“Yeah, I broke up with her because she was crazy.” How often do you hear this phrase tossed around by your peers, friends, and the guys sitting behind you in class when you’re trying not to eavesdrop?
In recent years, using the term “crazy” to describe women for acting in certain ways has become wildly popular among young adults and teenagers. There’s even a meme, “Crazy Girlfriend,” that displays a girl with wide, aggressive eyes and an accompanying description of some form of stalker-like behavior.
I can understand and empathize with the urge to diminish an ex-partner or a friendship gone wrong, but phrases like “crazy” or “psycho” are actually powerful weapons that desensitize mental health issues and can lead to further anxieties and mental conflicts for the receiver of the word.
Guys generally refer to their girlfriends or ex-girlfriends as “crazy” when they describe certain behaviors, such as when their girlfriends display an obsessive desire to know where their boyfriends are, need to hang out 24/7, or react in a way that is deemed to be an “overreaction.”
With one quick word, all of the insecurities, issues from her past or beliefs that a woman might hold in a relationship that cause her to act in these subjective ways of “craziness,” are instantly discarded and grouped into one adjective.
And I’m not talking about Katherine Heigl in Unforgettable crazy, but I’m talking about behaviors in a relationship that usually stem from a source of insecurity or fear.
Why someone might be highly concerned about her boyfriend’s whereabouts can stem from a variety of reasons. It could come from a past relationship with a lack of trust, from insecurities within her family or from her just becoming a growing human being and learning about herself through others. Whatever the reason may be, calling her “crazy” is harmful to her mental health and negatively affects the way people think about mental health issues.
When anyone is called a name, it’s almost impossible not to internalize it and actually value it as something that has truth to it. So when someone is called “crazy,” they more often than not will actually start seeing their actions as abnormal, unusual, undesirable and annoying. And when this manifests in a relationship, this perspective can be the start of a pattern of mental abuse.
Once you start feeling like you’re the problem and that something is wrong with your brain wirings or the way you think, it’s a difficult recovery process, and it becomes a challenge to view yourself as capable, normal and a product of your personal experiences and beliefs.
So the next time someone refers to someone else as “crazy,” dismiss the word entirely and stand up and spread awareness of the harmful nature of the word.