From a young age we are taught to accept others who are different than us and not judge them negatively for being different. We are taught that just because someone is different than us, they deserve the same amount of respect as we do. This holds true for those who have been diagnosed with a mental illness as well. Saying things like "This gives me so much anxiety" or "I'm feeling so depressed lately" is making light of people who actually have those conditions.

The word "retarded" is now known as the "R-word" for those who refuse to say it out of respect. In classrooms, on social media, even in advertisements, the "R-word" is displayed as something to be frowned against using in every day conversation. Its an offensive term. People who have mental retardation, know someone with mental retardation and even people who aren't tied to mental retardation personally, find this term offensive because it is insulting. When it is used in the place of other words like "stupid" or "absent-minded", the term serves as a negative connotation, so who wouldn't find it offensive?

Which brings me to ask, if we are promoting the idea of using a different word in replace of the "R-word", why aren't we doing the same with terms that refer to mental illness? They are both being used in place of something negative, but neither one of those are topics to be made light of.

I refuse to use the "R-word" along with many other people because I am both educated with the fact that it is offensive and I do believe it is wrong to use someone's condition as a way to describe something negatively. With mental illness, people aren't entirely educated on how offensive it is to throw around words like "anxiety" and "depression." It isn't very promoted because mental illnesses aren't as commonly seen.

In fact, they aren't seen at all. You can't tell someone when someone has a mental illness just by looking at them. You also can't tell what they go through after being diagnosed with it. Someone struggling with anxiety is very different than someone struggling with being nervous for an exam. Moreover, someone with depression feels differently than someone who has just recently gone through a break up. It is clear that people who use these terms to refer to an emotion undermine those individuals who are actually diagnosed with the disorder.

We can't be perfect all the time and it is really easy to accidentally say something like "I've been feeling so depressed lately" to someone who is actually diagnosed with it; however, spreading even the slightest amount of awareness towards this issue can potentially go a long way by making it easier on someone who hears their mental illness being used as an adjective. The point is that it is okay to have the feelings of anxiousness and sadness (which most people say "depressed" when talking about their sadness), but I want to enlighten people to the fact that feelings are a totally different thing compared to what people with the illness go through on a day to day basis.