#mental illness representation

[defectivegembrain]

Okay no look Abed is not just autistic, he definitely has comorbid mental health issues. I mean he is canonically described as having psychotic breaks, we see several of these, and also he has serious abandonment issues and goes to extreme lengths analysing and worrying about relationships. That stuff definitely overlaps and connects with autism but it isn't explained by that alone. Also you could reasonably argue for a learning disability like dyscalculia. And you know what, it's good representation that not every symptom he shows can be explained by autism. Most autistics have something else on top. Especially considering the increased social rejection and mistreatment. It feels very real, and I don't think it's fair to reduce it to just autism. From personal experience, when people try to do that in real life, it means possible strategies and solutions get ignored, and you get convinced every part of your suffering is just an intrinsic part of who you are. That you're destined to be this anxious, this stressed, this traumatised forever. And I know saying it about a fictional character doesn't actually do the same to anyone, but like. It's just not accurate, and it feeds into something that does hurt real people.

[chronicsymptomsyndrome]

Getting really tired of seeing “mental health advocates” vilifying mental health conditions, especially narcissistic personality disorder. Please fucking stop

[rachymarie]

I see Heartbreak High is due for Season 2, and while I like what they did with Quinni and representing autism etc, especially with an Actually Autistic actor, I couldn't help feeling a bad taste in my mouth for how it handled severe mental illness - as one character made a comment at some point about the character who suffers psychosis being evil/horrible. (i can't remember the exact words now but you get the gist)

I hope they do better this season. What's everyone's thoughts?

[fragmentedink-archived]

I really enjoyed Charlotte's and George's relationship in the Bridgerton spinoff. I think for the most part it was done p well and was p respectful towards mentally ill ppl but I think it did make me think about how many stories (especially romances) revolving around mentally ill people tend to center the other person in the relationship in the storyline, not the actual mentally ill person. and when it is, it's often in a way that's not,,, showing a lot of the harder parts of mental illness. I did really enjoy the episode we got from George's perspective thooooo

[eemcintyre]

NORMALIZE THE PATHOLOGICAL NEED TO BE ✨ CRUSHED FLAT ✨ BY A GORGEOUS PERSON A WEIGHTED BLANKET 😤😤

[dyingroses]

Me, irl: I’m a waste, I ruin everything I touch, I suck

Me, in self-insert fantasies where I have to convince people to like me/not kill or abandon me: Bitch, I’m so fucking valuable you have no idea! I’m smart, fun, resilient, creative, strong, and have a good memory, soft skin, and a nice shoulder massage.

[valravn72]

The best way I can describe the later section of Wonder Egg Priority is that it reads exactly as if the main character and her best friend’s groomer somehow managed to hijack the script and take over the show so that he could blame all the results of the things him and people like him did on a tiny robot girl who seems like a shitty (and ableist) personality disorder allegory.

It’s fascinating that the story somehow took this turn but if you are there because you are genuinely excited for representation of mentally ill people and abuse victims, I don’t recommend it.

The show also claims that the main character’s best friend is somehow at fault for being groomed, a narrative that they condemn in an earlier episode.

Overall, it feels like some warped psychological horror that’s supposed to be commentary on creators using mentally ill characters to push their own agendas, and like there’s a meta narrative where the script is being rewritten and the characters are going to have to fight it once they realize that something is wrong and reality is trying to manipulate them into blaming what happened to them on people who are victims of the same things that they are, but in the end that’s not what happens and the show is actually genuine about the message of its ending.

I really hope someone gets inspiration from the things it did right and creates something out of it that does not suffer from these flaws.

TLDR; The latter section of Wonder Egg Priority feels like Sawaki, Acca and Ura-Acca censored it and then rewrote it to be propaganda and it makes me uncomfortable.

(DISCLAIMER: I’m not condemning the team that worked on that show, from what I know about them I doubt they did any of this with any malevolent intentions.)

Edit: It’s also okay to be a fan of this show, what it does do right is very impressive and groundbreaking and I think that there’s a lot of value in that.

[tallysgreatestfan]

As someone who was severely mentally ill to the point of being this level of disoriented, reading Harrow the Ninth made me feel so seen, but it was also painful and hard to get through.

What probably hit me the most was how she is suffering and suicidal and so exhausted, but she also wants to live so badly.

So glad for this rep

[letmeinpplease]

Buckle in kids, the Barnaby Brooks, Jr. Defense Squad is holding a meeting.

