• “I’m so OCD about cleaning.”
  • “The weather is bipolar this week.”
  • “The economy is schizophrenic!”

I have heard all of these exclamations in the last few years. People flippantly throw around a diagnosis like it’s clever adjective. It can be quite insulting and hurtful to hear a word use to diagnose you as a descriptor in everyday conversation. Some may see this as a microaggression or a form of ableism.

The intent in using these emotionally charged words might be to bring some intensity and flair to writing and speech. These are extreme words, phrases or acronyms that are so deeply painful to receive as a crushing diagnosis. These are labels that bring stigma, discrimination and occasionally hatred. These are such powerfully cruel words they they can also spark self-stigma and self-hatred.

Diagnostic words are also (mis)used in the media in ways unrelated to mental health. The example of describing an economy as schizophrenic was of an Italian Professor commenting to the ABC. I raised the issue to her by email and she replied in relation to the term ‘schizophrenic’:

“I don’t think I ever used that term in a specific way. I use it in its general definition as per the Oxford Dictionary (characterised by erratic or inconsistent behaviour).”

I was once misdiagnosed as schizophrenic and that word felt like a life sentence. I don’t care if you have a dictionary, the word is still harmful to thousands of Australians with lived experience of psychiatric treatment. My family were even more afraid of this word than I was. When my diagnosis was amended to ‘bipolar’, it was like a relief. Then I quickly felt the painful reality of that new label – a dangerous life-long rollercoaster most likely requiring more medication.

These are not words to throw around but I wonder if they might be reclaimed. Like ‘queer’ or the N word, those harmed by the word can reclaim that word – if they choose to. At least with the uninformed flippantly dropping our diagnoses into their otherwise dull conversations, these words might lose some of their potency.