You'd think it was a little strange if Grey's Anatomy had an episode about curing hemorrhoids using a goat sacrifice. And yet, when it comes to mental health, we don't even blink at wrong, outdated, and excruciatingly dumb-ass ideas like ...

Science's understanding of mental health has improved greatly in the past century -- for instance, most specialists now agree that depression isn't caused by evil gnomes living in your skull. Unfortunately, such important knowledge lies in dusty ol' books, and most of us would rather learn about mental illnesses by watching shows about serial killers. And hey, as it turns out, maybe this isn't such a great idea!

6 "Everyone With Tourette Syndrome Curses Like A Sailor!"

Spotting a character with Tourette syndrome is as easy as spotting one from planet Pandora. You'll immediately know them from the string of hilarious curse words involuntarily coming out of their mouths -- usually during awkward situations, like at a funeral, a fancy event, or during a trial (after they got fired from their job due to their life-altering condition).

YouTube/20th Television

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Comedy gold!

But despite obscene outbursts being Hollywood's go-to depiction of Tourette's sufferers, this particular symptom really only shows up in about 10 percent of them. Tourette's manifests in childhood as a series of tics -- think blinking, twitching, clearing your throat, et cetera. And for most people, it becomes less pronounced or goes away in their late teens. Of the minority who suffer from coprolalia -- the medical term for turning into Gordon Ramsay without warning -- many are able to deal with it by mumbling curse words when in public or simply repeating them in their mind. You know, like everyone else on the planet.

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Even in the worst cases, coprolalia usually presents itself as single-word outbursts, not complex strings of fuck-words straight out of an erotic novel. For Hollywood, though, the awkwardness of having someone scream random vulgarities is just so much funnier than uncontrollable blinking or watching a young child commit self-harm, so we get scenes like this one instead:



Oh, Amy. This is beneath you. (You're good, Rob.)

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Occasionally, movies do attempt to get it right. Like when The Boondock Saints made sure to give Doc some realistic blinking and stuttering ... only to put the man smack dab in the middle of a nun-filled hospital so he could offend their nunnish sensibilities with his swearing. So, points for trying, we guess?