I am 13. I am diagnosed with bipolar.

I am 14. My parents tell me about my diagnosis for the first time. I feel angry. They kept it from me so I wouldn’t feel embarrassed. So I wouldn’t feel ashamed.

But I did. But I do.

I am 15. I fight immeasurable battles every day and desperately try to retain a semblance of normalcy in my daily life. But I feel so very far from normal.

I am 16. I see a news story of a man jumping off a building in Times Square because he believed he could fly. The man was believed to have had bipolar. A manic episode. I had those, too. The comparison between me and this man seemed to have happened without my consent. But we were one with the judgment from people who don’t understand mental illness. We were one with our diagnoses. And I understood him better than anyone else.

I am 17. I open up about my diagnosis to someone who should understand. Someone who had it too. I was met with like-minded shame. His grandmother had bipolar and was irritable, cruel, and violent. He didn’t want to be like her. It wasn’t my place to feel sad, but I did. His grandmother and I were one then, too. I felt sad that my diagnosis was shameful. I felt angry, like I was being accused of something. I felt ashamed.

Before I make you any kind of argument, you have to understand that my self-image with regards to my diagnosis is a compilation of all of these stories.

In my life, bipolar isn’t just my disorder. Bipolar is an expectation, a stereotype, a tragedy of the mind, and despite the fact that I know I didn’t choose to have it, I still feel the social pressure to cover it up, hide it away, try to disassociate from it.

That feeling is called mental health stigma.

Mental health stigma is the societal pressure to avoid discussing mental illness, the belief that mental illnesses aren’t as legitimate as physical ailments, and the fear everyone in the mental health community has that they will not be accepted, that they will be resented, attacked, insulted, degraded.

And that fear has a basis. In the TV shows we watch, in the books we read, in the news stories, and even in daily conversation, we see our problems mocked. And it can start small.

I’m going to ask you to stop using the word “crazy.” And here’s why.

After I found out my diagnosis, I started to associate myself with the word “crazy.” And how could I not? I had every mood disorder in the book. I went manic once or twice, had been depressive for as long as months and as short as three hours. I was the “crazy” that they referenced, even when they didn’t mean to, every time they used that word.

The word “crazy” is a form of mental health stigma no less legitimate than anything else. You aren’t a bad person for using it, but you are perpetuating this feeling that I felt at fourteen and still feel today. This feeling of shame and sadness and anger.

Frankly, I’m jealous of you. I wish I could afford to be so careless as to use the word “crazy” without knowing what it means. But I cannot use this word because the fourteen-year-old Jillian in me still wonders if somehow this disorder that she can’t control, didn’t choose, and isn’t her fault is indeed her fault, and if somehow those words are accusations. She feels blamed.

I’m guessing you’ll read this and say, Well maybe you’re just sensitive to it. And you’re right. I am. Because to me it isn’t just a word; it is the rush of adrenaline that comes from telling someone my diagnosis, or the pang of fear when they tell me that it makes them nervous. Mostly, the fear and anger and sadness that I felt when I was fourteen and I realized that my diagnosis was something so stigmatized that my parents had been afraid to mention it to me.

It seems like a small thing. I know it does. But making this change is a simple way to take a stand against mental health stigma and make sure the people in your life who struggle with mental illness know that you support them. You and I both know that they deserve it. So make the switch.