Things you shouldn't say to someone with a mental illness

"Are you ok?" can trigger me sometimes. Unfortunately.

"Snap out of it" !!!

Anything that comes after the words "You just need to..." or "I think it's just..." 😅

Just forget about it or

let it go

just move on

Hey there @-JJ- , sending you a big welcome to the forums! It looks like this is your first discussion topic, and I suspect it might be a popular one

Here is my contribution to things you shouldn't say to someone with a mental illness:

• Why can't you just get over it?
• I thought you'd be better by now
• We all feel like that sometimes
• Just go for a walk
• Maybe you're not trying hard enough

And to mix it up a little, things you SHOULD say to someone who has a mental illness:

• I'm here for you
• I want to learn more
• How can I support you?
• That must be hard
• I admire your strength

Hi @-JJ- ,

Welcome to the forums! Thank you for starting this thread

I think it's awful hearing "but think about all the people who have it worse", it's so dismissive and upsetting!

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I also just wanted to jump in and encourage our community to reach out for support should any of this content be triggering or upsetting. SANE peer support workers and counsellors are available for chat if you need them

That can be a tricky one @Gwynn. Knowing how and when to raise it with friends and family can feel like a bit of a minefield.

my mum has told me 'you're not strong enough like me, that's why you see a psychologist' !!!!

or

'are you still seeing a psych'

'are you still taking AD' should't you be off them by now!!!!

• "Well, that's your problem."
• "Well, it's your own fault." (especially when nobody can explain how I could've handled things better amd obtained a better result)
• "So, when are you gonna get a life?" (yeah. that one cut deep. Especially when it came from a stranger.)

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@TheVorticon wrote:

Anything that comes after the words "You just need to..." or "I think it's just..." 😅

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Yeah, me too. In my experiance, the biggest problem with those statements is that the "advice" that follows them is always so damned vague, you've got no hope of translating it into a usable set of instructions. But the people who deal them out have the gall to act as if they've just printed you out a clear, step-by-step guide on how to get what you need.

Equally upsetting are the instances where their advice is clearly oriented towards delivering the outcomes that they want, not necessarily the one you want.

@BlueBay wrote:

Just forget about it or

let it go

just move on

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Yeah. Towards the end of my therapy, the word "acceptance" became the most toxic staple of my treatment. All these phrases are more or less cut from that same cloth.

@cloudcore wrote:

I think it's awful hearing "but think about all the people who have it worse", it's so dismissive and upsetting!

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I agree completely. And this is one of the things that really frustrates me, because it just highlights the fact that our (i.e. the "mentally ill", suffering, suicidal, ect. community) insight/perspective is not filtering out into the wider community or public dialog about these issues. Because the validity of "but think about all the people who have it worse" has already been debunked in our environment! We know that it's an illegitimate argument! But the broader public, who invest all of 15 seconds thinking about these issues when they encounter them, still deal these faulty pearls out to sufferers far more wise then themselves, because they've just been so hopelessly indoctrinated by the media and "official guidelines", that they aren't able to deliver anything more then remarks that have been prepared for them by the powers-that-be!

This is why we still need much, much more presence for actual sufferers in our media material and PSA campaigns.