I can only speak for myself, but I'm fine with "crazy". Probably avoid terms with specific meanings like "psychotic" or "bipolar" unless using them in a clinical sense, but I've never had a problem calling craziness what it is.

C'mon, Dan, we all know where this is going. Selfish, manipulative, toxic... don't stick your dick in Trumpy, folks! (To be clear, Trumpy as in 'like "the Donald"', though the fart connotations don't hurt)

Crazy's fine. Don't give in. It's easy to say and easy to remember because it sounds good, it sounds right and it makes sense. Putting 19 qualifiers on it kills the feeling behind it, and it makes language un-fun. And this is coming from someone with plenty of experience with mental illness and abuse.

Lizzies beat me to the draw, Dan, although I was going to suggest Trumpist.

crazy is just fone. we all know what you meant. sensitivity is one think, taking that personal, jumping to conclusions, and calling you out (probably) knowing you didnt mean. MIPD is obnoxious and relating that to mariah or vice writers backlash is even mire obnoxious. and i have BPD AND BPD

finE thinG mOre. i HATE tapping qwertys

Dan- I hope that by printing the first letter, the woman who wrote about her addiction-like sexual experiences and how SLAA helped her, you are also signaling a change of heart of some sort by a long time sex-addiction denier.

As for, “Going to some women-only meetings of SLAA helped me see the addictive pattern clearly, and really took the fun out of it,” I think she meant that it helped her realize why she finds said act/s as triggering, which I assume were also followed by remorse once they were over.

I don't think anyone is confused about what "crazy" meant in this context. And we do need colloquial terms. I'm with the folks above, let's hold on to crazy.

There is, of course, a real stigma against mental illness--but I don't think this sort of usage perpetuates it. Venomlash @1 makes an excellent point about the more general feel of "crazy" as opposed to calling someone, e.g., schizo.

However, if someone with a mental illness is behaving toward their partner in a way that would normally be described as "crazy," then the same advice should apply as would with anyone, whether the illness is the reason for the behavior or not. Mental illness may complicate a number of aspects of relationships (as do many other features of individuals) but it's not an excuse to treat people badly. (Not that I think the writer was implying it is.)

That's why I think the usage is appropriate--crazy behavior *is* a problem and it's not prejudicial to say so.

@3: I don't think anyone has an all-encompassing "pass" to hurt others.

Aw c'mon everybody! We have an opportunity to come up with a new word for bad people, and simultaneously avoid saying something that stings some good people. There's no downside! Let's do this!

I like "assholery" but I assume it's a noun — and what we're looking for is an adjective. "Assholeish" works for me. "Bullshitty", maybe? (And the noun form "Bullshittery"!)

I second @10 bouncing - people who are not offended / hurt by the use of the term "crazy" don't get to override the people who are, just like black people who aren't offended by the n-word can give anyone a pass to use that word freely. If a word is hurtful to at least some people in very real and important ways, let's avoid it.

How about "fuckery"? As in "don't stick your dick in fuckery". I think that fits the bill for what Dan described: "selfish, toxic, self-defeating behaviors that don't make sense to anyone but the person engaged in them; the kind of maddening behaviors that make one-night stands unpleasant and relationships impossible; the kind of behaviors that reveal someone to be a deeply shitty person or partner—not mentally ill, but wholly lacking in judgement, interpersonal skills, and empathy."

Er, that should be "can't" above. No one can give anyone else a pass to use harmful slurs.

Bouncing @8 - I agree with your sentiments, but not with your grammar. When you say "Don't stick your dick in crazy," you have in fact transformed the adjective "crazy" into a noun. It's called nominalization. As in "Give the gift of happy this Christmas" or "Blue is the new black." So in fact we need a new noun, or better yet a new nominalized adjective or verb, with fewer syllables than "assholery."

How about "wack," "wacko," or "wacked"? That carries less MI/PD stigma than "crazy," although the words have similar connotations in common use. In fact, now that I think about it, all the wackos I know well (and the ones I read about in public life) do not have any diagnosed mental illness. They are just plain wacked...although, to paraphrase Tolstoy, every wacko is wack in their own way. Don't stick your dick in wack...it's even alliterative!

"Don't stick your dick in shitty" would also work, and would be consistent with Dan's anti-scat stance.

On crazy: just based on my personal experience with being married to a person with a mental illness, I wouldn't recommend it. What goes on inside the head is so much more important than anything going on outside it, even when the disease is well-treated, I was always a second thought to my ex.

On men and skid marks: if anyone ever needs proof of how women's bodies are pathologized and sanitized, try this: there is a huge industry devoted to making women worry about their healthy bodily processes and "freshness" and no one has yet marketed a panty liner for men to stop them from shitting their undies.

"Don't stick your dick in assholery" is homophobic!

Liz @15, LOL, great observation about women vs. men from the Madison Avenue viewpoint! I greatly look forward to seeing the marketing campaign to promote panty liners for um, hygiene-challenged men. (Can they please be "delicately scented"?) Of course, that type of product would also benefit anyone who suffers from occasional rectal "oopsies"...and wouldn't I love to see how they work that into the marketing message.

