PSA: Not every asshole who does asshole things is mentally ill. Some people are just assholes, and trying to pathologize their asshole behavior both legitimizes them, and stigmatizes people with actual mental illnesses.

The Karens who refuse a mask and cough on people don’t necessarily have Antisocial Personality Disorder. Maybe they’re just assholes.

The Chads who harass girls who aren’t into them don’t necessarily have Social Anxiety. Maybe they’re just assholes.

The white dudes who get apoplectic when they’re told they can’t bring their AR-15’s into Denny’s don’t necessarily have a Psychotic Personality Disorder. Maybe they’re just assholes.

The woman who is sweet as pie one minute and trying to claw your face off the next doesn’t necessarily have Bipolar Disorder. Maybe she’s just an asshole.

By “diagnosing” these behaviors, society upholds the stigmas that those with mental illness have been trying our whole lives to overcome. People don’t think of me when they think “bipolar”, they think violent, out of control monster.

By perpetuating these stereotypes, people with mental illnesses are gaslit by people who don’t believe them, because they don’t act the way society thinks a mentally ill person “should” act. We get looked at and treated differently.

And by upholding some ridiculous idea that mental illness “looks” or “behaves” a certain way, we unconsciously give a pass to people who act in those ways when their brains may be no less ill than anyone else’s.

This isn’t to say we just write these people off. Assholes need to be called to account for their actions, and given a chance to correct their behavior. But psychology and psychiatry are tools for those who are ill, not those who just act abhorrently.

To say that all the Karens would wear masks or the Troys would leave their guns at home if only they’d been in therapy and/or on meds displays a complete lack of understanding of what mental illness is.

It’s true that mental illness may be a contributing factor for some of these assholes, but unless you’re their personal mental health professional, all your armchair diagnosis does is hurt a whole lot of people.

So pls, think a little more before you conflate assholes (even hardcore assholes) with us mentally ill folk who are just trying to get through a day without having to explain that, just bc I’m not behaving like the violent prick on TV doesn’t mean my diagnosis isn’t real, and

Just because my diagnosis is real, doesn’t meant I’ll behave like the violet prick on TV.

Here endeth the rant.