When articles on self-harm are posted, I recommend we understand that diagnoses are merely labels for symptom clusters, almost always resulting from early trauma. Professionals use labels primarily for billing. They are also used widely as derogatory terms, at least when I was working as a mental health professional.
"Borderline personality," "dissociative disorders," etc. are shorthand descriptions of desperate coping measures that survivors use to manage the pain from early extreme abuse. It does such a disservice to survivors for trauma-informed people to keep buying into the labels and not mentioning the root causes whenever diagnoses are used. These symptom clusters are not disorders or diseases. They are natural outcomes of deep and unhealed injuries and wounds.
I believe we need to stand together to correct all non-trauma-informed statements, especially from professionals, and turn the term "mental illness" into "mental injury." "Mental health" needs to become something like "comfort level." Maybe there could be a contest for the best replacement term.
The movement started by people with physical disabilities turned us away from using the dehumanizing term "the disabled." It's been quite successful, along with curb cuts and accessible buildings, in improving the lives of those with physical disabilities.
We in the PACEsConnection community could lead the same type of movement toward respectful wording for survivors of childhood adversity, especially survivors of extreme abuse which sometimes produces more pronounced symptoms.
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