Mental Health Service User?

I hear lots of arguements about terminology and one of the ones most argued about is the term service user, some prefer clients, some experts by experience, some like patients and a few other names. Plus there is what non service user (or whatever) people, those so called 'normal' people, as some seem to think of themselves. Names like nutters, loonies, mad people, crazy, fruit loops, psychos, plus loads of other names, some funny, but some very offensive.

In my opinion is that it does not really matter at all, its all just another annoying thing to keep us busy and away from dealing with the real issues that effect us all everyday. I would rather somebody treated me nicely and respected me as a person who called me a fruit loop, than treated me badly and used more 'correct' terms.

We should be fighting for fair treatment, fighting the stigma and discrimination that so many of us Service Users face. Here at Sussex Mad I am going to use the term Service User or Mental Health Service User throughout the site, its not meant to offend anybody in any way, its just that I do have to call us all something, to me the important thing is that we are all just people, labels are what you get on cans of food.

1 in 4 people will go through some sort of mental distress, so that means that the odds are that if you picked any person on the planet, either them or somebody in their close family will have a mental health problem at some time. Don't forget that if somebody says something bad about service users or mad people it may not be their fault, maybe they have a mental health problem 8o) Bad joke, but I am sure its true in a lot of cases!

Despite not being bothered about what labels are used, I do find it interesting and would love to hear from anybody that has any strange names for service users or crazy people. What do we get called in other countries? Are there any names you really hate or love to be called?