Do you have a nickname for your (mental) health problems?

[noname223]

I listen to Juice WRLD a lot recently. He always calls his addiction and mood issues "demons". Like in "FIghting Demons" one of his songs. They are often visualized in his music videos. Maybe it helps people to visualize them in order to cope with them. Giving the enemy a face and a proper name.

Allegedly Winston Churchill called his depressions "mad dog" or "black dog". Maybe this is only a myth. But many self-help books use that metaphor. David Foster Wallace called his depression in one of his works the "bad thing".

I am not sure maybe I should give my conditions also nickname. If I had to visualize them I would use the color "black" a lot. I did that in clinics.
It depends with whom I talk about. Maybe calling them demons can be helpful when I am talking with people who don't know much about mental health. I like metaphors. I don't know much about dogs this is why I don't use this metaphor. The "bad thing" is interesting. But I like the German translation of it even more.

Do you have nickname for your struggle? Have you ever tried to visualize it?

 

[Nequam]

I call it all my defect. Given my circumstances since birth it's the only thing that fits since it has been causing problems for me my entire life. I used to think that if I could find the root of my defect that I could somehow fix it and stop being thrown away or treated as vermin. I finally reached the point where I was able to accept that my defect is not something I will ever find and it is what it is.

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

I'm a victim of Time-Traveling-Unborn-Children-Successfully-Aborting-Themselves.

 

[waitingforrest]

I call it the expresso depresso.

 

[wait.what]

I once had a horrible virus that left me all but incapacitated for 4 months. All the docs could say was that it was an adenovirus, which is the class of viruses that "the common cold" belongs to. I found that very annoying, because I clearly did not have a common cold. I was actually quite ill with frequent fevers well over 100F (or round about 38C, for the rest of the world). I couldn't seem to regulate my body temperature well for a long time after that. I just wore like 3 layers of clothes and took them off or put them on again as I started to sweat or shiver.

Anyway, I lived with this adenovirus so long that it seemed like I should be on a first-name basis with it. So I called it "Jim," and pretended "he" was my deadbeat roommate who never paid rent and screwed around with the thermostat. I also shook my fist and yelled "Dammit, Jim!" like Dr. McCoy at every possible opportunity.

Lately I've been calling my freakishly long list of disorders and syndromes "wait.what's disease." Well, I use my actual first name, which I'll redact. [Gandalf] It is the Black Speech of Mordor, which I will not utter here.[/Gandalf]. Ok, thanks, Gandalf, but that's …not technically true. It's just a name. I'd still be an idiot to say it here, wouldn't I?

Yes, and that's what I'm called, "François-Phillipe-Georges-Pinky-The-Mouse L'Idiot." Pleased to meet you.

 

[Ashu]

No. I don't reify them. There's me and there's my experience, that's it.

 

[hopelessdreams]

bitch.

 

[HappyForever?]

TFW no gf syndrome.

 

[Kestrel]

When I am feeling Shakespearian, I call it my vicious mole of nature...

Most of the time it's just 'my f*cking nightmare'

 

[WorthlessTrash]

Sex dysphoria? Most would call it Gender dysphoria, but this is not it. I'm a cis male that wishes his gender and sex was female, not someone who's gender doesn't match their sex.

 

[Hirokami]

The abyss as it feels like I'm slipping away into a black, endless hole that I can't climb out of.

 

[nihilism44]

silly lil worms in my brain.

 

[Ringo]

Defective sis, childish killer, masterless bunny, doom doom yun, I have some.

 

[WeepingWillow]

Allegedly Winston Churchill called his depressions "mad dog" or "black dog". Maybe this is only a myth. But many self-help books use that metaphor. David Foster Wallace called his depression in one of his works the "bad thing".

I've always been partial to this analogy, ever since a psych told me about it. I've had the pleasure of being accompanied by three literal black dogs throughout my years. I suppose that one more to see me out of this world is somehow fitting, even if she is slightly less tangible than my last.

 

[TheLastK]

Therapists have tried to separate my depression and whatnot into different parts or beings separate from me, but it is always just me. I don't want to sound edgy, but I've always been suicidal, to not be seems impossible to me. I refer to this part as simply me.

 

[CannotAnymore]

Jessica..... Her name is Jessica.... She sucks

 

[Xocoyotzin]

Demons or parasites, something cancerous and infectious that eats and spreads and reproduces with the sole of aim of furthering its ability to cause harm to me. It's probably not good to think of it as a monolithic, oppressive entity like this or to externalize at all to begin with but the network's laid down can't stop having dreams about it now. Underneath that weirdly external, brainjacked-feeling presence, the illness is just me. But I can't tell if I really am an illness or not or to what extent and what the causative factors might be if I am. My ability to objectively judge myself is broken at least, I think, but maybe not. It might not even be possible to do that anyway.

 

[wait.what]

I was recently in a rehab program where one of the therapists recommended creating characters out of our various mental attributes, complete with names and actors that "played" them.

I haven't decided whether this is a good idea for me or not … once upon a time I lived in whatever version of hell lies at the intersection of PTSD and Dissociative Identity Disorder. Transition has actually helped with that a lot, so maybe I could try it now without worsening my dissociative symptoms. It does sound sort of fun. Or maybe I just want to pretend I have an internal Tyler Durden. (In reality there's nothing about me that is either that cool or that violent. Actually, I don't think they make movie characters as boring as me.)