So I gave up on the argument with my BIL. Below is, essentially, the essay I wrote trying to explain why his particular opinion of Barnaby sucks. I decided not to send it because I realized that frankly, even if I'm right, it's not going to change his view, so it wasn't worth my time. Instead I figured I'd send it out into the void that is Tumblr to hopefully get some good faith interaction.

-My BIL's best friend watched the show specifically to understand our argument and said Barnaby "had no signs of mental illness, maybe just some trauma."

Bullshit.

Bro has at least an anxiety disorder and, given that I have one and that man is showing every single fucking trait I did before being diagnosed, I will die on that hill (I did also check the DSM for non-anecdotal evidence related to my specific disorder, and I'm pretty sure he meets the GAD criteria). Regardless, PTSD is, in fact, classed as a mental illness (specifically subclassified as a form of anxiety), and you can't watch the show and tell me he doesn't have PTSD.

-BIL's BF also said that Barnaby has a shitty, unlikeable personality with very little to redeem him through the end of Season 1.

Bullshit again.

There's literally a slow progression of him getting steadily better (both mentally and as a person) throughout all of season 1 and into season 2. I don't have time for a full watch through to rip small details, but you can literally watch Barnaby change in real fucking time. He's not the same person at the end of season 1 that he was at the beginning. Maybe its the hyperfixation talking, but I genuinely don't understand how you can watch the show and not catch the little, incremental ways he changes throughout season 1. And on that note--

-You don't have to like Barnaby's bitchy, shitty behavior in early Season 1. You literally aren't meant to. It is bitchy, shitty behavior, and it's stemming from unrecognized and/or unmanaged mental illness of some kind (even if it's only PTSD) in combination with Maverick's upbringing. It's an explanation, not an excuse, and it's realistic as shit. His support network is literally Maverick and Samantha. I'm not even gonna get into how much fuckery the Maverick component added to Barnaby's mental health, social skills, and general world view, cause I really should not have to. As for Samantha, I always got the vibe that they loved each other, but they rarely communicated, so he doesn't have much going for him there.

Why is this relevant?

Because Barnaby doesn't know how the fuck to deal with Kotetsu's shenanigans or his own issues, so he lashes out. Once he actually has and accepts a support network (Kotetsu), he starts to improve as a character. Wanna know why I clocked that? Cause I did The Exact Same Fucking Thing. I had 0 friends in high school because I was a constantly on edge due to unrecognized anxiety and PTSD (obviously at the time I had no idea why I was so angry all the time), which made me a reactive, short tempered bitch. I got better in college, and that was because I was in a different setting and around new people, which provided me the exposure I needed to realize "something might not be right here." The little support network I formed at college helped me learn how to manage, how to interact with people, and how to manage my reactiveness simply through exposure (i.e. I figured it out as we went and apologized when I fucked up, they were not expected to take any sort of responsibility). Recognition of my issues later led to going to therapy and getting a diagnosis. We are literally watching this happen with Barnaby. Season 1 is the first time in Barnaby's life that he has a significant influence outside of Maverick. We are literally watching that exact same growth over the course of the show.

-And that brings us to Barnaby's motivation, which I have another post on, so you can totes skip this paragraph if you want. Once he gets past the revenge arc Barnaby is literally just trying to do what makes him mentally okay. That's literally it. That's what everything he does from then on boils down to. Granted, it's not as obvious early on, but it's heavily implied at the end of season 1, it literally feeds the plot of The Rising, and he outright says that's what he's doing in season 2, and it's backed by his actions throughout. He's still helping people while doing it, so it's not like it's to other people's detriment, but he's prioritizing what he needs and what could make him happy. You gotta put on your oxygen mask before you can help others, and that's a hard but important lesson to learn when you're mentally ill. Prime example is that I had to end a friendship last week because her mental health issues were worsening mine, and she would not accept any form of boundaries. I wanted to be able to continue to support her, but you can't save someone if you're drowning. Additionally, I think it's hard for people to get what it's like for your only goal to be to feel okay without the context of being mentally ill for Literally as long as you've had memories (and I'm not even exaggerating there, pls don't ask about my childhood fear of toothpaste). Seeing that shit reflected on screen is Refreshing As Hell. Barnaby's not in it purely ~to help others~, or to avenge his parents, or for the sake of justice, or anything like that. Barnaby is Literally just a guy trying to find something that makes him happy, and is clinging tooth and nail to keep whatever he finds (namely, his partnership with Kotetsu).

