i use all the bad words when i am talking about it to my friend that i know but i kind of joke about it like my friend has mental health problems too and we met in the hospital, have been friends for about 10 years and things,
i will say things like ‘but i am nuts anyway, so it doesn’t matter’ or ‘apparently i am mad as a hatter’ or ‘they must think i am crazy, oh wait, i am’ my sis knows i wont bother if she uses the word schizo as long as it is to describe her cat being playful or something similar,
i’m just saying that these words can be said in a way as to not offend anyone, i use it as a way to joke about my condition but i know people might find that hard to visualize.
It’s helped me a lot, I’ve always been very intuitive and high thinking, but whatever it does it helps to calm me down and put the pieces in order. I got scatter brained without it, I just don’t like being dependent on anything–and that’s my issue. I’d probably be a lot worse without it, maybe that depresses me. But on the bright side, I’m able to function the right way on it–like I did before my episodes. It brought me back to normal, helped my memory improve so I could put things back in order. But as I grow older I am needing more help with attention etc.
And when all else failed, I’d stay up late with my ear to the radio listening to Elliot Smith lol.
I’ve never heard the term schizo used in the general public to be honest as a slur. . pyscho or making fun of mentally ill people especially schizphrenics yes!!! but not the word schizo. I abbreviated it because it’s just easier to type. i don’t think of that as a slur. When has it been used in a derogatory way??? I’ve honestly never heard it used. But will be more mindful to not use it here. thanks for the heads up.
Making fun of psychotic people though is done often!! people would NEVER make fun of a developmentally ill person on tv or in the media but it’s okay in normal society to make fun of people that hallucinate or to make them look scary.
tom from dancing with the stars has made jokes a couple of times about the voices in his head. bugs the hell out of me and makes me not like him! In today’s society where people are so careful about being politically correct it’s sad that mental illness still is treated with such stigma.
No problem or offense taken at all, it’s just one word that hits me weird. I don’t like typing it. But saying I’m mad as a hatter, well, for some reason that I can like.
Poor hatter is mad, but he has style and it’s always a party at his place.
someone told me
the mad hatter
is mad cause they use mercury in hat manufacturing.
somebody told me i talk just like a mad hatter,
and i did have a couple of mercury experiences as a kid.
I don’t think a name change is needed. Change the name without fighting the stigma and you’ll just hate the new name eventually.
A better thing to do is to focus on fighting stigma and providing good examples for people looking in from the outside.
We live in a world where ratings-hungry media pounce on any negative story involving a schizophrenic. If we don’t stand up and combat this, it will get worse.
I would have no problem with the term schizophrenia, if it made sense, but it doesn’t. Split mind means nothing. It is a nonsense definition. Psychiatry is a very conservative branch of medicine, I wish they would be a bit more modern.
I think Japan changed the name to something that has more meaning. But yeah the stigma is really the issue, and changing the name would not help eradicate the stigma completely.
I think it’s a good idea to change it to salience syndrome. Plus, if they change the name a lot of patients who shouldn’t have had the label in the first place will probably receive the bipolar diagnosis. I think my illness is dependent on mania, because I only experience symptoms when I’m in a manic state. I haven’t had many of the other symptoms other than in the past, fleeting delusions of grandeur and paranoia. My first symptoms were due to not being able to “quiet or slow down” my brain. Those are hallmark traits of Bipolar I, not schizophrenia. Also, I came down from the mania relatively fast and had no return of symptoms once it had been gotten control of.
Paranoid personality disorder is my diagnosis. Bouts of psychosis are supposedly short lived with it unlike schizophrenia. It is reckoned by some to belong to a ‘schizophrenia spectrum’ along with schizoid and schizotypal( a few researchers have also suggested avoidant as part of the spectrum).
The paranoia is chronic rather than acute like schizophrenia and doesn’t tend to involve extreme beliefs like aliens are planting microchips in your head while you’re asleep.
