Over the past decades, strides have been made to destigmatize the mental health field. Everything from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual to treatment options to even the language used has undergone massive changes. Information is more widely available to the public than ever before. While American society may be adapting to these changes, the stigma around how everyday people reference these topics has not necessarily changed for the better.
Recently, my fellow Chipper staff writer Emma Daughdrill wrote a fascinating opinion piece addressing the systematic origins of the stigma around mental health, concluding that mental health stigma in the United States has its roots in patriarchy and its values. While I wholeheartedly encourage readers to engage with Emma’s article and its ideas, in this piece, I would like to shift away from a bird’s-eye view to examine how we view mental health at the interpersonal level.
To put it simply: you need to stop calling your friends autistic unless a medical professional has actually diagnosed them, or unless they face significant barriers to receiving a diagnosis to begin with. Beyond that, you need to make sure it is something they are actually comfortable discussing in casual conversation.
See, it may not be as acceptable to throw around the r-slur (which is still more often overheard than any other slur, in my personal experience), but too many have replaced it with “autistic” or “special”, often without even realizing that that is essentially what they are doing. It is the talk of elementary school playgrounds to sneer at someone and say, “You’re weird”, so a new alternative has been found. Worse, it often comes from a desire to make a box to shove people into who seem “other”, or “weird”, or differ from the norm, even in small ways.
Who is considering the effect this has on people who do have autism? Even the aforementioned strides have done little to completely change how we as a society view those with mental disorders, even as one in five adults in the United States is considered to present a diagnosable mental health disorder in every given year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. People who truly have a mental health disorder, such as autism, ADHD, or anxiety, are already predisposed, especially if they are women, to internalize their symptoms as a personal failure. To think that they are not good enough. No one deserves to feel that way, especially about something we know, on a scientific standpoint, is entirely beyond their control. And certainly no one should be using language that only serves to reinforce that kind of negative self-talk.
Many times, the people who are using the term autistic in this sense do not actually know what it truly means to be autistic. Unlike psychologists or psychiatrists, they have not dedicated their formative years to understanding how the mind works. Our education on mental health in school often comes too late or is too easy to opt out of. For example, anyone who does a sport at CHS can take a week-long online health course to supplement that credit. The only psychology class the school offers is AP and an extracurricular, which inevitably dissuades many students.
Instead, the American education system needs to get ahead of the curve. It should not take hard statistics to know that the middle school years are an incredibly fraught time for a student’s well-being. Ergo, just as fifth-graders begin to receive sex-ed and complete the DARE program, students in this age range should also be given a solid background on mental health issues. This measure will not only help kids know what warning signs to look for and which steps to take, but also raise awareness and combat negative preconceptions before they have a chance to take root.
Still, an oversight on behalf of the American public education system cannot be an excuse to continue using potentially harmful language. We have to do better to hold ourselves to a better standard. Although language, as a primary tool in modern social movements, has grown increasingly fatigued since the 2010s, it is hard to escape the fact that what we say inevitably becomes an integral part of our worldview, whether we intended it or not. Take the time to think before you speak, and to research the mental disorders that affect your loved ones and community members. We all deserve to live in a culture and community where the status quo is not turned into a weapon of exclusion.
