C is for Crazy

Wordle is just too much fun. You enter a bunch of text into the box on their website and then they create an instant picture with all the words. All sorts of formatting options are available - format, font, color, etc. The smallest words show up least frequently and the largest words show up most frequently. I went to thesaurus dot com and looked up crazy and then posted all the antonyms into the Wordle program. My choice of words was motivated by an attempt to figure out some language to use when talking about mental illness. Rather than indicating what we don't what people to say, I wanted to get some ideas for what we do want people to say. I'm not sure what I expected to see. Here's the image it created....

I'm rather irritated by the results. Are people without mental illnesses the only ones that can be sensible? or reasonable? People with mental illnesses cannot be rational or balanced or smart? Really?

Changing the language that we use is important. I think it's time that we advocates change our choice of words, too. Nature abhors a vacuum. Taking words out of people's concept of mental illness leaves a gap that must be filled. What are we going to fill that space with?

For more information about the 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge see the website of the same name.