Trigger words can be so simple and so easy to use.
The use of words in our daily vocabulary can make the difference between creating a mental health friendly environment and creating a space where you feel almost attacked for struggling with certain things.
My family is very good at the not so ideal usage of „mental health words“, what I like to call them…
Conversations like, „Do you want a glass of wine?“ „No, I am not an alcoholic!“ out of nowhere and with no reason. Or „After my depression about my messed up nails, I really needed ice cream“,or „Oh you‘re a baker, I thought the burns on your arms come from cutting yourself, they look like the typical cutters marks.“ „Depression hit hard when I didn’t get to See on that famous person in real life.“ „I have been clean for three weeks, I haven’t slept with earplugs since.“ „Yes, I am an addict, I can‘t stop [something ridiculous].“ Etc.
As someone who deals with depression, addiction, self harm, and stuff like that, it breaks my heart to see my family say things that hurt so much, to joke about suicide, addiction, mental health, and depression, making it look ridiculous and sound insane.
Yes, I have tried to talk to them about it, but nothing changes their behavior, so I have learned to walk away and not listen to them when they start talking like that. Sometimes I almost run to my room because I do not want them to see my tears when they start joking about topics that are very real to me.
I know it is not healthy, but I try my best to educate them in a loving way, but one needs a willing student to get the point across…
I know they did not first hand experience the things I did, and that’s okay, I am glad they didn’t suffer in the ways I did and do, but that makes it even harder for them to understand my reactions And for me to explain and be heard.
When it comes to mental health, my family is not the most educated bunch of people and not the most sensitive group of humans, the comments they make about meds and therapists and places that help people like me is brutal and I will spare you the details.
It took me so long to bring up the courage to be honest to them about what’s going on inside of me, but they apparently haven’t learned from that, that the way they treat these examples of people, is essentially the way they treat me.
Just a couple of days ago my brother-in-law offered me to stay late after my nephews birthday party to get drunk. I don’t know how many times I tried to make my family understand that I am an alcoholic and do not want to drink anymore. Gladly I still have the excuse that when I am driving I can not have any alcohol in my system (here that’s the law for the first 3 years of driving) and I used the i have to drive card. He accepted that… but still…
I still haven’t gotten the treatment that I need to get better because their opinions and world views are holding me back and it is hurting me at the core of my being, but I am working on it.
Maybe one day they will understand that their statements are hurtful on levels that the simply cannot grasp because they just haven’t lived through it.
The terminology we use when talking about mental health makes the difference between being a safe place and a place you know you will be judged and outcast.
Please, think about the vocab you use when talking out loud, you never know who hears you and was about to open up to you or is now triggered and unable to deal with the situation.