Original topic of misuse of mental health terms. I've been on that soapbox quite a few times. Generally, if it's a normal reaction to a specific event, it's not a mental health situation.

If you're about to get married and you've got butterflies in your stomach, this is not anxiety. It's pre-wedding jitters. Anxiety is when you're sweating an ocean and about to throw up, and you're not even sure why.

If your dog died last week, and you dreamed about him last night and woke up crying, this is not depression. This is grieving. Depression is when you're watching your children play excitedly in the back yard with their new puppy, and you're too dead inside to feel any joy.

If you separate the clothes in your closet by category, pants in one place, shirts in another, you aren't "being" OCD, and you probably don't "have" OCD either. You are neat, efficient, and organized. OCD would be when you can't leave the house unless you make sure the fringe on your area rug is lined up parallel and exactly 1/8" apart, and you even get out a ruler to make sure it is.

If you once hurt yourself falling down a flight of stairs, and now you make sure you always hold on to the rail, this is not PTSD. It is learning a lesson. PTSD involves lives being in danger, and the inability to function normally afterward.

Yes, it does bother me when someone commits a horrific crime and then tries to escape the consequences by claiming mental illness. And it also irks me when someone is mean and rude and abusive to me, and I get, "Oh, you have to overlook him. He can't help it. He has a mental illness." Yeah? Then why is it that when I am not at my best, I'm told to quit "blaming" mental illness and take some responsibility for my behavior?