RolePlay and Mental Illness are Dire Enemies

[nikitagem]

Edit: This reads as angry because I wrote it at 4-5am after not sleeping for 36 hours and I had just finished an argument about this topic. It wasn't the best decision, but please don't comment on the tone of this post. I likely won't be responding in this thread other than liking posts I agree with.


I'm sure this topic has been touched on COUNTLESS times before, but here I am, your resident crazy person to harp on about it again.


Mental illness has been and always will be a huge part of me and my life. ADHD, Borderline Personality Disorder (with psychotic and dependent features), Avoidant Personality Disorder, Generalized Anxiety, Seasonal Depression, and another one I'll talk about later. That's a pretty long list. I'm not even an adult yet! (And yes, you can be diagnosed with personality disorders before the age of 18. And anyways, self-dxing is valid as well.)


The reason I think RolePlay and mental illness go so badly together is because of something larger that's been centuries in creation: stigmatization and mystification. Need a way to get people to feel sorry for your character? Boom, they're schizophrenic now. Of course they don't get the symptoms you fine unattractive, like ocassionally (or chronically) not being able to form proper sentences, perhaps suffering from catatonic states, having pronounced episodes where things symptoms get worse, delusions about people who are trying to hurt them (and then acting out in perceived self defence), extreme confusion, and so on. Nah, they just hear voices sometimes and are sad a lot. Alternatively, someone will portray someone with schizophrenia as just this asshole who kills people because this guy in his head told him so, because y'know, it's not like statistically, people with schizophrenia (and mental illness in general) aren't more likely to be the victims of abuse than be the perpetrators.


I use schizophrenia as an example because it's one I see a lot. I see ADHD portrayed a lot too - and badly. The characters are just hyper and have no verbal filter. Yes, okay, sometimes ADHD is primarily shown that way! But where's the executive dysfunction, where the character isn't able to self motivate to care for their hygiene, no matter how badly they want to? The primarily inattentive ones, who don't show any hyperactivity but tend to forget things, and not be able to find things even if the item is literally right in front of them? The ones who get hyper fixated on something they're interested in and focus so intently on it for HOURS that they ignore all other responsibilities and needs, to the point that they don't eat for 8+ hours and run on 3 hours of sleep per week because they just NEED to know everything about this topic.


I could go on just talking about bad portrayals of all the diagnoses I've already listed (or even ones I don't have, because one of the hyper fixations my ADHD brain had was psychiatry), I'm going to discuss the diagnoses I've received that I didn't list: Dissocistive Identity Disorder, previously known as (and also commonly known as) Multiple Personality Disorder (please don't call it this).


This disorder is usually found in characters who have just one alter, who is typically violent and angry and REALLY wants to hurt people just for the joy of it. This is unbelievably shitty. Like, the rare times I have told people I know offline about this, they almost always ask about this. It's not only annoying, it scares me. It scares me because I think they'll stop being my friend because they're suddenly afraid of me. Honestly, the only time any of my alters would harm you is if they thought you were going to harm me or them, usually they just help me out by doing schoolwork, cleaning, and cooking when I'm not able to, and if a dangerous and possibly traumatic situation arises, removing me from that situation so I don't get further traumatized by it.


DID is founded in chronic exposure to traumatic events in early childhood. It's developed before the age of nine (although it may not truly appear until later in life). People with DID have been through hell. Don't trivialize it with "so-and-so has an alter who wants to kill people because I say so." Also, don't confuse it with schizophrenia. Schizophrenics do not experience other people controlling their body.


My opinion on creating characters with DID: unless you have the disorder, don't. If you decide to anyways, my advice would be to think about what role one alter might serve. A caregiver? Think about who the positive caretakers of you character was when they were young - use that as inspiration for that alter. And each alter should be a fully developed character! (There is a such thing as having fragments of being polyfragmented but this is an almost DEFINITE no for writing unless you've experienced it first hand.) Alters are people, sometimes with their own back stories (one of mine is from 1870s-1880s Russia, ho immigrated to Canada hen she was 10), and may have completely separate traumas than the core.


