What’d You Call Me? Part 1: Societal Labels & Mental Illness
This is the first in a two-part series exploring the purpose and meaning of the mental illness labels applied to so many of us that are Different Functional.
In this first installment, we’re going to take a deep dive into societal labels. These are the words tossed about by everyday people. Unofficial brands that are applied to us by society or by ourselves. They include things like slow, lazy, different, difficult, freak, mental, or crazy. They may even include official sounding things like bipolar, neurodivergent, depressed, or high functioning. Whether official sounding or not, these are not diagnoses. They are causal and ambiguous words people in our society use to define the people around them.
Origins of Societal Labels
Where do these words even come from? As you might guess by looking at them, many of these words are bastardized diagnoses. They are stolen from the world of health care and therapists, sullied in the streets, and misinterpreted by the general public. Bipolar is a great example. I don’t know how many times I have heard the word “bipolar” applied to someone who has mood swings. The general public got the gist of the diagnosis, that a person oscillates between depression and mania, and decided this must mean the person has mood swings. When used by most people, bipolar has little to nothing to do with Bipolar I or Bipolar II disorder. Instead, it means the person is experiencing emotional lability or demonstrating histrionics. Or in other words, their mood is changing from moment to moment and they are being rather loud/expressive about their emotions. This is not the true meaning of Bipolar at all. But because society has used it this way so often and so regularly, it is now an accepted definition of the word for many people.
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Many times, these bastardized diagnoses are turned into slings and insults. “Retardation” is a prime example. Mental Retardation used to be an official diagnosis. Back in the late 1800s, when the term first started being used, it was an attempt to break away from demeaning words, such as moron or imbecile, that were being used at the time. It was the psychiatric world’s attempt at using words literally to describe a set of symptoms. It indicated in a quite literal manner that the individual’s intellectual capacity was delayed. That is what the word retard originally meant, delayed. (And is actually still used in some fields to indicate something is delayed). However, cruel, bullying people of the world took this diagnosis and turned it into an insult. It was used as a way to mock someone, a way to call a person stupid, slow, or dumb. It was misused with such contempt that the word is now highly offensive, and for good reason.
Many of the labels thrown about by society, though, did not come from diagnoses or the medical community at all. Many of them evolved naturally as language does. Words changed here and there, little by little until the initial meaning is all but lost.
Did you know for example that gay initially meant happy or joyful? Later it was used to indicate sexual promiscuity. Then in certain areas, it was applied to individuals whose sexuality was counterculture. Back in the 1950s, it began being used in reference to sexual orientation. And then later morphed into an offensive insult meaning stupid or dumb. Labels are, after all, words. And the meaning of words changes over time. Often, those applied to any of us that are different, eventually end up as insults and barbs. (But I will get to the reasons for that in a moment.)
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Social media and the internet are now also greatly affecting the labels we have. With increased communication, comes the opportunity for language to change faster and more globally. Some of these alterations have been negative, but some of these changes in language and labels have also been positive. While the internet provides an avenue for trolls and bigotry, it also provides a platform for different individuals to let their voices be heard, and to establish their own words. People have started to take words from everyday language, mental health, and scientific research and created their own diverse meanings. And, many times, form their own communities around these labels.
An excellent example of this is neurodivergent. Initially coined in the late 1990s by a scientist likely on the autistic spectrum, this term has been widely embraced by individuals diagnosed with Autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and other similar disorders. Neurospicy is an increasingly popular mutation of this term and can be seen frequently on TikTok and other social media platforms as a hashtag. As inclusion becomes more important with the younger generations and social media provides a previously unavailable soapbox to those with differences and diagnoses, hopefully, self-chosen terms such as these will become the greater norm.
Reasons for Societal Labels
Whether these positive labels become the norm, though, will greatly depend on how society changes and flexes over the coming years. Societal labels, after all, are simply reflective of society. It is not really the label or word that is typically the problem. Rather it is the created meaning and intended use that can create harm.
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Labeling, in and of itself, is a natural human phenomenon that has, in many ways, allowed the human race to not only survive but prosper. Labeling is simply a way of categorizing information. Categorizing information allows the brain to invest less effort and resources into perception and plotting. It makes life easier for us. Instead of having to see every single stimulus as something new and unique that must be fully assessed for threat and potential, categorization allows us to rely on our past experiences. To say x is like y, so I will treat x like y. It also allows us to take huge chunks of data and simplify them so that we can analyze and understand them, and then apply this understanding to the world around us.
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This human need and use of labeling makes a lot of sense. And, in itself, is not necessarily a problem at all. So why is it that society’s use of these labels is a problem? Why are they so often used to shame and shape an individual into “normality”?
Culture or society is able to exist and continue, in part, because it is designed to perpetuate itself. There are rules, laws, mores, behaviors, etc. that serve to ensure the culture continues exactly as it is with minimal change. Because great change would, after all, destroy the culture. Extreme deviation from societal practices would result in a new society. In a way, culture/society is like its own entity, exerting its force and will through each of us brought up in it, to continue itself into the future.
The very fact that you and I are different functional, means that we are different. We are an aberration in the cultural story. A deviation from the societal norm. And there are rules in place to call us back to the norm. To entice us or beat us back into following the scripted story we are supposed to perpetuate. To shape us into model citizens.
