One thing that I always disliked about how people approach mental illness was to frame it as a grand battle, a battle you can lose to.

Obviously, this type of thinking absolutely gets applied to people who have gone through cancer, but I leave it to people affected by cancer to articulate how they feel about this, because it's absolutely not in my lane to talk about that part of this conversation. I talk about mental health because people (at least where I am at) also apply the logic to mental illness - especially if one has "lost" their battle.

It especially bothers me because in many cases, people conceptualize battle as something wherein both parties are full participants, that one participant can only win. Do you commemorate and respect the people who lose battles? Often not.

I know that many times, people use battle euphemisms in order to preserve dignity and (somehow) imply that the illness isn't their fault, but I just don't personally resonate with the idea that illness is something you "win" or "lose" at, that winning means something Grand, Big, and it's something which good people achieve. In my personal experience, it can feel like a battle, but it's completely different in how it operates as a "battle."