Honesty is the best policy, right? I say no, no, no, no. And let’s add on one more no, just for good measure. I would also like to propose two kinds of “honesty”, only one of which I think actually involves honesty.

First, you’ve got things that can be answered or described objectively. Let’s say I ask you if I have any lettuce stuck in my teeth? Unless you don’t have a clear view of my dental situation, that’s a clear yes or no answer, with no room for interpretation. You might not feel comfortable mentioning the lettuce, but if you don’t, I’d say that qualifies as a lie. …

Questions around onscreen representation recently came up in both online and in-person interactions, and I wanted to look at it a little more closely, as it wasn’t something I’d given much thought to.

Representation issues

A couple of months ago, I was having a conversation with a close friend. .He gets most of his information about the world from Youtube. Social justice isn’t on his radar at all, but he does like movies.

He told me that Halle Berry had been cut from a movie because the character she was supposed to play was transgender, and there was backlash that she’d been cast in the role rather than someone who was trans. …

Ever since COVID-19 swept across the planet earlier this year, the race has been on to develop a vaccine. Now there are two vaccines that are just about ready to go, but there seems to be quite a bit of reluctance when it comes to the prospect of actually getting it. So let’s talk about it.

The vaccine options

The vaccines that are ready, or almost ready, to go come from Moderna and Pfizer. In general, there are two kinds of vaccines, live attenuated (which contains weakened replicating virus) and inactivated; both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are inactivated, meaning they don’t contain any virus particles that could potentially replicate. They are both mRNA-based vaccines. …

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a fancy way of saying self-harm behaviour that differentiates it from suicidality. Cutting and burning are the most common methods, but there are a variety of other methods people use, including scratching, burning, and hitting.

The onset of NSSI on average is between ages 11 and 15, and it tends to be more severe and prolonged if it starts when people are under 12 years old. About 15–20% of adolescents self-injure at some point. It’s difficult to say if this has changed over time because it just hasn’t been studied for all that long, so there isn’t historical data. …

Recently, I read a story in the local news that made me angry (not that that’s unusual lately). A mother had gone to court to try to block her 17-year-old from getting a gender-affirming double mastectomy. A BC Supreme Court judge issued an injunction to stop the surgery that was scheduled to happen the next day.

In British Columbia, the Canadian province where I live, there isn’t a set age of consent for medical procedures. The Infants Act covers anyone under the age of 19, and describes mature minor consent, which allows a minor to give consent independent of their parent’s wishes if a health care provider determines they are able to understand the elements of informed consent in the same way a competent adult would. …

Mental illness stigma is a very real problem. Those of us living with mental illness usually aren’t thrilled when people casually toss around mental illness diagnoses as adjectives, such as “she’s so bipolar” or “he’s so OCD” or “everyone’s a little ADHD.”

And yet, when it comes to narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), all of a sudden there are boatloads of people all over the internet becoming armchair diagnosticians and talking about “narcissistic abuse.”

Here’s my issue. Emotional/psychological abuse is horrendously damaging, and it’s an issue that doesn’t get anywhere near the attention that it deserves. But when you drag a diagnostic term into it in relation to the abuser, that can cause a number of problems. And if it can be done so zealously with one diagnostic term, who’s to say that the next big pop culture fad isn’t going to be borderline abuse, or bipolar abuse? …

Patrick Corrigan has been my research crush for a number of years now. And what is a research crush, you might ask? I like how his mind works. He’s a psychologist and stigma researcher, with lived experience of mental illness to boot. He’s one of the most prolific publishers in academic journals that I’ve ever come across. His perspective on stigma is focused on what actually works, and language policing is one of the topics he’s researched. All of the quotes in this post come from his article that’s referenced below.

Where things get really interesting is that he’s shown that what actually works isn’t necessarily what makes people feel good in their advocacy. This particular article is a commentary rather than a research article, but he’s done the background work. …

The man in the photo below has a chain around his ankle, and he’s chained to the tree he’s leaning against. That’s his wife, and he has a mental illness. This photo, taken by photographer Robin Hammond, is in Ghana, but this doesn’t just happen there. I’m feeling rather grateful about living in Canada right about now, where I can feel confidant that my illness won’t be managed with chains.