Triggered, OCD, gaslighting: The impact of misusing mental health terms

A 2021 Live Laugh Love Foundation survey found that 92 per cent of 3,497 respondents across India said they would seek treatment for themselves or someone they know—a 54 per cent increase from 2018.

In recent years, mental health awareness has grown significantly, especially in metropolitan cities, with celebrities and pop artists openly sharing their struggles. This has helped people understand themselves better and introduced everyday lingo around mental health.

However, Anika Joseph, a counselling psychologist and psychotherapist based in Bengaluru, warns that misusing serious mental health terms can do more harm than good to those genuinely affected and can invalidate real struggles.

Anika discusses some common mental health terms that are being used often and the impact they create on misuse.

Trigger

If we look at it from the perspective of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or an anxiety disorder, if someone has experienced a car crash and is experiencing traumatic symptoms, the trigger can be something like the sound of a horn or the sound of tyres squealing and it can set off an intense reaction in their body.

The most harmful way I’ve heard people use the word 'trigger' is in a way to escape accountability to avoid a difficult conversation, and they use this word to say “Oh but your tone triggered something in me” and makes it difficult for anyone to have that conversation whereas that person’s tone may have made them upset or uncomfortable.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

OCD is a very debilitating and difficult experience for a person. It comes up in the form of obsessions, which are disturbing thoughts that they have and can be sexual in nature or about causing harm.

To manage such thoughts, individuals with OCD develop compulsions, and they become these intense set of rules. Rules like 'If I don’t touch each switch three times before I leave the house, my mother is going to die in an accident'. It is a very distressing condition, and it is not about keeping things neat and orderly.

Gaslighting

Gaslighting is when someone questions or distorts your reality of the situation and then makes it sound like you are 'crazy' for believing what you believe in. But two people can have different versions of any experience. If a person can make another person think there’s something wrong with them for thinking that way, then it’s gaslighting.

Narcissist

Narcissistic personality disorder is a disorder where a person has an intense focus on the self. It’s an intense focus to the point where they don’t see the harm they cause to others.

One way I see it being misused is that it’s thrown around a lot for people who take a stand for themselves or prioritise themselves. It feels like every other person’s ex is a narcissist. In any friendship breakup, at least one person is labelled a narcissist. People can do hurtful things, and it necessarily may not fit the label of narcissism. The label requires a psychiatric diagnosis.

Such mental health terms can be used in our daily lives, but it should be used with the intent to be compassionate and to advocate for the community. If we use any of these terms to demean someone’s experience, to escape accountability or to harm someone, that’s where people should learn to be more mindful of using such terms. 

Health