I would posit your issue is not in co-option of terminology but in that ableism is still rampant and these are people who wouldn't take your wife seriously even if you described her symptoms. I have conditions that people do not uwu cutesy about on tiktok and people still illegitimate me when it inconveniences them slightly like canceling plans. People playing down disabilities the disabilities of others is extremely common. Being able to be flexible and accommodating to any degree I can to someone's disability has nothing to do with whether or not I think it is legitimate, and gating my flexibility to whether or not I personally judge someone's disability as legitimate is ableism plain and simple.

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entropicdrifter 5 days ago | parent [-]

I upvoted your comment because this is also a huge issue. I just find that the co-opted terminology does worsen the quality of dialogues about the co-opted terms. People need to have the symptoms fully described for them in detail and sometimes don't believe me or think I'm exaggerating because it doesn't match their preconceived notions of what those words mean.

I'm not saying that the problem isn't ableism, it absolutely is, just that the co-opting of the terms is still harmful in that it uses up spoons and makes it harder to communicate clearly, especially with those who are stuck on the pop-culture meanings instead of actual medical meanings.

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KittenInABox 5 days ago | parent [-]

I flagrantly disagree that disbelieving someone's disability or believe someone is exaggerating because it doesn't mean their preconceived notions is something that can be helped if the culturally known depictions were specific to your wife's depictions. This is the mental health equivalent of yelling at someone in a wheelchair who can stand for short periods of time. Disbelieving someone about a disability assumes I am even capable of telling who is "really" disabled, which is an ableist belief that will not go away even if all the TikToks that say they were triggered by a minor toe stub disappeared.

In fairness, I believe that people who make jokes and light of disability suck in that I also believe this is an ableist activity. And I fully believe you that this kind of uwu-ification of disability is used as justification for ableist people to behave shittility towards your loved one.

	▲	squigz 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		It's not really a matter of it entirely solving the issue. As the other commenter is trying to stress, these are 2 separate issues, even if 1 underpins the other. We can and should try to solve for both. The thing is, 1 is a heck of a lot easier to solve. So why wouldn't we? I don't think the position of "Having more accurate pop culture depictions of mental health issues and disabilities would enable better understanding from non-disabled people" is an entirely crazy one, and you haven't really made any arguments as to why we shouldn't do that.