Link – Can we please stop labelling ourselves with our mental illnesses?
I’ve often said something similar about being a survivor of abuse, it’s not all we are, we are a million other things as well. Perhaps we should take that same practice to mental health? You may have depression, but it’s not the sum total of you as a person, is it?
“You wouldn’t say you are a broken leg, now would you? What you’d say is that you have a broken leg. And we should be discussing mental illness in the same manner.
Describing yourself as your mental illness rather than saying you have it suggests that’s all you are. It takes up your identity. I worry that if I were to label myself as someone who is bipolar as opposed to who has bipolar, the person I’m describing myself to may never be able to see beyond that.”
