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DISCUSSION: Writing Mentally Ill Characters

I generally try to avoid writing about mental illness. I am never certain how I present it won't offend people who have to deal with the mental illness. And it doesn't help that some mental illnesses are spectrums, not singular disorders, and thus are nearly impossible to write in a definite way without risking misrepresenting a large number of people who are on spectrum.
 
Ereshkigal said:
I generally try to avoid writing about mental illness. I am never certain how I present it won't offend people who have to deal with the mental illness. And it doesn't help that some mental illnesses are spectrums, not singular disorders, and thus are nearly impossible to write in a definite way without risking misrepresenting a large number of people who are on spectrum.
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Hmm, I don't know, I'd argue that the infinite ways mental illness can express itself in someone means it's more difficult than not to misrepresent it. And as sad as it is, even having a character who totally believes the misrepresentation/stigma of mental illness (ie., anyone with a mental illness is violent, anyone with a mental illness is "crazy" and not worth listening to, etc.) isn't that unrealistic. People who believe those things exist, and they misrepresent people with a mental illness, sure, but there are ways to handle it respectfully and while making it clear the writer's goal isn't to enforce the stigma.
 
I have ongoing mental health conditions myself, and good portrayals of characters with mental illnesses is important to me. I don't have much trouble writing depressed or anxious characters. Obviously a neurotypical person will have to go to some effort to do this properly and risks not quite hitting the mark, but this is true for writing anything outside of our own personal experiences, and it's just part of being a writer.

Here are some points for people trying to write about mentally ill characters:
1. Don't just look up diagnostic info, look up videos or articles in which mentally ill people describe their experiences.
2. Try to avoid trite melodrama where your character is treated by others or by themselves as some kind of broken monster just because of their condition.
3. Mental illness can involve violent behaviour, but mentally ill people are far more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators of it. Be sensitive about how mentally ill readers might take a strong association between the two.
4. The word 'crazy' gets thrown around a lot to dismiss people as being dangerous, wrong, or laughable. But 'crazy' people can be intelligent, reasonable humans with important ideas. Consider this when writing a mentally ill character.
5. Be aware that mental illness isn't a fantasy element, it's a host of medical conditions that are as mundane and vexing as physical ailments. Don't treat it like a superpower or a magic curse or whatever.
6. Be aware of what isn't mental illness. Religion, bad political opinions, and arguably autism. Many autistic people do not experience disability as a result of their 'disorder' and would prefer to be accepted as just different. I'm somewhere in the middle myself, as autism can be debilitating, but you should note the contention.
7. Mental illness is a topic on which the scientific and medical consensus is continually changing. Remember that info today might be horribly obsolete in the future, and that in the past, such absurd things were considered mental illness as being gay, being a disobedient woman, or being left-handed.

If you do decide to write mentally ill characters, then good luck! I hope this advice is helpful.
 
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unrepentantAuthor said:
6. Be aware of what isn't mental illness. Religion, bad political opinions, and arguably autism. Many autistic people do not experience disability as a result of their 'disorder' and would prefer to be accepted as just different. I'm somewhere in the middle myself, as autism can be debilitating, but you should note the contention.
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Ohh... I wanted to highlight this, because, yes. :p Autism encompasses a spectrum, as do other mental illnesses (bipolar and schizophrenia, namely). There are specific terms to try to differentiate which parts of a spectrum someone might be placed. For example, impairment is the term to describe the existence of the mental illness, whereas disability comes in if/when the impairment starts causing someone to struggle with their socializing, school, or some other important aspect of their life.

With mental illness, impairments sadly can't go away; mental illness can't be truly cured. The disability aspect, however - AKA what the mental illness causes them to struggle with - can be treated and controlled to improve quality of life. But yeah. As someone with bipolar disorder, it's extremely frustrating when people tell me I don't actually seem to have bipolar disorder just because I'm high functioning. High functioning means I'm on a different end of a spectrum that's not quite as debilitating as others with the disorder; it doesn't mean I don't suffer at all, and invalidating someone's experiences does not fly in my book for myself or for anyone else.
 