Sorry to hear that you had a bad experience being married to a person with diagnosed mental illness. But was the illness the true source of your problem? I ask that because I have heard plenty of sad stories from people who say they always felt like they were a second thought to their ex-lovers...without any mental illness to blame it on. Just selfishness, workaholism (or other -isms or addictions), and/or narcissism.

I tend to go by "when someone shows you who they are, believe them." If you don't like how they're treating people, walk away.

That said, "crappy" might work as a label for unacceptable behavior.

Let’s not get way too politically correct here. People can, and do have crazy behavior without having a mental illness. Beating your wife is crazy behavior. Drinking and driving is crazy behavior. Sticking your dick in a knothole without first checking for squirrels is crazy behavior. It’s a generalized word, and most everybody knows it’s not specifically linked to what most of us would describe as mental illness.

Is "batshit" fair game?

BFF @20 - "Don't stick your dick in batshit" is damn near perfect. You get the win!

Everyone knows batshit is just short for 'batshit crazy', so that isn't helping the problem.

How about talking about the behaviours of the people who it is advised not to get involved with? They tend to be controlling, fanatic, obsessed, conceited, narcissistic, selfish.

'Don't stick your dick in selfish/let selfish stick their dick in you' would probably cover the vast multitude of sins in a bad relationship partner.

strange observer @11: people who are not offended / hurt by the use of the term "crazy" don't get to override the people who are

Well, sortof...but also, people who are offended don't get to dictate the vocabulary choices of the whole word. It's a balancing act, and the end determination is critical mass. If a large enough group of people find it offensive, over time usage will shift. If a small group find it offensive, and a large group find that finding of offense unreasonable, then it won't.

This may be a borderline case by that metric, and things certainly change over time. But I don't think it's obvious that it's offensive enough to enough people to warrant attempting to change well-established usage--especially as the usage conveys something useful and particular.

If we're going to play the "people get offended so you can't use it" game, I'll add that large numbers of people are still offended by profanity, which means we also can't switch to assholery, fuckery, jackassitude, batshit, or whatever else.

EricaP @18: I also use that phrase and think it conveys something quite true.

Well I think that since Dan has already defined then when he uses "crazy", what he means *Deeply Shitty Person\People*, an argument could be made for substituting the acronym DSP... or adding in other descriptors to fill out into an actual word/acronym.

As much as you hate alternative spellings for words, having one to delineate the "pop culture" meaning of crazy (which is a catch-all for anyone who's not merely operating outside social norms, but is doing so in ways that make misery and danger for others) from "a mental disorder that may or may not respond to treatment" would be helpful.

Cray-cray is different from asshole. Assholery is a grounded sort of selfishness. It lacks the pure random bizarreness of cray cray. Assholes may lock you out at 2 A.M. because they decide they need their sleep, but they are not going to cut your clothing into little shreds and toss them out the window. They may wake you up for a bad reason, but not by pouring hot candle wax on you (unless you're into that) or because they had a dream that you'd cheated on them, and they want you to justify the actions of your dream self.

People are allowed to have a preference for short over tall, for blond over brunette, for fat over slim, and for primarily reality-based and empathetic over cray-cray. You are allowed to recommend that unless people have a thing for drama, that they avoid the rollercoaster that is a cray-cray-drenched relationship.

We can argue about the overlap (could be that a greater percentage of people with PD's are also cray-cray in the relationship sense...though in terms of absolute numbers, most of the cray-cray people in the world probably don't have a diagnosable PD). In fact, people who have fluctuations are generally far more thoughtful and grounded, except during an episode, than most people.

If the cray-cray acts stem from a disorder that's currently spinning out of control, a new significant other is probably the last person to stage a useful and healthy intervention, that won't leave the sufferer more traumatized than before. It's also unethical--inability to consent, rape level unethical--to stick your genitalia together with someone who's having a break from reality.

So "don't stick your dick in cray cray" is actually a philosophy that protects people who have breaks from reality. It doesn't say that they can never have sex, never marry, and never be loved; it does say that none of those steps should be taken while the person is in the throes of an episode. Surely that's valid advice?

Finally, I don't see that labeling deeply problematic behavior as "shitty" or people who do them as "assholes" is necessarily any help to those whose actual mental illness leads to some of that behavior. (It can happen.) "Don't date jerks" is valid advice, but creating a protective bubble of "no relationship furthering motions" around cray-cray behavior is different, valid advice.

I've got it!!

"Don't stick your dick in drama."

Because when people say "don't stick your dick in crazy," they're not saying "don't stick your dick in someone with mental health issues." They're not saying "don't stick your dick in anyone who's on antidepressants." They're saying, "don't stick your dick in someone who behaves irrationally and destructively." Someone who causes drama. This is different from "shitty" or "asshole" or "selfish" or any other negative personality traits which one should also avoid in dating. It's the irrational behaviour that earned the term "crazy" in the first place. Being a selfish asshole is quite rational.

Don't stick your dick in drama!

