomes psychotic, gets scared and ends up in a hospital, that’s not a news story. Those rare times when a psychotic person goes on a killing rampage everyone across the country hears about it. It’s awful how misinformed most people are regarding this illness.

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People hear the word “psycho” and their brains go directly to Anthony Hopkins. It’s a sad truth. I would always just say it all in the same sentence. “I have psychosis, which means I have auditory and visual hallucinations, but I am not statistically likely to become violent or aggressive. Some people confuse psychotic disorders with psychopathy, but they are totally different disorders.”

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I was basically told by mom and dad never tell outside of family and two close friends and the hospital people and cops that know

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