on "ableist" language

ok so before I get to the point my sister is such a nutjob I love her

but for the record she has become so scarily good at telling when I'm down. which is a Change because im good at hiding my breakdowns. I've had years of practice to go under the radar. but now she can tell. like yesterday I came to say hi to her when she was on call with her boyfriend and five minutes later she comes out to find me all concerned and asking if I'm okay. which I actually lowkey wasn't but I didn't think I was being that obvious. anyway. I was pretty touched. also apparently her boyfriend thinks I'm very cool which is a W because he's pretty cool himself and I was sort of under the impression he thought I was a loosu. I stalked his youtube channel yesterday and bro can SHRED.

I digress. yeah so...it's considered so problematic to use psychological disorders as hyperbole today and I've never really gotten that. like it's obviously hyperbole. when I tell people about my real, actual disorders I've been diagnosed with, for example, they always go "don't say that" as a kneejerk response because they've been conditioned to think of it as taboo and something that shouldn't be said. which, yes, ocd isn't a joke or what it's made out to be in popular culture and is actually a horrendous condition that makes me actively suicidal every time I skip my meds and made the first 16 years of my life (pre-diagnosis) a living hell, but listen. I do hate the pop culturification of psychology, but language is an evolving creature. it's a little bit stupid when people say "omg I'm soooooo ocd" because you're just throwing around random medical abbreviations in a non-grammatical context that makes you look stupid, but that's because even if you are just being dramatic, it's a nonsensical extrapolation. being neat has nothing to do with ocd. and even then, it isn't that hard for people like me to clarify that what we have is the actual thing. but I don't get why it's so bad to make dramatic statements like "I gave into my intrusive thoughts and cut off half my hair" because?? yes??? that does make sense??? and overall I think it's a net positive that these terms are entering the popular lexicon and people are gaining awareness about them. yes, shitty ableist people still exist, but I don't think comparing your experiences to ours in hyperbole diminishes ours as long as you don't start saying things like "what you have isn't that bad, it affects everyone". if anything, it normalizes and makes people more empathetic to neurodivergence as a concept. yes it's a little annoying when ableist people are hypocrites and appropriate these terms while not being sensitive to actually disabled people who need accommodations, but I think the issue there lies with the ableism, not the appropriation. the appropriation is just like salt in the wound and is annoying BECAUSE of the established context of ableism. and especially with words like depressed and narcissistic and delusional, which existed before they were co-opted to describe the respective medical conditions, it's extremely obvious when they're being used in hyperbole as opposed to seriously. narcissism, derived from the greek god narcissus, originally meant a self-centred person. as long as you aren't armchair diagnosing and villainizing people with the actual condition, I don't get what the problem is. and that's another thing. we all have traits that relate to what mentally ill and neurodivergent people experience to some extent. what makes differently abled people, well, different, is the brain chemicals that regulate those traits are a little out of whack and make them so intense they make it difficult to function. I don't think it's such a bad thing to try to put yourself in their shoes and relate your own experiences with theirs if it makes you more empathetic to their issues. I have adhd and depression, for example, and I know that a lot of people who don't have them relate to a lot of the experiences pertaining to them to a lesser extent. and if the terms I use to describe my mental condition are useful to them to articulate what they feel, great! it's like the common hyperbole of offing oneself. pretty much everyone uses that one. even if most people don't mean it. it's the same fucking concept. writers have used blindness and disability as metaphors for eons, and no one's ever had a problem with that. what makes our illnesses different? are they so taboo that even speaking of them is automatically in bad faith? personally, I think entering popular vernacular is sort of a given for any concept that is known by the vast majority of people, and it's a good thing that awareness of mental health is so high today. but maybe that's just me.