This will not be a popular opinion. While I generally take issue with being called "crazy," I figure most people have legitimate reasons for thinking the way they do. There are so many different types of mental illnesses that your average person can't really distinguish which are the "safe" ones and which aren't. They see erratic behavior and it scares them. It's perhaps easier (or lazier) to just generalize everyone with a mental illness as crazy because they can't understand us all as individuals or think we are all equally unpredictable. Fear of what we don't understand is a driving force behind making sweeping and harmful generalizations.
I have a mental illness and I was also raised by a mother with a mental illness. My family is riddled with "crazies." Our illnesses are extremely different and I can objectively say I am far less erratic and dangerous than my mom is. I have my issues but I can keep them private and I wouldn't hurt a fly. I'm a bit unusual and quirky but otherwise I'm widely viewed as harmless. My mom can't hide her emotional un-wellness and while she doesn't go around physically assaulting people, she has damaged quite a few relationships and really isn't doing the rest of us any favors, PR-wise.
As a person with a mental illness, I am still selectively cautious around other people with certain mental illnesses because they are a potential danger to me and my child. That sounds unfair, I know full well that it is, but I've seen what they can do first hand and they are part of the reason I am the way that I am. But I also have ASD and it hurts when I hear what people generalize about people like me. So I try to avoid doing the same to others. Yet I am an imperfect person. Logic tells me to just go case by case, which is what I try to do day-to-day, but PTSD makes me afraid of everything. It's a conundrum.
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