Permanently Deleted
Sometimes the only way to know that you're hurting someone's feelings is for them to tell you it's hurting them. Thank you for speaking up about it.
Maybe the people who use it that way will hesitate about using it again.
Putting it in the word filter would mean that well-meaning people would post occasionally about removedphrenia.
Nope. You can't refute my point because your reremovedtion would get censored.
Are people doing this again (using slurs)? That sucks, I'm sorry comrade. Hopefully the mods come down on them
Please report any of it you see in the couple of comms I mod. I take that shit seriously.
Same with "Spaz" and "Spazzing out" although admittedly I don't read that as much as hear it
I recently tried Warframe again, and there's a mod that uses that term. I mentioned it to a friend who really likes Warframe, like "what the fuck, why in the world would they call something that?" and he didnt understand the criticism at all
I'm kind of lenient with that term because I'd always heard spaz as just a term for someone who is clumsy and frenetic. It's the same case as with saying someone was gyped, it has been so far removed from the original offense context to me and the people around me I didn't even understand it was meant to be offensive. I avoid those words when talking, but I don't really call people out that hard when I hear it.
I think spaz, mong, and removed are still this side of the line you've drawn, still too associated with the people they technically describe to be acceptable, but I don't feel the same of stupid, moron, idiot, crazy, etc, and for some those still are ableist.
Gypped is especially heinous though, even if many users don't understand the connotation. It referrs to a very living and very harmful stereotype, and is as a word just an actively used slur turned into a verb. Every time someone says it, you should hear 'Jewed' because its the same thing.
That last one I have to do a lot of educating on in real life. It's so commonly used that a lot of people don't even realize it's a slur. Most people drop it once they realize what it is referring to because it's incredibly obvious once you understand what it is short for.
I definitely react to mong. That one has two layers of offense to it, neither of which can really be detached from the word in anyway. (honestly that one's just weird to me. It started out as a racist anthropology theory about Asian people's skull shapes, denouncing them all as ugly, then became a term for people with Down syndrome, and now it's just the new "autistic.") I live in america, so the opinion about Romani is not as pronounced as in europe, although I have been told it's there. I don't use it anymore because I learned where it came from, but I don't think the majority of people who use it are trying to be offensive, and there's enough ground to cover with the average person in terms of anti-racism that I'll only bring it up if I think there's a solid chance they'll stop once they learn. I've had a hard time trying to come up up with words to mean "this idea does not follow from reality and you were not using your senses and reasoning skills when you came up with it" that work as well as the traditional ablest ones do. Stupid and Idiot aren't that bad, but I should work to remove them and anything else from my vocabulary. But I do need to say something if a friend reads a clock backwards or does something else we would call stupid, and saying "have you no senses?" sounds weird and harsher than just "stupid."
My best friend since childhood has schizophrenia. It hit him in his mid 20s and took him and everyone close to him by surprise. It's been utterly heartbreaking to watch him deal with it for the last five years. And it sucks absolute ass to see people using the term as an insult, and saying dehumanizing shit about folks who suffer from it.
I have a good friend with schizophrenia and another with bipolar. Both of them have been treating it successfully for years and are happy / healthy. It's a challenging condition for folks, but it's not insurmountable. Our media continues to misrepresent it in pop culture, which pisses me off.
Who's saying that here? I want names! :marx-angry:
Purge the fucker.
edit: Thank you based sitemods.
:fidel-salute-big:
I've had to call out some people using Schizo or Schizophrenic to describe things, not people, and like, generalizing it to mean something other than the medical definition is pretty hurtful. Luckily, they listened and stopped using it, but like, these are people who know I'm on the Schizophrenia spectrum, so you'd think I'd not have to ask.
At least this was a few years ago, and I haven't had to deal with it in person since, though I still see it used not-infrequently as an accusation on :reddit-logo: towards maga-spiracy types, which sucks.
accusation on :reddit-logo: towards maga-spiracy types, which sucks
Literally an insult to anyone who happens to have those conditions. Conspiracy chuds believe awful shit because they're assholes.
The word "schizo" on its own has always had a really negative connotation, to the point that it's obviously derogatory. I'm not sure about "schizophrenic"; it has a more descriptive character, and the taboo is more around the illness than that word. Maybe it will eventually start to be seen as old-timey the way "an epileptic" would sound today.
Totally agree. I fully support not using that as a derogatory phrase. Mental health is very much the same as other types of health.
I’m not sure about “schizophrenic”
I think that's still actively used as a medical diagnosis? If so, then it's not pejorative.
It would be like stigmatizing diabetes and using "diabetic" as an insult. It's a medical condition that can be treated with medication. A person's medical conditions do not define them as a person.
edit: Looked into this more and "schizophrenic" even as an adjective is falling out of use. It's disorder-centered, which is divisive.
Correct: "My sister has schizophrenia"
Incorrect: "My sister is a schizophrenic"
Hopefully this helps others.
can be treated with medication
This is pretty subjective tbh. The medication usually prescribed has a few side effects I consider shitty enough to warrant discontinuation if they're encountered.