This is great stuff, dp. The discourse these days about disability and mental illness has come a long way and I hope to see it enter the public consciousness in good order.

I myself have numerous physical and mental impairments, but I'm fortunate enough to have friends and family who accommodate my modest needs, so I can live more or less the life I want to be living. It's not perfect, of course - I'll never be able to do fencing as a hobby and that's Just Sad.

(Don't misinterpret this as implying I'm suffering some awful debilitating condition. I've got really bad fallen arches that limit my walking time to a couple hours a day or so and some mental health stuff that I'm Really Good at handling. Barely ever have a bad day so long as the daylight hours are long enough.)
 
Due to my current Real-Life work, I was positioned at the second forefront of the field of psychiatry and psychopathology, so I was lucky to have more insight regarding on this topic.

When it comes to writing psychiatric patient, the first advice I would provide is: Psychiatric patients are most of the time unaware of they are mentally ill until diagnosed by doctor, even after being positively diagnosed, they may try to hide this fact from their close relatives/friends and/or deny this fact of being diagnosed as mentally ill.

Therefore, in order to construct a realistically believable mentally ill character, the best is do not have themselves constantly mentioning "I'm mentally ill! I'm crazy!". Instead, try to have them act like any normal person, but with a extremely rough/delicate temper, where when he/she is "in a temper" or "in the mood", there comes along with physical symptoms such as dry mouth, gas, indigestion, diarrhea, stomach cramps, belching, heart palpitations, headaches, hyperventilating, sighing, etc.

I would suggest to take a quick read of some of the Rating Scales (a kind of questionnaire designed for diagnostic purpose) used by psychiatrists and clinicians to diagnose is a patient mentally ill or not, because Rating Scales will provide 1st/2nd person information about what does the patient feels/think and what symptoms they might experience. For example, for depression patient, Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (abbr. as MADRS).
 
Regarding mental institutions, Arkham Asylum is not a typical one. Aside from the shitty medical care and security. Most people in mental institutions are not psychopathic criminal masterminds. Most of them have assorted mental disorders that are not treatable in an outpatient setting.

Also of note, high security mental institutions like Broadmoor are still hospitals despite looking like prisons. Treatment, not punishment is the goal.
 
I've lurked about this thread for a while, but never did get around to posting on here. Might as well actually do so! Anyway, I've written about mental illness before. Mostly Autism, as I myself am autistic. But only a few short years ago did I really try to go deeper into understanding not just what it means to be autistic for me, but reading about other people's experiences with it. Even though in the past I've drawn on my own experiences when it comes to writing autistic characters, some people I knew had complained that...

1. My autistic characters were supposedly solely defined by their autism and nothing else (Which makes no sense to me because I gave them stuff like hobbies, strengths, flaws, weaknesses, huge roles in the story, etc. You know, like any other character)
2. That my depictions weren't "sincere" or "sensitive" enough, though any attempts they made at explaining it to me I still wasn't able to understand (Thankfully, others I knew explained it to me later on).
3. That the way I wrote their disabilities made it seem like the world craps on my characters for no apparent reason, making it seem like they're hated solely for being autistic, which wasn't my intent, but I didn't know how to go about improving on this, especially not without completely changing the direction I wanted my stories to go in.

I've been trying to improve on this for the past few years, and I've been reading a lot of other autistic peoples' web posts detailing their experiences, which have been very enlightening for me. However! I will say that I've always made an effort to go against a bunch of perceived autism stereotypes when it comes to writing my autistic characters, the main ones being the whole crap about autistic people not having any empathy or feelings, always being perceived as nothing but helpless burdens who throw tantrums 24/7 and leech off of their caregivers like they're brain sucking aliens out for your soul, which is all obviously untrue. Of course, I've always drawn on my own experiences, because, hey, no two autistic people are the same, but I am trying to learn more about others' experiences with it as just sticking to my own does come with its own set of problems. So...if any other autistics out there want to share their input so I can improve my writing on this subject, feel free to do so! I'm always open to learning more!

