Depression, Anxiety, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Borderline Personality Disorder, all mental illness’ to name a few. These are words and conditions that should be taken seriously, but in a sickening twist of fate they’ve become adjectives for people who have absolutely no mental illness’. It’s not uncommon to hear things such as “Stop you’re giving me anxiety!” or “I hate having a messy room, I totally have OCD!”.

Yet these people do not realize what they are saying is not well, it is the appropriation of mental illness is becoming a serious problem amongst this generation. It is similar to saying “Wow I feel nauseous, I must have cancer!”, now imagine saying that, in front of someone who truly does have it.

This can be known as the appropriation of mental illness, the use of mental illnesses as adjectives by completely neurotypical people, (or those who are considered clinically mentally sound). It is degrading in multiple to those who suffer daily from disorders, such as Depression or Borderline Personality.

It is invalidating the severity of such diagnoses which are very serious, and making them to synonyms for ‘scared’ or ‘sad’. So when the word Depression is thrown around like a simple descriptor by those who don’t have it people who actually come forward with the illness itself its like saying ‘I’m in a bad mood’. People with a diagnosable chronic illness are invalidated and belittled to the point where they no longer are viewed as having something wrong and ignored.

This can force people to become more closed off about the struggles they may be facing, though despite the fact, the best way to face a mental illness is to get help. Yet when the words that can describe the suffering a person is experiencing is degraded those who have the courage to confront their mental illness they may feel invalidated and are expected to be told they’re “faking it” or “trying to get attention”.

Few Americans seem to take mental illness seriously todays approach is better than in times where those who weren’t of stable mind were institutionalized, but there is still a different degree of pain and  suffering brought along with the illness itself, as if it doesn’t cause enough damage on its own.

So before you want to call your friend ‘bi-polar’ for being in a good mood one moment and a bad in the next, take into consideration the weight of your words. Those who have mental illnesses have the added burden with the misrepresentation of their disorders, and the trivialization of them