Reasons not to say "severe mental illness"

I gave this some more thought, the label seems unclear and off to me personally...

1: Definitional ambiguity and functional focus; "Sever mental illness" is usually described as a mental illness which causes "functional impairment". Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are also often mentioned in such discussions (which may suggest psychosis is part of the definition). ⠀

2: Why is this problematic? 3 words: Functional impairment focused. You might recognize such words from discussions on "functioning-labels" in autism. Autistic activists and people have argued that these (vague) functioning-labels in relation to autism harms autistic folks. ⠀

3: Why are functional (and severity)-labels harmful?Such labels are typically used by non-autistic people and non-mentally ill to describe an autistic person's ability to "function" in society (e.g., work within ableist, capitalist, and racist structures). Such labels are also harmful because they limit the help that those labelled "high functioning" have access to, and how seriously their experiences are taken by others.⠀

4: Community, separation, and isolation; Importantly, functioning labels also divide autistic communities. Similarly "severity" labels in mental illnesses as divides and prioritizes certain "types" of experiences and "productivity levels". When we focus on and describe disability in relation to ableist notions of "functionality" and occupational activities, we are supplanting social issues with biological ones. We are individualizing and responsibilizing a person for their productivity rather than their sensations and distress.

5: Functioning and severity levels are based in ableist notions of productivity and of capitalist and colonial value in profits. A person's worth/health/experiences and being should never be based on their productivity. We must instead focus on the individual needs and experiences of the person, according to that person.