What is the stupidest thing someone has ever said about your illness(es)

[crazychick10793]

My brother inspired this thread with his "genius"

What are some stupid things people have said regarding your illness(es)?

The gem of the day in this house "You can't have schizophrenia like you're claiming because girls don't get schizophrenia like that." (To make it better, my brother is studying to be a doctor) :ermm:


I guess this is kind of a rant thread about idiots. Share your story!

[Steel Maiden]

"You can't have schizophrenia because you aren't obsessed about God."

Yes I may be atheist but WTF?

[keep_it_together]

"Cheer up" or maybe "you'll be fine"

[Iamcatbug]

I'm sure someone created a similar thread a while ago.

But the stupidest thing I've heard is: 'it is all in your head'

[Epicene]

"You're so clever/beautiful/talented, why do you hurt yourself"

And the doctor who told me aged 15 I'd never function without medication. Because obviously you can predict a life of poor mental health in a teenager.

I'm sure there are more that I cant think of right now.

[sherlock holmes]

Yeah I always found A&E doctors to be the least informed about mental health and always ones to say things like "did you do this because you were bored?" and the favourite "you're too intelligent to do this/you've got your whole life ahead of you/you'll feel better when you've grown up a bit".

I remember seeing the CAMHs psychiatrist when I was 16, and she asked the usual kind of questions about if I was eating, sleeping and so on. She asked if my daily activity and interest in things had decreased in the past couple of months. I said, no not in the past couple of months because I stopped going out and seeing people ages ago. I said I had long found no interest in previously pleasurable activities. But she kept asking if it was in the past 2 months. So I said, no, things could have not got worse than 0 in the past 2 months! So she wrote in her report that I had not had any loss of interest in activities and had not changed my behaviour in the past 2 months and due to this and other things (that she misunderstood) she concluded I was not in need of mental health intervention.

That's the one that really angered me and I really went downhill after that but that's another story!

(Obviously with all doctors and psychiatrists you get a minority who misunderstand, but I've by far had overwhelmingly positive experiences)

[Ballerina123]

"You can't be schizoaffective you don't talk to yourself"

"Get a grip"

"It's all in your head" .... well its not gonna be in my lungs is it?

"So are you like a psychopath? "

[not_so_insig]

I had the whole "it's in your head" from a member here. :-(

I been accused of making the schizophrenia up for attention. Yeah I really wanted to be injected every 3 weeks, to end up in hospital multiple times, to be threatened with a section. Besides my cpn said that people who end up faking mental illness end up faking depression not schizophrenia. I must be a Oscar worthy actress to end up fooling a psych if I am making it up.

[Serendipity.]

I think it's important to remember that a lot of times when people say 'stupid' things, it's because of a genuine lack of understanding. Things that may seem obvious to us perhaps aren't so obvious to people who have no first hand experience of mental ill health. It doesn't necessarily make them idiots, and if we can avoid getting offended, it can be a good opportunity to educate. Even if someone doesn't seem to take on board what you say, it might make a difference in the long run.

I've mainly had positive experiences; I know a lot of things that get posted on threads like this are comments from professionals, so I do think it's important to remember that that is the minority, and there are lots and lots of good ones out there.

That said, I have also heard some pretty stupid things, from people who should know better. I once had a GP tell me that I could be an attractive girl if I made an effort, and all I needed to do was put on some make-up and go on a date and everything would be fine.

[sherlock holmes]

Yeah, I really do think they mean well when they say things like that (you're attractive, you're intelligent etc). They probably don't have an awful lot of MH training (some general nurses only have a very short MH rotation, not sure about doctors) so they don't know what the best thing to say is.

[Arienette]

"You're doing this just to spite me"

On my 1st admission from my dad. Lol. Because going into hospital is really spiteful.

"I think you're just bored"

Like seriously!!

And from my latest psych in hospital:

"We're you so bored you felt the need to do something so drastic" about a dissociative episode.

From a nurse when I had anorexia "are you trying to go in Britons next top model" her conclusion was based on me being anorexic and tall.

[ParanormalChickenGeek]

"You have nothing to be depressed about, you've had a great life!" - two of my family members!

"You need to just pull yourself together"- the first GP I ever saw about my MH.

