EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT LANGUAGE IN MENTAL HEALTH

As a Blogger, I obviously spend a lot of my time writing/typing and so I have a huge interest in language (not as academic as to succeed at English Language A Level though!) and – of course – especially where mental health is involved! There’s been a few instances recently around language and mental health that have really sparked debates between myself, my Mum, my friends, and my Support Worker, and they are what has inspired this post…

The Brave Debate

The most recent instance was when a ‘mental health advocate’ on Twitter tweeted: ‘Please stop telling people they are brave when they are just being themselves.’ I immediately questioned it; I couldn’t understand how someone could say that but then I thought on it… ok, so to me; there shouldn’t be a rule saying you can’t call someone brave. You should be able to say it and if that person is uncomfortable then respect their view and don’t do it again. And it’s not that I can’t understand why someone wouldn’t want to be labelled as brave; sometimes it can feel condescending – especially when you don’t feel that your ‘bravery’ is anything special, when you think that it’s just normal and how things should be done. This can also link into someone feeling that they aren’t worthy of this label and find being called it, upsetting because it reminds them of all the bad things, they think of themselves.

However, there are a lot of people out there (myself included) who thrive from being labelled brave and courageous because it encourages them to speak out more and continue their ‘brave’ behaviour. For me, it’s usually around talking about the rape and abuse I experienced and honestly? Having people appreciate and acknowledge how daunting speaking up about that can be, is such a motivation for me to continue doing so.

WHY YOU NEED TO WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE IN MENTAL HEALTH

1.    ‘Superficial’

When I recently self-harmed I told the Nurse that I’d scared myself with how bad it was because all of mine are usually – then she said ‘superficial.’ And I agreed but told her how much I hate that word and she explained that she uses it in terms of how deep a cut is and not that it’s ‘nothing’ important. I explained that it’s a person’s interpretation of the word and it probably comes from their experience of it being used. I, personally, have always used superficial alongside words like ‘shallow’ or ‘silly’ so it becomes an insult to use it to describe my desperate coping mechanism of self-harm but I now understand that she was using it as more of a medical term than a derogatory one. I think that my interpretation is evidence that firstly, it has previously been used as an offensive comment by professionals who were being dismissive of my self-harm and secondly, that it’s so easy to misinterpret this one word.