Yeah, you're right that everyone will have different outcomes. In general therapy + medication is incredibly beneficial to most folks with a mental health diagnosis. There are also multiple approved medication to help treat the symptoms of Schizophrenia.
Finding the right medication can take a while because everyone has different neural chemistry. That can definitely be rough and I went through that for a different condition I have. It was a marathon, but I'm glad I did it.
I understand there is a lot of wariness towards medication / therapy on the left, but I think it's important to not stigmatize mental health and that includes healthcare.
I think it’s important to not stigmatize mental health and that includes healthcare.
Totally! I just take issue with the notion that we should (even if we could) "cure" mental health diagnoses.
Yeah, that's a whole line of discussion that has some merit to it. I think the answer is genuinely somewhere close to a synthesis. Neurodiversity should be celebrated and as a part of that folks deserve treatment to help improve their quality of life without fear of stigma.
Even in an ideal world free of capitalism, those with mental health disorders will often still struggle to find balance and stability. I know I'm not in a good place if/when I ever decompensate. It's a terrible space to find yourself and reminds me of how I've heard diabetic lows described.
Treatment should never be forced and state mandated institutionalization has been a blight on the history of mental health as a discipline. There will always be some people that don't want any kind of treatment and that's their choice. I think a lot of the fear and hesitancy around healthcare will decrease though once it is provided universally.
Its hard cause in every other fascit of language we commonly use lose associations. Consider a thing being "cool"
So any time we we develop a word for a thing we immediately start abusing it. Consider that fool was originally a medical diagnosis we said so much it lost all meaning and then we switched to other words for impaired cognative function that we misuse.
So we have that drive and the entire system to fight against so it feels like cleaning up our language is a huge task. Really isn't tho.
I guarantee that at some point in the next couple decades the word "autistic" will have been used as an insult enough times that a new term will have to be created. The underlying cause is that the overwhelming majority of society still sees any kind of neurodivergence as a bad thing, and until that changes the "euphemism treadmill" will continue to turn.
It's a mix of "euphemism treadmill" and adapting terminology as we better understand conditions. Example: Discovering that autism is along a spectrum and overlaps strongly with ADHD.
The underlying cause is that the overwhelming majority of society still sees any kind of neurodivergence as a bad thing
I think it is more simply that people need a derogatory shorthand for out-groups. Concervatives called Obama a Nazi. Liberals called Sanders a racist. Leftists call each other liberals.
None of it means anything. At least, not in the literal sense.
people need a derogatory shorthand for out-groups
This is true, but why do you suppose people choose to use medical terms for neurodivergent people as their slur of choice if not an inherent prejudice against neurodivergence?
Because divergence creates natural out-groups to model your derision after.
Even then, it really just boils down to perspective. I've seen terms like "breeder", "redneck", and "normie" used as slurs. Any out-group will do. Medical terms tend to imply weakness or dysfunction which just happen to attract bullies like flies to honey. But then so does sexual proclivity (or the lack thereof), racial and gender traits, academic performance ("dropout"/"failure"/"loser"), economic standing, fashion sense, preferred hobby, political affiliation... you name it.
In internet forums, where people tend to pride themselves on intelligence and social skills, neurodivergence just becomes the most obvious characteristic to attack.
it's actually not. You're saying the person is wrong and doing a wrong thing because they have a disorder, or people should never ever act like they have a disorder, both of which are hurtful and dismissive to people with a disorder.
:meow-hug: I'm sorry this is happening, I try to help drive off ableism best I can
hey there, you are making a fallacious argument. I said you should not use certain language as it is hurtful and dismissive of people. You now claim I said not to dismiss something someone said, which I did not say. This indicates to me you actually know you shouldn't use the word, you just want to and will say whatever to pretend you should. Anyway, dealing with your argument here, just because you should dismiss something, does not mean you should compare it to a disorder. The wrong perception is not wrong because it is like a schizophrenic person's idea, it is wrong because it does not line up with reality. If someone is wrong, you should be able to explain why they are wrong, or else you don't actually know that they are wrong. You are not using this language because this will show the supposed wrong person that they are wrong, you are using this language because you want to insult the idea and the person by saying they are like a schizophrenic person, and therefore not worth considering.
Well I'm dismissive about what you're saying, but I'm not calling you "fucking insane", I'm calling you reactionary and ableist.
There are plenty of words in the English language. We don't need to use that one.
We dont call people "a depressive" or "a manic", so we shouldn't call people with schizophrenia or other related disorders "a schizophrenic" or any variation of the word.
How about you just fuck off with using that word. If people tell you not to use it because it's hurtful it seems like common fucking courtesy to not use.
Yeah, but that goes for everything. There are people who say insulting peoples intelligence is ableist, or using gendered swears sexist.
:yes-sicko:
Language exists to communicate our feeling and thoughts, if you take those words away, how am I going to be able to express that I find you to be a stupid removed?
Well, you don't have to use all that language. Also, using slurs to own the uhhhh?
See what I mean?
No, I don't, and I hope I never do.
I'm autistic myself. I say solidarity to all comrades, and if that solidarity entails me not using a word I didn't use anyway, then fair enough I say.
"Boohoo I can't be ableist anymore"
Fuck right off
