The Dangers of Labeling

Labels belong on food and pill bottles not people. This is the fight of the century for mental health awareness in the 21st century. I have been in the field of social work for over 10 years now and it is a tragedy to witness professionals and non professionals engage in conversation, discussion, social media postings and the likes of it all that consistently place labels that give a voice to situations and people that may or may not be reality. Let me give some examples based on some recent events and compare it to what I have observed over the years so we can all gain a better perspective. Let me also say this. I have taken a lot of time to be careful what I write about in my blog mostly because I don't want to be another opinionated therapist spitting out what I think without anything to back up what I am saying.

John Gray is the pastor everyone is talking about these days. He was a pastor at Joel Olsteen's church, served there for a while. Was given a whole church and took off with it. He recently received backlash for attending a meeting at the White House with Donald Trump and some other Pastors. But that is not what is my concern. John Gray appeared on Sister Circle in November 2018 to promote his book. At a point during the discussion the women begin to ask him about his comments in the book regarding being a momma's boy and discussion lead him to explain his wife as his covering while he grew up and described the "pain" his wife had to endure as he "grew up" and even described it as greater pain than "birthing their children." Okay fast forward to comments and opinions from people left and right describing this as a "form of abuse." What most annoyed me is a grand mental health platform jumping on this band wagon and claiming this as well. As a mental health advocate I am appalled by this and here are some of my reasons why.

First of all lets define abuse. Abuse, according to Merriam-Webster is "to use or treat so as to injure or damage". In my field of social work, abuse is defined in terms of child abuse, but the terminology according to the Alabama Department of Human Resources is as follows: Under Alabama law, it is "harm or threatened harm to a child's health or welfare which can occur through nonaccidental physical or mental injury; sexual abuse or attempted sexual abuse; sexual exploitation or attempted sexual exploitation."

So you can imagine my frustration when I start hearing individuals and organizations identify this as an abusive situation. Let me be clear, I don't 100 percent agree with his wording in this interview. I understand the concept of growing with someone and having to endure with one another. There is power in going through troubling times together and making it out on the other end victorious. As a Christian there are just different ways that life is interpreted and this is one of them. On the other hand there are unfair nuances to a life filled with constant turmoil, but the public does not know how to distinguish the two, which makes it difficult to ensure people are making true reports when abuse actually does exist.

When mass shootings occur in our nation, the automatic "go-to" is that the individual must have had mental health "issues." This in turn leads people to believe that every one with a mental health diagnosis can potential cause deadly harm to other people. Its why people are skeptical when they encounter someone with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or any other diagnosis identified by society as "crazy." This is unfortunate for the mental health field because the truth is there are individuals with mental health diagnosis who will never commit a crime in their lives and in fact who are managing lives within society in a manner where you would never know unless they told you!

I am on a mission. I don't want the world of helping professions to be confused anymore. I don't want people to throw the word abuse around unless they know someone is being physically beaten, emotionally degraded on a regular basis or sexually assaulted. I want people in the community to know the actual signs abuse and save the lives of a neighbor instead of getting caught up in gossip of "well I think he might be hurting her but I don't know." I want individuals with mental health diagnosis to live free of worrying if they will lose their job or friends if someone finds out their diagnosis. Lets change the trajectory of the field and stop falling into the trap ourselves. Let's protect those we serve and #ENDSTIGMA #NOMORELABELS

And thats all I have to say about that today!