‘Stressy depressy’: Gen Z push mental health slang — but experts say it trivializes struggles

Conversations between Gen Z and millennials are dominated by slang, even when discussing more serious topics — and this worries experts.

Shame is at the heart of so many discussions surrounding mental health and illness, leading many young adults to adopt — somewhat flippant — shorthand speak that’s designed to facilitate such awkward conversations.

Yet some doctors and psychologists fear that using cutesy lingo in place of legitimate diagnoses and medical lexis could lead to even further stigmatization in the mainstream.

In recent years, tongue-in-cheek terms to describe a variety of mental health topics have emerged in the internet zeitgeist.

Take “menty b,” for instance: Social media users have come to use the phrase to describe varying levels of a “mental breakdown,” whether hyperbolic or understated — which can be confusing to those hearing such claims.

The hashtag #mentyb has 69.7 million views on TikTok, and there are thousands of items on Etsy emblazoned with “menty b,” including mugs, sweatshirts, candles, hats and more.

The list of mental-health-related idioms is both long and creative: There’s “Stressy depressy” (stressed and depressed), “suey” (suicidal) and “grippy sock vacation” (referring to the footwear received during a psychiatric hospital stay), to name a few more.

X (formerly Twitter) user Natalie Williams recently wrote on the app, “The only vacation I’m open to taking rn is a grippy sock vacation,”

Williams later explained to CNN that she uses dark humor as a coping mechanism. “When I get stressed, it can be pretty debilitating,” the 27-year-old told the outlet. “This one was just like, ‘I don’t even have time to think about going on a vacation.’”

Young people like Williams hope the inherent nonchalance of slang could help reduce stigma and let people know that they’re not alone in going through difficult times.

Michael Dzwil, a New York-based therapist and outreach specialist at Newport Healthcare, agreed, telling the Wall Street Journal last year that “turning around and saying, ‘I’m going through a rough time right now, I had a menty b’ —it almost allows you to have some more control.”

However, the overuse of shorthand can, by the same token, blur the lines between a joke and a genuine cry for help.

“That’s the risk we run when a word or a term becomes trendy,” Dzwil said.

Dr. Nicholas Westers, a clinical psychologist at Children’s Medical Center Dallas, told CNN that the watering down of mental illness could be a way for someone to detach themselves from what they’re going through by using humor.

Research has shown that avoidant coping mechanisms are often used by people who have self-identified a mental illness, as opposed to a doctor’s official diagnosis. Westers explained that these people are also less likely to seek out help from a therapist or counselor, but are more likely to seek out medication.

“So, ‘I’m having a menty b’ — well, there’s no control there,” Westers said. “That reflects very little control over the distress and doesn’t reflect any pursuit of healthy coping strategies.”

Westers also echoed Dzwil’s statements, saying, “These trivial uses of these kinds of terms can really minimize and invalidate people that really struggle.”

Mental health issues used to be so extremely stigmatized that people would hold back from talking about what they’re going through in fear of being called “crazy” or being institutionalized, but Westers warns that the discussion around mental illness could be doing a complete 180 — which is just as bad.

“It’s possible that our culture is moving to the other extreme, where we’re going to trivialize it and destigmatize it so much; everyone’s going to talk about it using fun language,” he said.