OCD Action

Unregistered

Hello everyone
The new 'Action' magazine came in yesterday's post and I read it through from cover to cover after X factor last night. I found it a "good read" but two single words made me recoil - sorry Daniel they were in your message - "mental illness".
Despite having spent many months in "mental institutions" - now rebranded as psychiatric hospitals I have never regarded myself as "mentally ill" and it has been a great relief to me in my autumn years to learn that I have a "disability" - because it has been just that, an unseen one but nevertheless a distressingly life restricting condition, even more so because it has been so stigmatised under the term "mental illness" and not understood.
In the '80's I worked in Starcross Hospital for the Mentally Handicapped providing admin support for it's closure and relocation of it's residents. The hospital has now gone, in it's place modern housing, and the term "mentally handicapped" and it's associated stigmas went with it, now people just have "learning difficulties".
Do others feel that making the term "mental illness" politically incorrect is a sensible way forward in attempting to alter public attitudes and if so how do we refer to people with OCD and related disorders? Also is it acceptable to put people with OCD crisis into noisy hospital wards occupied in the main by patients with alchohol or drug addictions and psychoses or should we be campaigning for specialised facilities? I think It is well and truly "time to change" and "time to act".
I am struggling to think of a new acceptable term for "mental illness" - my husband has suggested "neuro disorders".
Any better ideas?

Sun Dec 13 2009 9:49:46 #
nettlenoo
Member

hi joyce
wouldnt it be nice to have separate hospital wards. i hated it when i was in hospital really really hated it and i wanted to leave as soon as i arrived and i was only there for 1 night 2 days. i have fear of doctors and hospitals so i like the idea of a calm ward clean etc but i fear there would never be money available. i suppose "mental illness" as a term is unpleasant but it covers such a wide spectrum of issues, i really wouldnt no how to relabel ocd or associated disorders. but my feelings on it all is we
are labeled in life too much. like no one refers to an able bodied person as abled? the toilets in shops dont say abled bodied here disabled there makes me upset. we shouldnt be labeled at all regardless of what catagory we fall into. ocd is tough enough without having to feel you also have a label to wear. just my thoughts here
annette

Sun Dec 13 2009 10:12:47 #
Unregistered

This is a really difficult one. The problem with not calling OCD an illness is that it then does not get prioritised by the NHS. The other problem is that people on disability benefit will get forced back to work on the grounds that it is akin to depression or a bad back. They tried to get me back to work two or three times. Each time I told them that I could not even go out of my front door when its is raining so what would I say to my boss.

My first psychiatrist labelled it 'obsessional neurosis.' I hated the title so much that for years I decided they were wrong and that I simply had a phobia. My previous doctor refused to see it as an illness and called it a personality disorder. This created problems between me and my husband as he then decided I was not ill.

How about a 'disabling chronic psychological illness?' After all, as a rule, it cannot be cured only brought under control. And we are most certainly not mad. We all know full well that our thoughts and actions are not logical. We simply cannot get them under control.
Glad

Sun Dec 13 2009 14:20:32 #