Stop the name calling
Ok I told you I was going to start talking about the mental illness I see on the public transportation. It’ll be interesting to see how I write about it, given than I’ve decided to remove certain words from my spoken and written vocabulary. The words are:
nutcase, loonytunes, bonkers, wacko, lunatic… and the many others in that category.
I’ve decided that we have to stop constantly mocking mental illness if we want anyone who has mental illness to seek treatment. Have you ever known anyone with a mental illness issue? Few are willing to admit it and get help. And if the afflicted person won’t look at it, there’s not a darn thing anyone can do about it. Nothing moves forward. Everyone else has to just live with it in their midst, and I can tell you from experience it’s a bear to live with. Of course it’s a bear for the afflicted person too. Or not. Depends what kind of illness or disorder they have. After a point maybe they’re oblivious. Things get worse when left untreated.
It’s all of ours problem. No one escapes it, it’s absolutely everywhere. If you don’t have it in your family, just hop onto the public transportation. Or you might find it in your own self one day. Some people have had problems from day one, but other people are afflicted suddenly, out of the blue. Any one of us could wake up one day hearing voices, or find ourselves being attacked by spaceships.
No doubt you were all looking forward to funny stories about the crazies, since you know I like to be funny. Now I don’t know what the stories will be like. Guess we’ll find out.
This might be really hard. I’ve always loved those words. For my entire life, I’ve relied on them heavily for comic relief from all the mayhem around us. I’m going to omit them for the next forty days and then re-assess. I can’t help wondering if omitting those words is going to seriously cut in to my ability to be hilarious. On the other hand, I would hope that my entire sense of humor doesn’t depend on a certain percentage of the population being ill.
posted by kate gawf @ 11:47 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I think if you are careful how you use those terms, they can be quite valuable and constructive. I tend to use them quite a lot when referring to common behavior that is considered "normal" or "sane" by the vast majority of the population, as in "All those nutcases who actually believe they are better off sitting in traffic in their cars than getting out and riding a bike a few miles."
Sorry, forgot to sign that - brain fart (another favorite). Val
Val. I was weighing that very same thing while I was writing that. So much of what passes for sanity and normal behavior needs to be exposed for what it is. I think I might end up concluding, at the end of my 40 days, that I agree with you. I'm going to think about it some more.
Yes, I've always liked brain-fart. Crude, perhaps, but so descriptive!
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