Bravo, BDF! Don't stick your dick in drama! I hope Dan's paying attention. This is it.

@26 ~ Love it, Bi!

I think that a corollary to the OP’s argument about the problems with the word “crazy” as used by Dan is that it gets used by people who advocate for specific types of gun laws (instead of across the board decreases in gun prevalence). These people argue often that the shooter of the day “ is absolutely crazy, and had to be in order to commit such an atrocity.” They then advocate that “no one with a mental illness should have a gun” or may also say “no one who’s crazy should have a gun.” This stigmatizes mental illness and keeps people from seeking treatment. There needs to be a word, independent from mental illness, that describes the erratic, selfish behavior pre-dating some of the mass shooting episodes as well as which designates a person as bad dating material.
I’m not sure what the all purpose word should be. But as others have said, it should include erraticness, prone-ness to irrational behavior, extreme selfishness, inability to consider what others may need, always needing to get ones own way. Trumpy fits well. And it jibes with the previous version of the word “trump” as it alludes to the fact that such a person doesn’t care what other factors, like your well being, are at play, their selfishness trumps everything.

I think that a corollary to the OP’s argument about the problems with the word “crazy” as used by Dan is that it gets used by people who advocate for specific types of gun laws (instead of across the board decreases in gun prevalence). These people argue often that the shooter of the day “ is absolutely crazy, and had to be in order to commit such an atrocity.” They then advocate that “no one with a mental illness should have a gun” or may also say “no one who’s crazy should have a gun.” This stigmatizes mental illness and keeps people from seeking treatment. There needs to be a word, independent from mental illness, that describes the erratic, selfish behavior pre-dating some of the mass shooting episodes as well as which designates a person as bad dating material.
I’m not sure what the all purpose word should be. But as others have said, it should include erraticness, prone-ness to irrational behavior, extreme selfishness, inability to consider what others may need, always needing to get ones own way. Trumpy fits well. And it jibes with the previous version of the word “trump” as it alludes to the fact that such a person doesn’t care what other factors, like your well being, are at play, their selfishness trumps everything.

First some guy tells Dan how to address Terry. Now crazy is under question, and why?
Yes, Tam X @27: If a person has a specific form of mental illness, then they are not crazy because they are self aware. Crazy people aren't.

Crazy has so many meanings. Crazy in love. Crazy with grief. What a crazy idea.
I think it's because it's got a Z in it. Great letter.

BDF's suggestion @26 is (so far) the only one worth considering for anyone who seriously wants to replace "crazy". It conveys the meaning of the original phrase better than the original itself.

Only problem with "drama" is that some people crave drama in their love relationships, to the point that they will find a way to create some if they're not getting enough. For some people, the highness of the emotional highs are enough reason to tolerate the lowness of the emotional lows on a passionate roller-coaster, not only tolerating but enjoying an on-again-off-again, almost love-hate relationship. Taylor-Burton comes to mind, as does Kahlo-Rivera. Highly artistic people are most likely to crave some level of relationship drama in my personal experience, but most do not go over the edge to being shitty, undesirable, or less-than-trustworthy romantic partners.

So I still favor BDF's original suggestion of "batshit" @ 20. Especially since "Don't stick your dick in batshit" carries powerful truth in its literal sense, as well as in the figurative one. I like the imagery.

How about "don't stick your dick in batshit-drama?"

I think that at this point there's enough actual awareness of mental illness that we can separate it from "crazy." People generally know what bipolar is, or depression, or PTSD, or narcissism, OCD, narcolepsy, etc. If you want to say that someone's mentally ill, you say that they're mentally ill. "Crazy" is something else - something you shouldn't stick your dick in (or vice versa).

Capri @35: "Only problem with "drama" is that some people crave drama in their love relationships, to the point that they will find a way to create some if they're not getting enough."

Yes, and these are exactly the people one shouldn't stick one's (literal or figurative) dick into. Just because some couples extend their dysfunction for years or even decades doesn't mean it's a good idea!

My understanding here is that the “crazy” one is not to stick one’s dick in is MI/PD — specifically, personality disorder.

Someone who is functional and reality-oriented enough to get laid, but who has limitations that make it difficult for them to engage in mutually beneficial relationships, or that interfere with self-care. Personality disorder — like any disorder — is defined as a disorder when it causes problems. The injunction is to not become intimately involved with someone who has a disorder that will cause problems.

While it seems reasonable to accept that a disorder is a problem, it’s not necessary to stigmatize the person whose life is most affected by the problem. They didn’t choose their PD. They might be a gold star PD-haver, just like the gold star pedophiles Dan used to talk about. They are aware of the problem and actively take steps to limit the damage to other people.

I love BDF’s reframing as “drama.” That’s the real issue, not anyone’s real or imagined diagnosis.

Dan, perhaps the word you're looking for is “toxic”.

@40 Yeah, Dan already nailed it. "Don't stick your dick in toxic waste" is hard to misinterpret or take offense at. (Unless you're Scott Pruitt, in which case please DO feel free to chemically castrate yourself. The painful way.)