Tl;dr: Mental illness is complex and you should write it as such. Other mental illnesses shouldn't be written about unless you either have the disorder or are willing to do lots of research, and not just reading the DSM or essays written by doctors, but by reading about people's personal experiences with it. Or better yet: don't touch more stigmitized disorders at all unless you have it.

 

[call me rae]

Lol yeah people playing mentally ill characters are a huge hot button issue because most of them what they really want to give their character is a reason for being an asshole, some snowflake indicator if their own edginess.


Personally I also have ADD but I grew out of giving my characters that or social anxiety about at the same time I grew out of writing a single sentence for a reply.


Sometimes it's just a indicator of a new roleplayer who doesn't know how to character develop- and since mental illness is hardly the only issue with their characters I usually let it go. People will learn on their own how to get better and it's not for me to jump down their throats telling them what I think is them going wrong. I will encourage them to research the issues they want to have but I'm not going to be horribly offended if they don't.


The real issue I have is with asylum roleplays where the whole point is to give your character a flavor of mental illness and roleplay out some romantized version of being in a mental health facility. That I do find offensive on behalf of the people who do have serious illnesses and do require hospitalization.

 

[AJIV]

Very interesting thread.

 

[ARSENIC]

Probably going to get hissed at, but I literally cannot disagree more with your thesis, along with the vast majority of your follow-up statements.


First of all, self-diagnosis is not recognized by official psychiatrists for a reason. A diagnosis needs to be done objectively to work, and it's literally impossible to be objective of yourself, because you're always going to have some sort of emotional stake, positive or negative. This leads to a massive amount of confirmation bias, with people either seeing nothing wrong in obvious symptoms because they think they're fine, or exacerbating freak occurrences into glaring symptoms because they 'know' something's wrong with them, or they just want attention.


Now, on to the connection to roleplay. I enjoy damaged characters. Hills and valleys in perception, emotion and desire that make people, for lack of a better phrase, less boring. Hell, I've jokingly referred to the DSM (the APA's list of all recognized mental disorders, naturally this undergoes regular updates and revisions) as the "Character Creation Handbook" because I regularly peruse it for inspiration. I will have a character mutter half-sentences seemingly to himself or fidget uncontrollably, but I'll never openly call them schizophrenic or bipolar because of people like you who want to throw their weight around and make drama and be offended and triggered and whatever else.


Mental illness is a fascinating aspect of the human psyche, much like physical illnesses to human biology, perhaps even moreso. They are a massive part of our creative initiative and potential, and will continue to be for as long as creativity lives.


I leave you with this parting thought: If not for mental illness, shattered hearts, and psychoactive drugs, almost all celebrated art over human history simply would not exist.

 

[soular]

Due to my own thoughts on the subject, I find myself disagreeing with a lot of things you say. In my opinion, just because you don't experience something does not mean you should never write about it or write characters that experience it. It's like saying "hey, you're not black. Don't write a black character." However, I do agree with your point that IF you do attempt to portray a character or scenario that has elements of mental illness involved, you should only do it after extensive research. I, like most other people, have seen the asylum role plays around the site, however if you actually bother to read them you might be surprised. Although there may be the one or two characters that totally fuck everything up and don't portray things correctly, there are some that actually try their best to do things the correct way. I'm sure you, as someone who personally experiences these things, are probably wondering why people would choose to play them out, and I'm am willing to give you two explanations that make the most sense to me.


Curiousity: As someone who doesn't have a mental illness, I struggle to truly understand how the minds of these people work. I'm the sort of person who creates a character and then lets the situations of the role play dictate how they truly turn out. If I were to create a mentally ill character I would make sure all my research is evident in my CS and when I'm unsure how he/she would react in the role play, I'd refer back to the sheet. It gets interesting to see how different things affect a character.


To improve their writing: Creating a character that's just like yourself does not improve your writing at all. When one makes a challenging character it forces them to truly think about every they write. How they think, feel, speak, etc. In the end if they do it correctly, it makes the writer better.


