User blog comment:PullingoffMasks/Mental Health and the Mythos/@comment-9340689-20140107220156/@comment-11170851-20140108003825

Actually, retard is just a slur when dealing with it in the mental health context

Plain an' fuckin' simple

It's not a diagnosis label in use any more (well, the technical label is mental retardation)...and while you do see it in academic literature and older, IT'S NOT IN USE!

(The following, is not specifically aimed at PyroGothNerd, but more an addendum to the blog post)

If you're writing a character who has an IQ of below 70 (ignoring how problematic icky nasty IQ tests are) and is unable to function 'normatively' within society, you're writing a character with a learning disability and/or persuasive developmental delay.

If you're going to label as specific disorder for the indivdiual, '''DO YOUR FUCKING RESEARCH. '''

ALL mental health communities, especially those with overlapping physical and mental disabilities (Trisomy 21/Down's Syndrome and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome spring to mind), get enough shit from the media without us (as a writing community) adding to it.

It's not the freakin' hard to go onto Google and look up person first narratives of how folks process the world and what pisses them off about folks not in their diagnositic label.

(#actuallyautistic is FUCKIN' FANTASTIC for a quick read-research if you're writing an autistic character, because EVERYONE in that community is atypical to what the stereotype would have you believe...)

It's not that freakin' hard to go onto Wikipedia and do the research there.

Just.

Fuckin' get your damned facts and language straight.