I Consume

Don't you hate it when your unicorn meat eating cat looks at the door (from the outside) and meows? Then, when you open the door, you find they just want to meow to you? This is the same cat, Rat-face Bastard, that sleeps beside the food bowl at night, thereby preventing Minkins from eating...

Well, now that I have gotten off of my chest, crap about the world that really bothers me: see yesterday's blog; I can pick it back up again today. I had to explain to a mentally disabled comrade yesterday that she wasn't a bad person because she is "ill." English has picked words with negative connotations to describe people built like me. "Ill", "disabled" and the mental health field has picked the worst one: we are "consumers".

For someone who leans toward the Left, as I do, that is the harshest cut of all. I support the causes of marriage for all, women's rights, animal rescue, save the planet, etc. The last word I want attached to me is "consumer". When I run that word through my mind, what pops up is a vision of me dressed in puritanical garb covering a corset, burning a plastic grocery bag in the front yard and watching the smoke dissipate to destroy the ozone...

It brings up a vision like this: I once attended the only NIMH meeting (National Institute of Mental Health) listed on the web in town. I thought it would be a meeting of my peers. What I walked into was a meeting of about 30 healthcare professionals and 3 of my peers.

I just really had my heart set on seeing and talking to more people like me. I had no therapist at the time, and really needed to feel less isolated.

Anyway, to then be told the pros referred to "us" as consumers really burst my bubble. Consumers? Like we give nothing? To me, the word "patients" would even be better but apparently that word is used by physicians and their ilk to refer to someone who sees them as a personal doctor.

To me the word Consumer denotes a person who doesn't recycle. I don't know why. It's just a depressing word. Now, there is the word "challenged" which is not used much anymore, "mentally challenged," but that doesn't describe how I feel and how my disorders affect me. I am emotionally challenged. My disorders display themselves in my emotional life, and that is a whole different can o' worms.

Think about all the things that emotions rule in your life (everything) and you will see where the problems lie. There is no escape from emotions. "Emotional Dysregulation Person" is perfect but not very sonorous, and there is that word "dysregulation."

I know I am nit-picking (and gods above, what a word that is! Think about it!) but I don't care today. Being 'wired and tired' as I am, I just do not care. What little care I can scrape up today with be given to the spaz dog as an offering.

Until tomorrow...