[Site redacted: I don't want to provide views or ad revenue to the test. It was one of the Facebook quiz sites that seem to be popular with 12-16 year olds and the 40+]
This is probably the most disrespectful test I've seen on Facebook.
1. The term "Psycho" is incredibly pejorative and insensitive to anyone who has ever had symptoms of psychosis.
2. Schizophrenia, schizophreniform disorder, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, brief psychotic disorder, delusional disorder, chronic hallucinatory psychosis, schiotypal disorder, paranoid personality disorder, schizoid personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, PTSD, induced delusional disorder, OCD and certain dissociative disorders (I.e. DID) have all been linked, in some cases, to psychoses. That's more than 12.
3. It says 5 easy questions, there are actually 7, and the results are filled with typos. Not particularly offensive, but it is annoying.
4. Two of the questions simply ask about one's relationship to their parents. This stems from the much defunct Fruedian branch of psychology, and bears absoloutely no place as 2/7th of the questions. "Have you ever experienced [particular type of hallucination] whilst feeling [particular emotion]" could have been so much more apt had the writer actually had a rudimentary grasp on being a "psycho".
5. The 6th question is about your response to killing someone, and the 7th in relation to violence also. People with mental health issues are statistically less likely to harm other people, aside from themselves. Way to perpetuate the misconception that mentally ill people are statistically more violent, buzzfeed.
6. The results are ridiculous. Apparently I'm a "paranoid delusional schizophrenic" (not "Paranoid Schizophrenic, which is the actual term). I have bipolar disorder.Get it right.
7. Of all the results I saw (about 4) - all of them linked to the idea of mentally ill people being violent, all of them linked in with the idea that they should be locked up, and that they probably won't live long either.
8. The entire thing is bull.
9. Half the potential results aren't even the names of disorders.
10. All the ones I saw had the result being a picture of Hannibal Lecter, or Norman Bates, and so on. All killers.
This type of thing perpetuates the idea that mentally ill people are somehow worse, that they somehow don't deserve a place in society, that they're dangerous, and - amazingly - simultaneously manages to make a joke out of an entire spectrum of people, and trivialize what they're going through. The idea of being a "psycho" shouldn't be alluring. It isn't a novelty.
Maybe I'm over-reacting to something that's clearly a bit of harmless fun. But it's not harmless. Sending out so many messages about mental illness does nothing to help the stigma surrounding it. How many people are afraid to speak out about this sort of thing because of these sorts of tests?
Last night I had to walk out of my grandfather's memorial service because I began to hear a narrator in my head, and the voice was speaking with such rapidity that I couldn't hold myself together without leaving. So there. I took care of myself. And no, I didn't stab anyone. I acknowledged the issue and dealt with it accordingly. Just like a person having an asthma attack may have left the room and gotten their pump.
And maybe I am being a bit emotional because it's the day after the memorial. But I'm allowed to be emotional about this (and not because I'm a "mood-swingy emo bipolar type").
I'm not violent. I'm not twisted. I'm not a killer. Freely speaking out about my disorder is incredibly liberating, and I'm happy to be going to a city next month to give a talk just as much as I'm happy to tell someone at the pub about it. But every time I mention it in conversation, I never *truly* know what they're actually thinking when I mention it. If I tell a new person I'm back on antipsychotics because I've been hallucinating lately, I don't know if their concern is for me or for themselves.
I like to hope that it's seen as a genuine condition. Because that's what it is. It's not a novelty. It's not an enviable quirk of my personality. It's not a crappy little game on Facebook.
It's my life.
Addendum:
After linking this post to Reddit.com, some people seem to have said:
A) It was clearly a quiz in reference to psychopathy; not psychoses
B) There's no point in addressing a small quiz on a site that is directed at the general public. My time could be much better spent trying to influence public funding or international policy.
To challenge those points:
A) The quiz frequently mentioned the word psychotic, and included (incorrectly titled) names of disorders associated with psychoses. Even the concept of confusing psychopathy and psychoses is note-worthy; let alone all the other abhorrent things in the quiz.
B) Maybe posting about such a small thing is very much like throwing a glass of water at a house fire. Throwing a glass of water at a house fire won't put out that fire. But telling others that this sort of thing is not only offensive and incredulous, but also upsetting, shows people that this is a house fire that needs to be put out. The (phenomenal) EverydaySexism project started as women who were able to voice out that the sexism they faced so horrendously and so frequently weren't isolated incidences: they were aspects of a much larger problem. I like to think that in an ideal world we wouldn't face mental health discrimination (or sexism, homophobia, etc.) - but the truth is: not all of us are politicians and celebrities. Some of us only have one glass of water to throw. I know that one glass of water won't put out a house fire, but a million might.
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