Now I agree they might piss you off if they don't do it correctly, but if they do the research and correctly portray it in the role play, it's not fair to say don't do it unless you experience it.

 

[call me rae]

@ARSENIC I think the brunt of his argument was people romanticizing mental illness just to give their character an "edge". Like saying oh I want a bad person so I'll say he's schizophrenic and his voices tell him to kill people. Or my character is ADD and that means their an annoying twit on a constant sugar high.


like people that just give their character mental illness or tragedy as a lazy excuse for character growth.


What your doing sounds more like a respectful way in which the mental illness is a genuine part of your characters backstory that you have researched prior to implementing.


if everyone was that dedicated there wouldn't be an issue, but sadly most people just pick mental illnesses at random because they sound cool. And that is kind of offensive to people who actually suffer from those illnesses.


Especially as I stated previously in the case when people romanticize it and claim that a mental illness is just an affection, something their character claims to have for attention of something that can be cured through true love or whatever.


@MrMister sadly as I told Arsenicyou are both in the minority's of what I have seen in terms of actually researching your character and ensuring whatever quirks or mental illness you give them fit the roleplay.


Now I'm not saying that doesn't happen but I will say that as I mentioned above most people just use "crazy" or "mentally ill" as a short hand for I want my character to be edgy or garner attention and so I'm going to mimic something I saw on TV and call that a mental illness. So my character will be depressed and slit their wrists as a cry for attention. Or my character will be schizophrenic and just go around killing people because the voices in their head said too.


There is more to these illnesses than what tv portrays. Now I'm not saying you have to have the ilness yourself to portray it, I'm just saying do a bit of research. Learn all the symptoms, the treatment plans, maybe even read a personal account from someone. Just so you know more about the illness and can portray it respectfully.

 

[Stormlight]

I think roleplaying someone with a mental illness shouldn't be looked down upon, neither should it be forbidden to those who have never experienced something like this before. I feel like exploring the world of mental illness in roleplaying games is just as important to growing as learning to write other character archetypes and backgrounds as opposed to playing once again the normal and typical dwarf.


I do agree that people usually portray them falsely and over stylized (even failing in the basic way of displaying it), one can even go as far to say that mental illnesses are often portrayed as if they were given hollywood treatment. Given proper research on the topic and adding the mental illness to further explore the character instead of centralizing him around the mental illness, can create more exiciting and interesting situations, aswell as roleplaying experiences.


I can understand that some roleplayers say that you shouldn't roleplay what you haven't experienced, because even though you can research a lot of things, sometimes even that is not enough to correctly portray realistic PTSD Behaviour, while not taking too much focus away from the roleplay. Also ones PTSD can differ from another's, many if not all depressions differ from each other and may play out differently. Furthermore, roleplayers tend to get many things wrong in a roleplaying environment, aside from mental illnesses, people also fail to correctly portray simple things like professions, languages, hobbies, sciences and especially sexuality.


Despite all that, i think that we are here in a lucky position and probably even want to experience different kinds of scenarios, we may have only heard before on tv or read in books. In the end it's about creating a fun experience for every party involved and a slightly wrong representation of mental illness can and should be accepted if it's not a central focus point or even worse, an excuse or justification for one's own actions.


Edit: Further explaining


Greetings, Stormlight.

 

[eclipsa]

I FEEL THIS. Like I'm so tired of people misrepresenting the illnesses I personally have, because those are ones I truly understand. But when I see characters with any form of mental illness that I know are being misrepresented, it just irks me.


And if I see ONE MORE character with their body type being "anorexic" I'll flip out. Anorexia is an incredibly serious and deadly disease that can cause permanent damage. It does not have a body type. It affects people of all shapes, sizes, ages, ethnicities, and social classes. It really bothers me.


I'm all for researching mental illnesses and writing them, but please do proper research. Mental illnesses aren't cute and quirky. They're serious things that should be portrayed as such.

