Mental Health Mondays #8 : Watch Your Words Part 2

Check out Part 1 of this series here where I complain about misuse of the term "mental breakdown" and explain a bit more about the idea of this short series of posts. These are my views and as much as I try I may not be 100% accurate in what I say so please bear this in mind when you're reading.

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The phrase this week is:

"OMG _____ is so OCD"

Okay now this is a big one. It's one of those phrases which seems to be so commonly used by so many people and yet it's the worst.

OCD is, and I cannot stress this enough, not just being a tidy mother-hecker okay?!?! Like I don't know where everyone got this idea from but it's not AT ALL accurate. NHS Choices describes OCD as "a common mental health condition in which a person has obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviours" y'all hearing that?? That's not "people like to have a clean house and always tidy up after themselves". 

As well as this, using it in this situation makes absolutely no grammatical sense. I don't hear you all being like "wow she's so depression" or "sorry I'm anxiety right now". You get that OCD stands for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder right? So saying "Sorry I'm obsessive compulsive disorder about my bedroom" makes no mother-effing sense???

How about instead of using the name of a serious MH condition and something which makes no grammatical sense, we try "Wow ___ is a tidy person" or "Sorry I just don't like it when my room is messy." Like stop trying to pretend that that makes someone have OCD because it really doesn't okay??? I'm tired of people being all "I think ____ has OCD because their room is so neat." because like?? not everyone with OCD even has a tidy room like do your research before you start throwing these terms around because it's a lot more serious than that.

This post is just a big rant and I'm afraid to say that I have absolutely no shame because I'm tired of this. Please please please just do your research before you start throwing these terms around, a little googling can help you to learn a lot and in doing so hopefully we'll start to move away from the idea that people with OCD are just tidy people because it's just, like, harmful to everyone. Also remember if you aren't a qualified healthcare professional you aren't really okay to be slapping these diagnoses on people, so please don't and if you seriously are worried about someone just talk to them without using the specific name of a disorder because it may well be more sensitive and helpful.

Thanks for reading my rant! If you feel similarly or differently then pop me a comment below and check out my Question Box if you've got anything you want to ask or rant about yourself. Sorry that this post is somewhat short and angry but I can't help that this is my current vibe so just embrace it ;)