unrepentantauthor said:
Here are some points for people trying to write about mentally ill characters:
1. Don't just look up diagnostic info, look up videos or articles in which mentally ill people describe their experiences.
2. Try to avoid trite melodrama where your character is treated by others or by themselves as some kind of broken monster just because of their condition.
3. Mental illness can involve violent behaviour, but mentally ill people are far more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators of it. Be sensitive about how mentally ill readers might take a strong association between the two.
4. The word 'crazy' gets thrown around a lot to dismiss people as being dangerous, wrong, or laughable. But 'crazy' people can be intelligent, reasonable humans with important ideas. Consider this when writing a mentally ill character.
5. Be aware that mental illness isn't a fantasy element, it's a host of medical conditions that are as mundane and vexing as physical ailments. Don't treat it like a superpower or a magic curse or whatever.
6. Be aware of what isn't mental illness. Religion, bad political opinions, and arguably autism. Many autistic people do not experience disability as a result of their 'disorder' and would prefer to be accepted as just different. I'm somewhere in the middle myself, as autism can be debilitating, but you should note the contention.
7. Mental illness is a topic on which the scientific and medical consensus is continually changing. Remember that info today might be horribly obsolete in the future, and that in the past, such absurd things were considered mental illness as being gay, being a disobedient woman, or being left-handed.
Click to expand...

Seriously, where the hell was this well thought out, well written, professionally organized post four years ago when I was in the PreCure fandom? I could have seriously benefitted from this had I read this back then!!!
 
unrepentantAuthor said:
Mental illness is a topic on which the scientific and medical consensus is continually changing. Remember that info today might be horribly obsolete in the future, and that in the past, such absurd things were considered mental illness as being gay, being a disobedient woman, or being left-handed.
Click to expand...
I'm now remembering that charity advert(?) about Down's Syndrome that begins with a recording from the 1960s about someone with Down's Syndrome is "not a person", then it turns into a mixtape.

Anyway, I came here to say that I have a vague concept for human-turned-Pokémon protagonist who has prosopagnosia, and either has an easier or harder time recognising others depending on what scenario I put them in. Is this a good idea? I'm a bit worried that I'll accidentally offend people.
 
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Nitro Indigo said:
I'm now remembering that charity advert(?) about Down's Syndrome that begins with a recording from the 1960s about someone with Down's Syndrome is "not a person", then it turns into a mixtape.

Anyway, I came here to say that I have a vague concept for human-turned-Pokémon protagonist who has prosopagnosia, and either has an easier or harder time recognising others depending on what scenario I put them in. Is this a good idea? I'm a bit worried that I'll accidentally offend people.
Click to expand...

If you're putting enough effort in researching it and writing it as well as you can, it's not really your fault if people get offended. But if they do, you should ask them to elaborate on where you went wrong and how to better the portrayal. What they give may not even be universal to all people affected, either, so the more viewpoints you get, the better.

Either way, a human not being able to tell Pokemon apart sounds completely natural, and a human-turned-Pokemon not being able to tell humans apart anymore also makes sense. Specimen typically are fine tuned to recognize the faces of their own species, and that's what prosopagnosia is the exception of. The average person probably can't tell three cats of the same breed and colors apart until spending a good amount of time with them and learning their subtle physical and behavioral differences. I mean, I can barely manage that with humans anyway, and I'm somewhat sure I don't have prosopagnosia.

Prosopagnosia doesn't seem to be a mental illness, though, but more of a disability... did we have a thread for writing characters with disabilities? We could maybe use one.
 
