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Insanity, lunacy, psychopath, crazy...all are words that at one time or another were associated with and described someone who had a serious mental illness. These were acceptable standards at one time in our past because we didn't know any better. In the past, there weren't medicines, studies, and therapies that allowed those with major depression and schizophrenia to lead normal lives. The only things that people knew about these diseases were that they made their loved ones act out in ways that were demonic and out of this world. Their treatments included forced sterilization, lobotomies, and being forced to live in hospitals that were called insane asylums.

Today we know better, and there is a wide gap between the words mental illness and the term insanity. Insanity insinuates that the afflicted has no hope and is likely to engage in conversation with the unknown at any moment. Insanity labels those with a serious mental illness as someone who isn't likely to ever get better and needs to spend the rest of their days locked in an insane asylum. Mental illness describes someone who is sick with a treatable disease. It doesn't make them sound like they sit around rocking in corners talking with demons. It's a description that says there is hope and it doesn't have to end with a lobotomy as the word insanity does.

The stigma of having a serious mental illness touches every corner in the life of someone who has been diagnosed. It can take time to accept the diagnosis and many times people will feel isolated as they lose those around them. They fight everyday to make their family and friends believe they are normal and have a treatable disease. Those who refer to it as insanity or call someone insane are just perpetuating the stigma that people who have mental illnesses are violent and unpredictable. It can cause more emotional damage to hear jokes and comments about insane asylums, psychopaths and straight jackets. Mental illnesses are treatable conditions that can be lived with and beaten and negative portrayals of mental illnesses only make it harder for those who are sick to get the help they need and to be taken seriously.

Learn more about this author, Marie J Kelley.
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