mental illnesses aren't mental and they aren't illnesses
Conversation
if someone stabs you and you're bleeding all over the place you don't have a "blood illness"; the blood is not the point. the point is that you were fucking stabbed and now you have a stab wound
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the next time you see yourself or someone else say "mental illness" try substituting either "psychic wound" or "psychic malnutrition"
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"mental illness" ➡️ something's wrong with my brain and i need to go to a brain doctor
vs.
"psychic wound" ➡️ someone hurt me and now i have scars
or
"psychic malnutrition" ➡️ i was deprived of something and now i am stunted
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This is a bad analogy. Scars are from a healed wound - if a wound is serious enough, you will need an ER doc.
Similarly, if your mental illness is bad enough...
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Replying to
it certainly fails to capture important aspects of the situation and so does the “mental illness” metaphor
what it does a good job of capturing imo is the role of outside forces in inflicting lasting harm
all models are false, let a thousand metaphors bloom and so forth
Replying to
I don't see how your model is any better, and given the devastating effect untreated mental illness can have on people, I can easily see how it could be worse.