[tiptoes]

A GP told me I seemed happy enough as I sat in front of him sobbing about feeling so depressed, thankfully CAMHs who I saw that afternoon thought differently.

My old psychiatrist refused to believe that I could be hypomanic and still work so put in my notes that my mood was only elevated at the weekends. Not really an issue at the time as he was still treating my elevated mood but it did mean I didn't qualify for a bipolar diagnosis so was later put on antidepressants without any precautions in place which went brilliantly!!

With regards to intelligence and MH have had the opposite experience where people of have gone "ah figures".... guess some situations there is no right response.

[Zurg]

I keep hearing that having schizophrenia is the same as containing multiple different personalities that i switch between. Hehe.....:point:

[Iamcatbug]

Often I get 'you have nothing to be depressed about' or 'I was depressed yesterday. Snap out of it.'

Oh and 'you don't look like you have a personality disorder.'

[shadow-light]

"Well you don't look underweight, the ting can't be that much of an issue"

"You can't have PTSD, you're not a soldier"

"Only teenages hurt themselves, grow out of it already"

"You probably don't need all those meds, its all about self control"


And a recent one from my partner who does have OCD and depression so you'd think wouldn't say silly thing: "just ignore it, that's what I do and its worked so far" :/

[nowhereman]

I think it's important to remember that a lot of times when people say 'stupid' things, it's because of a genuine lack of understanding. Things that may seem obvious to us perhaps aren't so obvious to people who have no first hand experience of mental ill health. It doesn't necessarily make them idiots, and if we can avoid getting offended, it can be a good opportunity to educate. Even if someone doesn't seem to take on board what you say, it might make a difference in the long run.



I have to agree with this. I used to get so mad when someone said the "wrong" thing, but I realise now that they sometimes just don't know. I know that doesn't make it less annoying and even sometimes hurtful, but it's not an easy thing for us to understand most of the time, never mind someone who has never experienced or maybe never heard of certain things. I'm sure they're not trying to upset anyone. It does feel worse when it's a professional or someone else with mental illness, but they're only human and make mistakes too.

So the first ones that spring to mind are my ex (who had mental illness too) said i was "taking it too seriously" and "its a copout" and this was about the derealisation/depersonalisation that was literally taking over my life at the time.

And of course so many more from so many people, I just try to laugh it off at this stage cos otherwise I'd cry. That's how my family deal with it too and that's ok, well it's mostly ok. I don't talk to them about it anyway so it could make it hard to talk about it seriously with them, but since I don't anyway then it doesn't matter.

[nowhereman]

"You can't have schizophrenia because you aren't obsessed about God."


The first person I tried to tell that I had schizophrenia just said "no you don't" not even any reasom, just no you don't. So I was like, ok I don't then. I mean why would I even say something like that? The only reason I even told her was because we'd just done a course lesson about drugs and that was mentioned. Oh, another fun part was when the leader talked about someone with schizophrenia thinking his parents wanted to kill him, and the whole class laughed. Except me. And guess why? Yes, because same thing happened to me.

[nowhereman]

The gem of the day in this house "You can't have schizophrenia like you're claiming because girls don't get schizophrenia like that." (To make it better, my brother is studying to be a doctor) :ermm:

!

Sorry to post again, but great, I'm a girl so that means I don't have it either! Tell your brother thanks for the cure! I'll be sure to tell my pysch that next week, lol.

And your brother is studying to be doctor...oh god help us all lol :thumb:

[nowhereman]

Actually I recently told my "best friend" I was suicidal and she got so angry, just talked about herself, didn't show any concern at all, literally said "screw you", this was all in January and she still hasn't asked since if I'm even ok. Well last week she told me that she just got a degree in psychology. I'm just like, oh jesus...

[Margo]

My dad has anger issues....


The first time I told him I felt suicidal - he screamed at me down the phone and said "if I try to kill myself, I'll ****ing kill you"

[UnanimousAnonymous]

From an adult mental health psych I had been waiting years to see: "you're intelligent, you will sort yourself out".

And from an ED nurse: "I've seen people worse than you, you just need to eat properly".

Safe to say I haven't gone back and I won't. So I do battle my demons on my own.