-Basically, my view boils down to this: You don't have to like Barnaby as a character. You don't have to like his coping skills, or lack thereof. But Barnaby is a fantastic representation of what its like for some (key word SOME, I'm not gonna claim my experience to be universal) people dealing with long-term unrecognized mental illness. You can hate him, but when the show outright gives you all this context showing you Exactly why he acts the way he does, and then shows you how he makes an effort to change, you should at least consider it before just saying "he's an asshole and that's that." Also, recognize that if you can't see the representation he provides, He's Probably Not For Your Benefit (why yes, this IS another "importance of representation" post). It's so rare to get realistic portrayals of mental health in the media, and even less so with genuinely Good characters, so frankly, it enrages me when people just disregard the Mountain of context provided in favor of saying "oh, he's just an asshole" (looking at you, CA: Civil War era Tony Stark hate).

[fics-n-stuff]

I've just started watching The Crowded Room and I know the basic premise, and I don't have DID but... this feels like bad rep??

And I don't even mean the fact that the main character with DID is also a criminal, because it's based on true events so I'm not going to fault it for inventing a a narrative that demonizes mental illness, but just the way that it depicts the disorder... doesn't feel right? Like his altars feel more like hallucinations because he talks to them and watches them do stuff in a way that I feel like is not very representative of DID. As far as I'm aware, people with DID (especially if they don't know that they have DID and aren't aware of their system, which I dont think that Danny is) don't interact with their alters like that. It's more just like when the alter fronts they take over and it leaves a gap in your memory, no?

Please please anyone in a system, or just anyone who has better knowledge of DID, let me know what you think of the show. I'm only on episode 2 but it's kind of leaving a bad taste in my mouth already.

[pearlmoney]

BPD rep in my wip

my wip The Haunting of Miss Caroline Marsden shows a lot of depictions of mental illness, especially Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) which I suffer from both. I wanted to show a snippet from my wip depicting what it feels like to split on someone. I find it very important to represent mental health properly in media and I strive to do that in my work, so as someone with BPD I want to help bring down the stigma of this disorder and spread awareness to what it actually looks like. This is an unfinished section from the chapter I'm writing now, it takes place after an argument Caroline had with a close friend. (symptoms of BPD are different for everyone, this is just how I personally experience it)

Caroline and Liv stared at each other for a long time, eyes never leaving one another. Caroline couldn’t feel anything, her body was hot and stiff and her throat was tight, trying to hold back awful words and further fights. She didn’t have the capacity to love Liv anymore, not right now, she didn’t like her, she would never like her again, not after this. It made her even more mad that she still looked beautiful when she was arguing. Caroline had nothing else to say to her, nothing nice at least, so she stomped to her front door, opened it, and waited for Liv to leave.

Four drinks in. even if she was stumbling around her own home, she was going to go get more down the street. Liv left her apartment five hours ago. Caroline was still mad and still didn’t feel bad about anything she had said, but she didn’t really remember what happened or why she was mad. All she really remembered was something about A.A, but she didn’t want to think about it.

[chronicsymptomsyndrome]

growing up undiagnosed is complex trauma growing up undiagnosed is complex trauma growing up undiagnosed is complex trauma growing up undiagnosed is complex trauma growing up undiagnosed is complex trauma growing up undiagnosed is complex trauma growing up undiagnosed is complex trauma growing up undiagnosed is complex trauma growing up undiagnosed is complex trauma growing up undiagnosed is complex trauma growing up undiagnosed is complex trauma growing up undiagnosed is complex trauma growing up undiagnosed is complex trauma

[stil-lindigo]

lead balloon (the tumblr post that saved me)

if this comic resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you donated to this palestinian family's escape fund.

--

no creative notes because this isn't that kind of comic.

I know I don’t owe any of you anything but I still felt compelled to write about my long term absence. And I feel far enough away from the dangerous spot I was in to be able to make this comic. I have a therapist now, and she agreed that making this could be a very cathartic gesture, and the start of properly leaving these thoughts behind me. I am still, at seemingly random times, blindsided by fleeting desires to kill myself. They’re always passing urges, but it’s disarming, and uncomfortable. I worry sometimes that my brain’s spent so long thinking only about suicide that it’s forgotten how to think about anything else. Like, now that I've opened that door for myself, I'll never be able to fully shut it again. But I’m trying my best to encourage my mind in other directions. We'll see how that goes.

