#i need...a tag for gerry's shit if i talk enough abt it eventually

[gerrydelano]

what are your disability (or mental illness) headcanons? id love to hear em if you got any!

boy do i! i’ll list the ones we use in the gtcu under the cut ^_^

DISCLAIMER: assume everyone on this list has PTSD, that’s why georgie’s not listed because that’s mostly what we give her/it’s deliberately canon. sticking to major characters/the ones we write that have a strong bearing on the stories we personally tell! 

jon (comorbidity legend! and by that i mean - ouch!) 

neuro: autistic, ADHD, osdd-1a, OCD, schizoaffective

physical: hypermobile ehlers-danlos, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), also i write him as a cane user following an injury to his left knee when he was 22! and of course any applicable neuropathy following worming, etc. 

notes: he’s had chronic pain all his life, it’s just There for him. also, he did speech therapy as a kid for his stutter and sometimes it comes back out when he’s stressed!

also, comorbidity really is a major thing. it does not get taken seriously enough. the fact of the matter is, if you have one thing, you are very likely to develop more things! especially with something like EDS, too, where you’re more likely to get hurt and get into shit that will worsen your health as time persists. 

and mental health wise, just try and tell me personally that it’s Not Realistic to have 5 diagnoses when that’s literally half the amount of my prof. diagnoses myself. it honestly just makes sense for him and he shows major symptoms of literally all of those things Right In Canon it’s not even a reach JVHBKFDN.

martin

neuro: autistic, ADHD, c-PTSD [meta], BPD [meta], OCD (with a heavy leaning on moral scrupulosity)

physical: nothing major! arthritis maybe

notes: i also have strong feelings about him with disordered eating due to his lifetime of poverty and abuse/neglect, it would do a Number on him. let him HEAL.

tim

neuro: ADHD, BPD [meta]

physical: deaf! and also in terms of canon any applicable worm neuropathy, etc.

notes: he didn’t really believe he was ADHD for a while because he was used to danny’s particular presentation of it and was like “pfff i don’t have that” except that he so does. borderline wise, he got some help for that in uni and has been managing himself as best he can for a long time, before y’know, shit breaks bad in canon. 

in terms of his hearing, he had otitis media very young and as a result had some repeated ear infections, it wasn’t As Bad at first as it could have been but worsened with time due to some genetic predisposition. if he had been born completely deaf his parents would have gone for a cochlear implant which SUCKS and boy does he hate that. he decorates his hearing aids with nail decals, it’s great. 

also, his canon way of speaking supports this! he enunciates very clearly and speaks with a sort of loud deliberation that we personally HC as being partly due to wanting to be able to hear himself speak/know he’s being clear. when he mumbles, he mumbles. either he’s audible in the next country or he is speaking to ants.

sasha

neuro: autistic, ADHD, PTSD (specifically from her parents’ deaths)

notes: huh. wow. elias really did just hire a shitload of people with ADHD because it’d be so fun to watch them run around like headless chickens didn’t he

gerry (another comorbidity legend everything is a nightmare)

neuro: dissociative identity disorder (surprise! you don’t get raised by mary keay without developing that, sorry! check this tag for more on that.)

physical: hEDS, POTS, limps with his right leg due to a childhood injury, other various effects of scars and such

notes: i also HC him as a recovering addict, and in PBR i’m going to be writing him as eventually becoming a partial wheelchair user because of his POTS - it makes it hard to stand/walk for long periods of time, and even if he can get through something intense in the moment, it’s gonna have consequences and he needs to be able to recover from stressing his body out. i think we need more protags in wheelchairs, and i also like tackling it being partial because of the stigma surrounding people who use chairs being able to walk sometimes? like. it doesn’t mean they don’t need the chair and that the chair doesn’t benefit their life shut up

melanie

neuro: autistic, bipolar 1

physical: obviously her canon blindness when applicable, chronic pain from Slaughter Leg when applicable (sometimes things go differently for her in the plot depending what we write)

notes: we also give her a history with disordered eating but we’re a recovery household okay! she did spend some time institutionalized as a teenager, following the death of her mother which caused her burgeoning mood disorder to snowball in a Bad Way.

danny (because we might as well put him in here due to how we write him!)

neuro: ADHD, a major helping of PTSD 

physical: the after-effects of scars received during his time at the circus

notes: in HLM, his PTSD manifests most loudly with the trauma bond to the circus/the contortionist and he age regresses/dissociates when he’s triggered! age regression is not at all some inherently creepy thing and has nothing to do with Stuff you might see online, it’s very common and he just needs a safe place to be able to come back to himself.

adelard (the ones i use for him in PBR, since his being alive AND disabled are both important to his role there!)

neuro: generally you don’t get to the point in life he has without some PTSD, but he’s honestly managed to process it better than uhhhh. most of the rest of these guys!

physical: lower leg amputation and deformity of three fingers following his encounter with amherst

notes: i write him as using a prosthetic and a cane, but the two times that’s happened have been outright emergencies that he pushed himself to be present for in ways that have consequences (both physically, and from his very concerned wife.) overall, he’s stepped away from the field to recuperate at home with his family and so tends to leave it off and spends more time sitting, and in a wheelchair that any number of his family members are insistent upon pushing him around in. let the man rest.

i also imagine d*isy would have some fibromyalgia at the very least following the buried considering the atrophy and stress but eh. also, basira’s autistic, as well. i don’t plan on doing anything with that going forward personally.

i keep feeling like i’ve forgotten people but overall these are the major ones i am Constantly thinking about and actively portray! 

the best part of all of this is how extremely likely and common All of these things are and how much sense they make with the characters’ canon experiences!!!! comorbidity is not rare at all! people have more than one thing going on! and there’s WAY more than one or two disabled people in a group i can Tell You That Right Now. i love realism and organic representation it’s just very easy to spot these things when you’re also mentally ill/neurodivergent and disabled yourself pbthth. i love to have fun