 

[Stormlight]

I FEEL THIS. Like I'm so tired of people misrepresenting the illnesses I personally have, because those are ones I truly understand. But when I see characters with any form of mental illness that I know are being misrepresented, it just irks me.
And if I see ONE MORE character with their body type being "anorexic" I'll flip out. Anorexia is an incredibly serious and deadly disease that can cause permanent damage. It does not have a body type. It affects people of all shapes, sizes, ages, ethnicities, and social classes. It really bothers me.


I'm all for researching mental illnesses and writing them, but please do proper research. Mental illnesses aren't cute and quirky. They're serious things that should be portrayed as such.

I think people just tend to use anorexic for the wrong purpose then, i mean they probably meant to describe their characters body type to be more lean and slick, more than anything else. Cases like that aren't very rare, i know people that used different definitions as synoyms because they've heard of it and have a severe lack of english understanding and writing skills. I think getting bothered is justified and one should try to solve and instruct people like that, rather then looking down on them for seemingly misrepresenting mental illnesses or diseases for the betterment of one's self.


Greetings, Stormlight.

 

[eclipsa]

I'm not looking down on them, I'm saying it's an extreme problem which has lead to many people going untreated for anorexia because they weren't super skinny. I know what they're trying to say, but it doesn't justify it. Anorexic plain and simple isn't a body type. It's a disease. I've seen people who are English speaking with superb writing skills use it. It's offensive to people who have suffered the disease or are suffering the disease. @Stormlight

 

[Stormlight]

I'm not looking down on them, I'm saying it's an extreme problem which has lead to many people going untreated for anorexia because they weren't super skinny. I know what they're trying to say, but it doesn't justify it. Anorexic plain and simple isn't a body type. It's a disease. I've seen people who are English speaking with superb writing skills use it. It's offensive to people who have suffered the disease or are suffering the disease. @Stormlight

Oh, i didn't mean to justify it. I just mean to show another perspective on that topic, not belittle or hurt people that have experienced such cases in their social subsystem. Also remember that not all misrepresentations happen because someone didn't care enough and a lot of offensive things to people, while writing in a roleplay, can't be just fixed because you've had proper research on that topic. As for Anorexic, i've already offered my insight on it more than enough.


Greetings, Stormlight.

 

[DaManofWar]

I'm sure this topic has been touched on COUNTLESS times before, but here I am, your resident crazy person to harp on about it again.
Mental illness has been and always will be a huge part of me and my life. ADHD, Borderline Personality Disorder (with psychotic and dependent features), Avoidant Personality Disorder, Generalized Anxiety, Seasonal Depression, and another one I'll talk about later. That's a pretty long list. I'm not even an adult yet! (And yes, you can be diagnosed with personality disorders before the age of 18. And anyways, self-dxing is valid as well.)


The reason I think RolePlay and mental illness go so badly together is because of something larger that's been centuries in creation: stigmatization and mystification. Need a way to get people to feel sorry for your character? Boom, they're schizophrenic now. Of course they don't get the symptoms you fine unattractive, like ocassionally (or chronically) not being able to form proper sentences, perhaps suffering from catatonic states, having pronounced episodes where things symptoms get worse, delusions about people who are trying to hurt them (and then acting out in perceived self defence), extreme confusion, and so on. Nah, they just hear voices sometimes and are sad a lot. Alternatively, someone will portray someone with schizophrenia as just this asshole who kills people because this guy in his head told him so, because y'know, it's not like statistically, people with schizophrenia (and mental illness in general) aren't more likely to be the victims of abuse than be the perpetrators.


I use schizophrenia as an example because it's one I see a lot. I see ADHD portrayed a lot too - and badly. The characters are just hyper and have no verbal filter. Yes, okay, sometimes ADHD is primarily shown that way! But where's the executive dysfunction, where the character isn't able to self motivate to care for their hygiene, no matter how badly they want to? The primarily inattentive ones, who don't show any hyperactivity but tend to forget things, and not be able to find things even if the item is literally right in front of them? The ones who get hyper fixated on something they're interested in and focus so intently on it for HOURS that they ignore all other responsibilities and needs, to the point that they don't eat for 8+ hours and run on 3 hours of sleep per week because they just NEED to know everything about this topic.


