"Roomate" Stigmatic Start

AMC Theaters' weekly newsletter leads with an intro to the movie, 2 lines down, "Rebecca is on medication for something she hasn't revealed" is supposed to make a young girl seem bad or evil or something to be concerned about.

Seriously.

Do you tell people you're on medications for high blood pressure, do you tell people you're on medications for allergies? lactose intolerance? and STD maybe? This is an all to obvious allusion to psychiatric medication and conditions. 1. once again, people with a mental illness have been scientifically proven more likely to be a victim then perpetrator if a crime, 2. there are no meds that treat psycho/sociopathy (usually what the "bad" guy in the movie has) conditions which are exceedingly rare, 3. what is wrong with being on medication and not telling the whole world about it?

Small Steps

Dr Lance Sweets on Fox's "Bones" last night misspoke when he was telling agents about his recent traumatic experience; "whether it's textbook dis-a-sociation or ptsd...". Many people, including real life mental health professionals use the word disassociation (to disconnect or separate from something) instead of dissociation, the traumatic mental health disorder. We can't spread awareness and education if people aren't even using the right words.

NY Times, YOU are the role models

Yes, it does matter how you phrase and the language you use, the more we hear and see things referred to one way the more the general public will pick up on that vocabulary. Even though this article is to bring help and awareness for mental illness, they are still not using the person centered language crucial to reducing stigma.

"By MARC LACEY, KEVIN SACK and A. G. SULZBERGER
Proposals to reduce care for the mentally ill are being scrutinized after a troubled young man's shooting rampage in Tucson left 6 people dead and 13 wounded."

Please take the 2 seconds to stop and think before you speak, and in this case it was probably reviewed by 3 different editors, no reason for that language to remain.

And the World Goes on

The stirring words of the President were good enough to break up prime time, still no mentions of where to get help if you or someone you know are having thoughts of a similar or violent nature. It's likely that mental health care was needed years ago, services even in larger areas are not widely or logically accessible.

Unresponsive in Arizona

Yes there was a tragedy in Arizona last week. but, NO, we do not need to make it a trash talk media frenzy. Who's trash talking? Seasoned news and political reporters. Between two major networks, words like "crack pots", "the unhinged", "deranged kid" and "lone weirdo" have been thrown around. After having years in the field you would think a little discretion could be had.

"it's just words," people say. it's not. the way media refers to things leaks into our own vocabulary. If we could be responsible and just make these minute changes we could change the way the general public speaks about (and possibly thinks about) mental illness and the people fighting against them.