Nitro Indigo said:
Anyway, I came here to say that I have a vague concept for human-turned-Pokémon protagonist who has prosopagnosia, and either has an easier or harder time recognising others depending on what scenario I put them in. Is this a good idea? I'm a bit worried that I'll accidentally offend people.
Click to expand...
I mean, it's a perfectly fine idea as long as you put in the research. For what it's worth, I've known multiple people with prosopagnosia and they were all very upfront about their condition and explaining ways I could help them remember who I am. Though, as canis said, prosopagnosia isn't a mental illness, it is a cognitive neurological disorder. It's possible that this disorder could make the character, say, depressed or something. But it's up to you if you choose to tackle that.
 
I was thinking of editing in a sentence saying that face blindness isn't a mental illness, but I didn't know what a more proper term would be.

The protagonist would learn to tell others apart by other characteristics.

So... do you know any good videos I should watch about face blindness, or anything like that?
 
I was talking about face blindness, also known as prosopagnosia.

That being said, Tommy Edison does a lot of interesting videos about what it's like to be blind.
 
@Juliko, it sounds like you gave a genuine effort to portraying an autistic character. Autistic people who present with different symptoms and experiences, and well-intentioned neurotypicals for that matter, might object to certain portrayals. This doesn't mean that you've done a terrible job or should feel ashamed. It really comes down to single portrayals of single characters not ever being enough to encompass the scope of relevant experience. For example, I can't relate to a lot of real life accounts or prose fiction concerning conditions I have, because my experience is my own.

On that note, if you ever want to talk autism, anxiety, or depression, I'm up for a chat in the interests of serving your writing.

Juliko said:
Seriously, where the hell was this well thought out, well written, professionally organized post four years ago when I was in the PreCure fandom? I could have seriously benefitted from this had I read this back then!!!
Click to expand...

Ha, thanks!

Nitro Indigo said:
a recording from the 1960s about someone with Down's Syndrome is "not a person"
Click to expand...

Human beings sure are something, huh? Makes you wonder how that sort of shit ever got roots in people's heads. How vile.

Nitro Indigo said:
prosopagnosia
Click to expand...

This is an interesting one! I wish you luck with it. I think if your intentions are good, and you give it a sincere effort and try to be conscientious, then you can rest easy in the knowledge that you did your best. I might try to find someone willing to beta-read the portrayal by posting in a support community, I suppose.

canisaries said:
did we have a thread for writing characters with disabilities?
Click to expand...

Don't think so, but it's come up a few times here. Feels like a good thread to have.

@Ereshkigal, good on ya for finding those videos!
 
I'm just a bit worried that the face blindness idea sounds stupid, mainly because it might end up being a My Little Pony crossover. The main reason for this is because I had an idea for a story in a Pokémon/MLP crossover setting called the Newverse, where a group of characters learn to deal with their disabilities in the new world, though that wouldn't be the ONLY thing to the plot. I'm not too attached to that plot bunny, though.

Also, is there a term for things that are psychological, but aren't mental illnesses? Not "invisible disability", because that includes things such as blindness, deafness, and epilepsy.
 
@Nitro Indigo - I advocate beig unashamedly indulgent where fanfic is concerned. Friends of mine have got really into an MLP/Fallout crossover of all things. You're not writing professionally for a broad market, right? You're writing for yourself and people who're into the same niche shit you are. That's a good thing. You can be creatively free. And hey, if you're self conscious about it, no pressure. It's up to you when and how you approach your project.

Blindness and deafness are much more likely to be physiological than psychological, actually, but a good term is "neurological disorder" I expect. You can just call them disabilities if the word is appropriate.
 
I assume they read Fallout: Equestria? I've heard of it, but I'm not old enough to read it, and even if I was, I wouldn't have the patience to read something over a million words long.

One idea I wanted to mention yesterday, but felt too ashamed to, is that the prosopagnosia character would have an easier time telling apart the My Little Pony characters (probably hippogriffs) because they're all different colours.

...I should note, however, that this is but a small part of a larger scenario I haven't thought up yet. While the premise is already written for me, I find it hard to build a plot around an idea for a character. I'm not too attached to this, anyway; I'd rather write about the Orre protagonists at the moment.
 
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