I could go on just talking about bad portrayals of all the diagnoses I've already listed (or even ones I don't have, because one of the hyper fixations my ADHD brain had was psychiatry), I'm going to discuss the diagnoses I've received that I didn't list: Dissocistive Identity Disorder, previously known as (and also commonly known as) Multiple Personality Disorder (please don't call it this).


This disorder is usually found in characters who have just one alter, who is typically violent and angry and REALLY wants to hurt people just for the joy of it. This is unbelievably shitty. Like, the rare times I have told people I know offline about this, they almost always ask about this. It's not only annoying, it scares me. It scares me because I think they'll stop being my friend because they're suddenly afraid of me. Honestly, the only time any of my alters would harm you is if they thought you were going to harm me or them, usually they just help me out by doing schoolwork, cleaning, and cooking when I'm not able to, and if a dangerous and possibly traumatic situation arises, removing me from that situation so I don't get further traumatized by it.


DID is founded in chronic exposure to traumatic events in early childhood. It's developed before the age of nine (although it may not truly appear until later in life). People with DID have been through hell. Don't trivialize it with "so-and-so has an alter who wants to kill people because I say so." Also, don't confuse it with schizophrenia. Schizophrenics do not experience other people controlling their body.


My opinion on creating characters with DID: unless you have the disorder, don't. If you decide to anyways, my advice would be to think about what role one alter might serve. A caregiver? Think about who the positive caretakers of you character was when they were young - use that as inspiration for that alter. And each alter should be a fully developed character! (There is a such thing as having fragments of being polyfragmented but this is an almost DEFINITE no for writing unless you've experienced it first hand.) Alters are people, sometimes with their own back stories (one of mine is from 1870s-1880s Russia, ho immigrated to Canada hen she was 10), and may have completely separate traumas than the core.


Tl;dr: Mental illness is complex and you should write it as such. Other mental illnesses shouldn't be written about unless you either have the disorder or are willing to do lots of research, and not just reading the DSM or essays written by doctors, but by reading about people's personal experiences with it. Or better yet: don't touch more stigmitized disorders at all unless you have it.

Calm down, and just do what I do - ignore it.

 

[Sunbather]

I mean, I understand that's upsetting. I relate to personal struggles being used in terribly inappropiate contexts because my own issues have been used in these ways. But common sense is also needed. Anorexic is, in colloquial speech, used to describe extremely underweight people. As an adjective of appearance. Of course it can be whatever. It could be an obese person, it could be an "average" person. Depending on severity it is deadly and in any case, it's unhealthy. And yet, it's just how language works. Especially if it's given a context. Like, I made a character for an RP who showed signs of anorexia in her behavior, and I turned and described body her as anorexic -- Not because I am ignorant to the conditon, but because I understand what it means (to most people) - colloquially - contextualized. And of course anyone can disagree with that or not, that's their right. But, I reiterate: That's how language works, mostly.

 

[call me rae]

I mean, I understand that's upsetting. I relate to personal struggles being used in terribly inappropiate contexts because my own issues have been used in these ways. But common sense is also needed. Anorexic is, in collequial speech, used to describe extremely underweight people. As an adjective of appearance. Of course it can be whatever. It could be an obese person, it could be an "average" person. Depending on severity it is deadly and in any case, it's unhealthy. And yet, it's just how language works. Especially if it's given a context. Like, I made a character for an RP who showed signs of anorexia in her behavior, and I turned to describer her as anorexic -- Not because I am ignorant to the conditon, but because I understand what it means contextualized. And of course anyone can disagree with that or not, that's their right. But, I reiterate: That's how language works, mostly.

Well in the case of anorexic are you saying your character actually has or borderlines anorexia? or are you meaning she's super skinny and she looks anorexic. Both are valid but they can be read different ways.


