Dave's Progress. Chapter 116: Feeling Liberated.

A while ago now, I wrote a blog about political correctness and the terms which are appropriate to use when speaking of mental illness or those with experience of it. It seems to me that this is an extremely vexed question and one which, perhaps, demands a little further exploration.
As I recall, I said in my blog that pejorative words used to describe mental illness were still used with a certain banal cruelty, seemingly bandied about with relative impunity in comparison to their racial or sexual counterparts. While this is perhaps true, I pointed out that there are people within mental health circles who advocate the use of words, such as "mad" in the case of "Mad Pride", which would at first seem unsuitable. The concept of "reclaiming" words and thereby defusing their power seems to be behind this particular approach.
Indeed, the more I look at words used to describe those who experience mental ill health, such as "loony", "nutter", "bonkers", "wacko", I have come to feel that they are, in some ways, harmless. This may outrage some who feel the use of such terms to be wholly inappropriate, but the more I have been involved with fighting the use of inappropriate language, the more I realise that these terms are, in fact, nothing to do with me. They do not describe, in any way, the illness or symptoms I have experienced. So, I can separate my own experience from such language, and have come to regard it, because it has "nothing to do with me", as almost harmless and even vaguely humorous. Indeed, there is one group of service users who actually revel in such terms and embrace them. They feel that words like "bonkers" are actually quite "cuddly", and imply a sort of harmless eccentricity, rather than any dark, scary malevolence. Moreover, these terms seem to be applied to those who have no experience of mental ill health, but are merely regarded as a a little strange or eccentric. In my own opinion, it is only the term "schizo" which I tend to find really offensive, as it does seem to convey a particularly virulent nastiness.
I suppose what I am trying to say is that the journey to liberation perhaps begins internally. It is how we respond to such name-calling that is the really important thing. For, no matter how hard we try, it is not as if we are going to eliminate all stigma and discrimination. And here, I suppose, I am contradicting myself again, having written previously that in order to change things one must engage with the world. I have to say that in my own experience, although my anti-stigma work has helped me confront many issues, it has been as much an internal journey as one to do with actually bringing about change in the world. Indeed, this would seem to tie in with notions about self-stigma. It is how we respond to such things which ultimately defines how "liberated" or "unliberated" we may feel.
Indeed, it seems to me that to feel truly free would be to somehow escape definition or categorisation. We are all, to some degree, put in to boxes and defined. To some this gives a sense of identity, to others a sense that they are somehow locked in to something they need to be liberated from. At one stage I even felt that my own name might be an unnecessary means of defining something which should remain nebulous- free from definition, therefore free to be anything.
So, if some see madness itself as liberating, it is also nice to be liberated from madness and the terms which are used to describe it. And, I feel , that is the point I am at now- feeling somewhat liberated from all of this, no longer defined by terms other than my own.