Sure, I understand annoyance with the enshittification of words with real clinical meanings. I am sick to death of how dumb popular discourse is around autism and adhd, and dissociation is clearly next on the list to be made stupid. So I hear you.
I guess I have come to see popular recognition of mental health terms as a double edged sword. It’s good in the sense that having a less-pejorative and hurtful term for a variant of human behavior is better than the ignorant hurtful alternatives.
‘Neurodivergent’ can be a lot less damaging as a label than ‘spaz’ or other archaic playground labels, as an example that is close to home for me.
I have found it easier to explain misconceptions about these sort of terms to the few people in my life who even give a crap to know the real truth. Explaining an entirely new complex word? Well it is much harder to find a receptive audience.
So pick your poison, I suppose. Either have to try to explain GRE (graduate record exam, a test for US grad school admission) vocabulary words from scratch to semi-literate relatives who only care maybe a little. Or drop a subtle hint at a chill moment to nudge their misuse toward a better path?
Either option still sucks, but I guess I will take the misunderstandings over the incomprehension.
Come on. All the memes recently are like “I was having a cuppa and I accidentally dissociated, and Heaven knows I’m miserable now”.
Sure, I understand annoyance with the enshittification of words with real clinical meanings. I am sick to death of how dumb popular discourse is around autism and adhd, and dissociation is clearly next on the list to be made stupid. So I hear you.
I guess I have come to see popular recognition of mental health terms as a double edged sword. It’s good in the sense that having a less-pejorative and hurtful term for a variant of human behavior is better than the ignorant hurtful alternatives.
‘Neurodivergent’ can be a lot less damaging as a label than ‘spaz’ or other archaic playground labels, as an example that is close to home for me.
I have found it easier to explain misconceptions about these sort of terms to the few people in my life who even give a crap to know the real truth. Explaining an entirely new complex word? Well it is much harder to find a receptive audience.
So pick your poison, I suppose. Either have to try to explain GRE (graduate record exam, a test for US grad school admission) vocabulary words from scratch to semi-literate relatives who only care maybe a little. Or drop a subtle hint at a chill moment to nudge their misuse toward a better path?
Either option still sucks, but I guess I will take the misunderstandings over the incomprehension.