I am still donating all proceeds from my store to Palestinian causes. So far, I've donated over $15K, not including donations coming from my own pocket or the fundraising streams which jointly raised around $10K. In the time since I made my initial post about where this money would be going, the focus has shifted from aid organisations to directly donating to escape funds.

If you'd like to do the same, you can look at Operation Olive Branch, which hosts hundreds of Palestinian escape funds or donate to Safebow, which has helped facilitate the safe crossing and securing of important medical procedures for over 150 at-risk palestinians since the beginning of the genocide.

[eemcintyre]

So, this is wildly different from our regularly scheduled content y'all, but I have dermatillomania pretty bad and have had it for most of my life- since I was a kid, I've picked at/bitten my nails and cuticles and picked at my toes (as I got older, these getting to the point where I have to get manicures, wear bandages or whatever I can make into a bandage in the moment, and wear socks 🧦 24/7 to not do so, and wake up in the middle of the night with throbbing pain), I've always been bad about messing with my acne too much (although it's gotten a lot better since the Dermatologist™️) and once in a while I get the odd hankering to cut the callouses off of the soles of my feet. I'm also sort of nuts about cleaning under my nails, although again, this is better with manicures 💅🏻, and about making sure the insides of my ears are clean (to the point of causing acne on my ears and hurting the inside of my ears from poking around in there. Like I'm worried I'm gonna damage my eardrum

But I'm genuinely curious y'all- I've perused many a hashtag and article about dermatillomania and I've never seen anything about my number-one worst habit that I've had for 10 years, legit takes up time in most of my days (whether I'm doing it during other activities or sitting for over twenty minutes in a trancelike state late at night when I should just get up and go to sleep), and causes me hurt to the point of disrupting my life, and I'm wondering if it's even a thing and I'm just feeling kinda funky and weird about it; I would also adore some advice if, by chance, anyone else has this issue, on how to stop fkin doing it and avoid it 😩😞

I not only bite the inside of my cheeks, but I bite the taste buds/skin off of my tongue, to the point of creating large, bleeding fuckin wounds- some of which make it hurt to talk or eat anything for days, make my jaw ache, and I'm afraid it's even starting to shift my teeth/destroy enamel. I literally cannot stop myself unless I put a piece of tissue in my mouth over the wound, all day every day, which is embarrassing because people can definitely see it when I talk. Fidget toys don't help with this one because I can't put them in my mouth 😤😬😭

Pls send help; am I valid, is this a thing, and dear sweet lord how can I stop??

[thelemmallama]

An exchange in the comment section of this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d9EuKdpA1U) video that got swallowed by youtube. I hate putting all that effort into a conversation only for it to all vanish into the void, so I'm logging it here:

______________

A 1 year ago (edited) To be honest this game has really interesting mechanics and art but I can't stand the yandere trope & I feel like this is building up to it. I think this game is just going to end up being demonizing or romanticizing of mental illness and neither of those are really good -_-

Edit: Reply on this comment gave me some more details and I am still a bit cautious, but open to seeing more of this game!

_

_

B 1 year ago That's fair in my opinion, it also puts me off a bit, but at the same time I feel like properly handling those topics might be asking a but much from a game of this format.

Like, again, I completely understand where you are coming from, but from my perspective the devs where just trying to represent how things aren't all positive in that kind of scenario. I try to watch it under the assumption that people won't use it as a reference on how to handle that kind of struggle in real life, but it's also perfectly reasonable to not stand for that kind of oversimplification.

A 1 year ago If you can't properly handle sensitive issues like mental health in your game, then don't put it in there. They could've made a normal game about a girl living a double life as a streamer, or an emotionally complex game with serious ups and downs. But the in-between is extremely dangerous because kids see stuff like this and grow to romanticize it. Regardless of the dev's intentions, it's irresponsible at the least.

B 1 year ago fair

B 1 year ago Hey I don't know if you still care about this conversation but I looked a bit more into this game and there's some things I want to talk about but they involve spoilers so read it if you wish to.

Spoilers below: . . .

After watching all of the endings I don't feel like this game romanticized or demonizes mental illnesses. It's a cautionary tale about just how unhealthy the "streamer" mindset can be where what at first glance seemed like an "in between" is actually the game luring in people that are interested in that kind of thing and show them just how bad it can be.