Society takes the natural, human creation and use of labels, and turns it into a system of control. Labels are used as an attempt to align us back into the story. To make us start following the script. To use our intrinsic needs for belonging and acceptance against us. Labels have positive connotations and positive perceptions when those traits represented by labels serve society. They have negative connotations and negative perceptions when the represented traits deviate from societal expectations and scripts.
The Effects of Societal Labels
This is why labels can be so harmful. Especially those that sound official. Mental illness is, by its very definition, a deviation. It is a departing from the expected norm or average. This is why so many labels that sound official, like bipolar, high functioning, or even mental illness, end up being negative labels. Even if they are not used with intent to harm, they are spoken with overtones of shame. This is part of what creates so much stigma around mental health.
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These negative implications become attached to the label. They become part of the data package that the label represents. Initially, the label may have been produced as a benign, neutral fact. A simple way of seeing a group of people in a manner that makes it easier for our brains to function. But societal interpretation ensures that the label will have emotional weight.
Unfortunately, one of the things that is true of labels, even benign ones, is that they are faulty. Labels categorize huge chunks of information. They take an entire segment of the population, an entire spectrum of behavior, and narrow it down to one word. A word now weighted with a backlog of meaning, assumptions, and prejudgments. All of which are inaccurate to some degree. Any time you simplify things, any time you average it all out, you lose the accuracy of the details. You lose the true reality of what is. And what you are left with is a picture that has been smudged by your perception to fit with the label.
This is one of the ways in which labels can be very, very dangerous. They begin to shape reality in a faulty manner. We think of labels as truth, because our brains need them to be true to functions. So even though they aren’t true, we treat them as they are, and this shapes our perception of the world. In so doing, it shapes our behaviors and how we interact with the world. The end result of this is a label now has the ability to change a person’s life.
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You call somebody mentally ill, and people will react to them differently. They will see this label as a reality, and fail to see the person. They will act according to prejudgments based on the label. This may mean caringly, condescendingly, or outright abusively dependent on the person. This label will change how individuals act towards the person. This is true on all levels, from intimate relationships and friendships to job opportunities and promotion possibilities.
Our brains are wired to see labels as truth, society imbues them with emotional content that makes them feel like truth, and then individuals act toward you in a way that makes you believe the label is true. All of this means that often a person will internalize the label as well. They will blur their perceptions of themselves, alter their behavior, adjust their lives to become the label. The label becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the label is a “good” one, this is beneficial for the individual in societal context. They will be lauded, celebrated, held up as the standard. If the label is a “bad” one, though, it can ruin their lives.
When the label is internalized, the person may embrace it with open arms and live the societally decreed destiny. Or they may choose to fight. They will change their behaviors, emotions, selves to escape the label. Masking is an excellent example of this. To put it simply, masking is when a neurodivergent individual alters their behaviors to be seen as more “normal” in order to “fit in.” The individual is aware on some level of the label of autistic, ADHD, mentally ill, or different and all the prejudgments and scripts that come with it. In order to evade these judgments, they act in ways that are not true to their nature. Some people even seek to fully change the very nature of who they are. To become functional and stable by societal standards. In part, so they can reap the rewards of the “good” labels and be rid of the damages done by the “bad” labels.
Creating & Defining Societal Labels
Because of the nature of our brains, labels are not likely to disappear anytime soon. Because of the nature of culture, the labels we naturally create will continue to be imbued with emotional context that society will act on. But, society can be changed. And is being changed as you read this. Each one of us that is different functional is part of society. And the reality is, that a very, very, very large portion of society is, in reality, different to some degree. We have the power to own these labels. To create them, shape them, define them into something new or different.
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This is part of why I love the label neurodivergent. It is a label created by the population it is meant to represent. Informed and defined in a manner to ensure positive connotations. Owned in such a way to ensure that different does not equate to defective. People have the power to change the words that are used to describe them and even to change the meanings of those words. This power, though, is directly correlated with the amount of power the person has in society. The more privilege and power they are awarded by the world around them, the more weight their voice will carry.
Those without power have to fight much, much harder to redefine and recreate the labels they carry. Society has decreed them of less worth. Their differences threaten the status quo. So, society fights to limit the power they are allowed to have. Their voices and their definitions are easier to ignore. And society, in its attempt to maintain itself unchanged, will encourage each of us to ignore their voices as well. To react to their attempts for change with fear, belittlement, and condescension. I don’t know about you, but I’m not ok with being controlled like this. With being told what to do by a faceless they.
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This is part of why I do my best to use labels that people ask me to use. And to not use labels that individuals have asked me not to. I want each individual to have the power to create who they are, how they are seen, and how they are defined. I am very aware that society will not allow this redefinition easily. But I do not want to be a part of our society as it exists now. I want to be part of a society that allows freedom of choice, freedom of life, freedom of reality to all of us equally. I understand that is idealistic. But it is an ideal I will fight for.
So, whether a label is a pronoun, description of race, or term of diagnosis, I will do my best to respect the individual’s choice in its use. I will not bow to society’s insidious voice encouraging me to demean and belittle or to uplift and celebrate based on what has always been. I will use my own reason, my own morals to guide me in my treatment of others. And this means, in part, using the labels individuals ask me to use. And even more so, in seeing beyond the narrow definition of the label, to experience the reality and nuance and detail of who that individual actually is. It may take more effort for my brain to see others this way. But I feel it is an effort well invested.
In case you were wondering, here are a few of the labels I prefer: freak, she/her, neurodivergent, different functional. What are some of your preferred labels?
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