Saying someone is Anorexic when they just look skinny is fine but I agree with @Eunoia they could use a different term for it. Especially if it upsets their partner to the extend that is upsets her. I mean really is it that much harder to just say - she's super skinny versus she looks anorexic?


I think that's another thing people should be respectful of other people's feelings as well. I had the same discussion about different cultures a while back. When I referenced someone who used to get really offended when I used the term honey.


They said it felt very demeaning to them and they wanted me to stop using it. Now I could have explained to her that it was just a figure of speech that I use in every day conversation but that wouldn't have made it less offensive to her. And more to the point it is a small thing - what real difference does it make to the narrative for me to just stop using the word honey?


None.


So the same thing - if your using a word just to describe a character's attribute when it doesn't in fact describe an existing condition than just change the word.

 

[Sunbather]

Well, yeah, she was borderline anorexic. Otherwise I wouldn't have used it, because then her body shape would have been completely unrelated to the condition and it would've felt... I dunno... Dumb? To me, anyways. Technically, everyone who's anorexic could be described as anorexic, and with the general, figure-of-speechy application, I felt it made sense. I still do, too.


And yes, caring for others is a big deal for me. I wish more people were considerate. Generally, I'm open to changing things some might find uneasy or triggering. But it also depends on the tone. I had someone flip out at me for using a word they didn't like. Mind you, the situation was different, and they were factually wrong, but their whole attitude turned me off from delving into it. If someone politely asks me why I did this and that and then says something like "Oh okay but could you please..." then I'll most likely change it because someone else being unhappy isn't worth a simple, singular verbiage.


However, I also have the right to refuse. Everyone has the right to perceive things however they might. Everyone can be offended, or hurt. Everyone can be "weak" or "strong". And everyone can criticize everyone's usage of this and that. But everyone also the right to ignoring input. It's just a matter of, yet again, context, really.

 

[eclipsa]

@Sunbather


See, if the character has the condition, I'm like "okay, that makes sense" but when it's someone who's healthy and doesn't suffer from an ed at all, let alone anorexia, it bothers me. I'm not usually so passionate about it, but it's just a growing trend and after being called anorexic my whole life regardless of if I had the disorder and after knowing so many people who suffered from it, it bothers me now.


I agree about being polite, as well. A lot of people don't have any tact when asking people to change something, and that's tiresome as well.

 

[Morris]

Psychological disorders have always been a controversial topic in roleplaying. On one hand, they offer an incredible range of very deep topics to explore. But on the other hand, if not treated with research and respect, the subject disorders can become stereotyped, misinterpreted, even romanticized or trivialized.


I loathe to admit, I did write characters/NPCs (though never main chars) with DID when I was younger; the only saving grace I could offer up is the fact that even back then, I tried to make the 'alteregos' both have actual - if opposing - personalities, rather than just one being goody two-shoes and the other a murderous psychopath like I saw one time too many.


The time I dropped playing around with mental illnesses on a semi-serious level was when a close relative of mine started suffering from depression, and eventually was diagnosed with schizophrenia - the symptoms manifested and cultivated over the years and it took a lot of time to find the right therapist and medications. It's not pretty. Not pretty at all.


Ever since, even if I make up NPCs suffering from 'signs' of some disorder, I never specify or play it up. I let my partners speculate if they wish. Either that, or in less serious adventures, I play mad NPCs from a comic angle, but in those sorts of RPs even the main chars tend to be bollocks on some level.


These are my personal experiences on the matter. The subject material is tempting, but not for the faint of heart, or for those who would belittle it.

 

[countrygirl824]

I don't know if it's considered a mental illness or not but I have PTSD. I don't make my characters have it though.

 

[Stormlight]

I don't know if it's considered a mental illness or not but I have PTSD. I don't make my characters have it though.

I am not sure how this adds any value to the overall discussion, but you have every right to not pursue PTSD-like behaviour in your characters.

Ever since, even if I make up NPCs suffering from 'signs' of some disorder, I never specify or play it up. I let my partners speculate if they wish. Either that, or in less serious adventures, I play mad NPCs from a comic angle, but in those sorts of RPs even the main chars tend to be bollocks on some level.

