The longer I struggle with psychosis in my life, the more uncomfortable I become with people casually throwing around of "psychotic, psycho, psychopath," in contexts that have nothing to do with mental illness. I see it here, I just did minutes ago, and it made me feel gross.
I am psychotic, sometimes, when unwell, but not all the time. Bipolar can have a psychotic component. Psychotic disorders have psychosis as a primary feature. But I'm not a psycho or psychopath. My ex has called me a psycho, which is unfair and cruel.
Psychopathy is a descriptive word for a particular flavor of person with traits falling under a cluster b personality disorder, specifically antisocial personality disorder, aspd. The other flavor is sociopath. Neither psychopath nor sociopath are diagnoses, they both fall under ASPD.
You possibly interact with people who experience psychosis and you don't even know it. I would hazard a guess that people here wouldn't have thought I have a psychotic disorder if I didn't talk about it ad infinitum. Me doing this actually helps with visibility of an often invisible illness, and helps towards destigmatization. I hope.
@Lucia thanks for this. I too have a psychotic component to my bipolar, and it upsets me when people describe terrible people as “psychotic”. I do challenge it, but it’s tiring
@purplepadma It is stigmatizing language. Some people just truly don't understand, but some people also just don't care and feel entitled to use the words they please to.
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