I actually like this way of describing and displaying a mental illness. Addtionally this falls into the technique of showing the reader more than actually telling him all of the information flat out, aside from immersing the reader, it also does create slightly more depth to a character, i'll keep this in mind for further mental illnesses.

 

[QuirkyAngel]

This is an interesting topic, so I'll just leave my opinion here. Everyone seems to agree that romanticizing is bad, but I'll ague that it's the basis of many great fictional stories. For some people, rping is about using their imagination, and in some cases, even bending reality to fit the scope of their story. They like stories with lots of action, happy endings, the typical fairytale. For others, they prefer more gritty, realistic, and accurate portrayals. That's fine too. Everyone enjoys different things.


I'm a lazy-ish writer. If I write a character with a certain disease, I do research a bit on the symptoms so I'm not completely inaccurate in portraying the disease, but not deeply and thoroughly . I have written criminal sociopaths. I have written a character with narcolepsy...but I leave that as more a background thing rather than focus my character around her condition. I've even have described a character as having bipolar like symptoms after a traumatic event in her life in which she randomly alternates between depression and mania. I don't have any of those diseases/mental conditions, but I try my best to imagine what the character would feel having them. However, I know I can never be perfectly accurate, which is why I tend to stay away from realistic rps...especially since I tend to exaggerate.


Is Schizophrenia the cause of an angry, edgy, killer? Often times no. Not realistically. Could it be? Yes. In fiction, for drama...for fun. Is that lazy writing? Maybe. I don't know. Depends on the writer, I guess. Mental illness is something alot of tv shows, movies, etc like to romanticize cause it makes for an interesting story. And for some people (like myself) an interesting story is what keeps me from being bored in an rp. It's not everyone's cup of tea and everyone's opinion of interesting is different.


That said, I understand that inaccurate portrayals of a real condition can be annoying (even hurtful) and I agree that consideration is important. Not just in mental illnesses, but in other stereotypes as well. If there's anyone who really doesn't like how my character portrayed a particular disease/mental condition or feels hurt by it, and they make that clear to me, I'd probably change it or get rid of it all together. To me, rping is supposed to a fun and enjoyable. The moment it becomes too personal for someone, it stops being fun.

 

[pavelius]

this entire thread gives me a headache so i'm not going to write much. or i'll throw myself in a a spiraling rage.


i wish things could be left simply at this: don't rp things you aren't willing to research.


"but lysander rp is supposed to be fun—"


sure, you can choose not to. but that's:


a) bad writing


b) lazy writing


c) probably really disrespectful.


all's fun and games until someone gets hurt.


but yeah, the amount of awful portrayals of mental illness in RP makes me want to tear out my own intestines. i don't even have a problem with romanticizing personally, i don't really care. but stigmatizing, i do have an issue with. i have yet to see a well-written schizophrenic or DID system.

 

[Cyaness]

I'm going to avoid saying anything that's already been said, unless I feel it needs to be repeated.


I haven't consumed much media recently, let alone those that involve characters officially diagnosed or speculated (in or out of universe) to have any sort of mental affliction, so I'm not sure if I'm right in making this assumption, but I think there's a bit of a correlation between the lack of accuracy in roleplay and the lack of accuracy in general media.


Someone mentioned the "Hollywood"-style portrayal earlier, but it wasn't lingered on for long. Really, anyone who doesn't research things is in a risky spot, whether they be a roleplayer or a professional writer. The latter is often paid for their work, and depending on morals and money, may write about things they aren't familiar with for the sake of money; some may do research, some don't. Professionals get a lot more exposure than roleplayers, and unless they're some sort of godly writer, roleplayers don't often get particularly known outside of a certain circle or site, and it'd take much more to get known publicly, and at that point, they may not even be a roleplayer anymore, due to various things. Anyway, professional writing is held in higher regard, and with the world as big as it is, someone's going to take the professional's portrayal as accurate, whether or not it actually is. Sometimes that someone is your average joe, sometimes it's a roleplayer, and sometimes it's another writer. (There's obviously overlap, but that's not relevant.) If it's another writer, sometimes they may feel the portrayal is so accurate, they base their own portrayal on that, and thus the cycle repeats until there's enough revolution to change it.


Also, aside from portrayals that are just plain wrong, there is no one true way to write any sort of mental affliction. Unless a character is specifically stated to have (or not have) a trait due to something unrelated, or has a trait that 100% doesn't show up in afflicted persons, there's roughly infinite possibilities and catalysts to justify their behavior. Character sheets are also not the be-all end-all of the character's past or personality, too, as there are often many things that don't have an explanation (whether intentionally or not), or things were just simply forgotten or unofficially filled in later on (let alone how needlessly complicated it would be to provide an airtight description of personality or history). A common response to a particular situation isn't the only response, and a change in behavior may be caused by the simple act of noticing something you've never paid much attention to before.


Everyone with a particular affliction doesn't experience it the exact same way, though there are obviously similarities, so even having a particular condition doesn't mean you're safe from having to research.


I'm not sure if I stated the point I was originally going to make, but I forgot it, so I'm just gonna leave this here.

 

[dapperghost]

Huh. All the opinions here are actually pretty interesting but I'm not sure to what degree I agree with any of them. It's impossible to say.


I guess I understand what OP is saying; you shouldn't really play a character with an illness or disorder unless you have a fair understanding of the condition, because it's not really fair to people whose daily struggles are being misinterpreted and normalised as insignificant. But I don't think it's right to tell people that they can't create characters with these differences at all. After all, one of the core reasons that role-playing exists is so that hobbyist writers can get a taste of life in someone else's shoes. What's the point if social justice warriors prohibit the use of characters with health conditions and disorders? Isn't that as bad as ignoring those people, pretending they don't exist?


I think that as long as you're being fair and understanding, there's no reason why you shouldn't play a character with a condition like this. It can allow players to better understand the people around them, or even help iron out some negative or incorrect stereotypes if it's done correctly. Isn't that a good thing?

 

[Captifate]

People who don't care to research either mood disorders or mental illness are contributing to the reason why people don't get proper help: The average person cannot recognize that someone is in need.


So many people are ridiculed when they have an underlying condition.


As an analogy, (cis?)women are far more likely to die from heart attacks because they manifest differently from how men experience them. Yet TV only ever depicts the latter so plenty of folks don't realize that.


Hell, following that above notion, lots of well-intentioned but offensive as hell and ignorant people think mental illness is some sort of death sentence.

 

[Nefepants]

I feel like the main issue with writing mentally ill characters is that many people do it just to give their character depth. Like, instead of developing believable flaws and limitations, they instead treat mental illnesses as a characterization shortcut.


"Oh, my character has no unique personality, but they have NPD! Look at how deep and realistic they are."


All in all, it doesn't matter if you yourself don't have the illness that you're incorporating into a character. Just as long as you're not treating it all like some novelty. Fiction is fiction, but when you're using real-life traits, you need to be respectful in order to be fair to people who actually live like that.


Additionally, there's a really disgusting criminalization of mental illness in roleplay as well.


I know way too many muns who develop characters with ~SPOOKY~ mental disorders like DID, just to reinforce the lawlessness and general violent/evil behavior of their OC.


It's not enough for them to be neurotypical, they need to be mentally disturbed in order to add an extra scary edge to things. (It's the same reason why the horror genre thrives off of things like mental wards. People eat that nonsense up too. As if mentally ill people are all scary and should be avoided for your protection.)


Serious mental illness isn't terribly common, so there will be many individuals who have no frame of reference for it besides the stereotypes they see in media. But these people also need to realize that people with serious mental illnesses are more common than they realize. We aren't as blatantly obvious and one-dimensional as the stereotypes they've gotten used to.


It's just so easy to be respectful when you're developing a character with traits you don't share. Just do your homework. Talk to people you know that do relate. Actually put in the effort to making a solid character.


It's much more fulfilling than an unrealistic and offensive character.