Sure, the game never really teaches how to actually deal with her mental health issues, but what it does show is that using a search for popularity and higher numbers as a coping mechanism really isn't the solution.

As for the endings themselves, they vary a lot, from her overworking herself, getting addicted and even committing suicide to more basic/joke ones like her living a normal life in a job she hates or her simply dumping you for a streamer with a horse head, the consistent theme is that she is either very unhappy or pretty much went insane. None of the endings act like she doesn't have mental issues, and none of the endings present anything she does as a solution, as again, even in the ones where she is supposedly happy it is clear that she is far from okay. The "true ending" doesn't really focus much on her mental health as she simply decides to try to make her own decisions and once she realizes she doesn't need to depend on you she removes all options in the game except turning it off and you can't play again, similar to how Doki Doki Literature Club corrupts itself at completion.

So yeah, it's a cautionary tale, doesn't teach how to deal with psychological issues, just that the "streamer mindset" can cause and intensify many of them. Probably could have executed some aspects better, then again it is kind of trying to appear simple at the start.

A 1 year ago Oh ok, thank you for this info! This does sound a lot better than I was expecting, if CMC decides to continue this playthrough I might give it more of a chance :]

@crapshoot 17 hours ago Ehhhh … I mean, a lot of people have mental health issues and want to write/make stuff about it, but have impostor syndrome ("am I actually struggling or am I just romanticizing it/using it as an aesthetic?"), exp. with all the accusations floating around about ppl faking mental illness for attention.

Plus it's hard to be vulnerable and take yourself seriously; people do this kind of in-between stuff as a coping mechanism, kind of like how people make "jokes" about serious stuff that aren't really jokes.

That's not to say media is beyond criticism and we can totally point out demonizing/romanticizing narratives and explain why a particular work handles a sensitive issue poorly, but "if you can't, then don't" is harmful imo. Even if you don't see it as problematic censorship, it often ends up silencing all the wrong people.

A 17 hours ago @crapshoot @crapshoot Hi! This comment is a bit old & I do agree with a lot of the things you mentioned. I also struggle w/mental health & seeing it poorly portrayed frustrates me, which was ultimately what led me to making this comment. I see how my phrasing was harsh, I am personally of the belief that writing from experience can pretty much never be "incorrect", and I do not know if this game was created based out of personal experience. I dislike this game for personal reasons at this point, some of which relate to the portrayal of mental health, and some do not.

A 16 hours ago @crapshoot Like my problem with this game isn't that it shows the "gritty reality" of mental health issues or is like a unique perspective on a girl's declining mental state that's unsavory to the general public. It's a tropey yandere game w/semi-unique mechanics that's draped in a cutesy style. Yandere as a genre is based on stigmatized depictions of personality disorders. To me, that sort of thing is much different than someone creating a piece of media from lived experience.

@crapshoot 16 hours ago I guess my point was not every actually knows they're writing from personal experience. Like people legitimately think "do I actually want to die or do I just want to be edgy?"/"am I actually struggling to do things because I lack energy or have executive dysfunction, or am I just lazy?". Even very basic seeming things like "I'm feeling happy/sad/angry right now", are things some people question.

And again, some people lean into tropes because they're afraid of being vulnerable, because it makes them open to accusations of "taking themselves too seriously". Being a tropey yandere game is not in itself proof that something is not written from lived experience.

(Of course, tropey yandere games do often portray things in a harmful way; I'm not disputing that. And I haven't gotten very far into the LP yet, so I'm certainly not defending this particular game that I don't know much about. I'm just criticizing the reasoning of your comment; you can be right about this game for the wrong reasons. I never thought your problem with this game is that it shows the "gritty reality" of mental health issues or is like a unique perspective on a girl's declining mental state that's unsavory to the general public.)

I hope I'm not coming across as invalidating your frustration with your experiences of mental health struggles being portrayed poorly; again, I'm in favour of criticizing media depictions. I just think certain styles of reasoning are harmful to other people with other mental health struggles that are perhaps different from your own. (But yeah, not everyone can confidently say "I struggle with mental health". I'm not sure if you're picking up on the vagueing here; I feel like I'm being pretty heavy-handed but idk -- it's not about you anyway so maybe it's better if you didn't pick up on it :'D)

A 9 hours ago @crapshoot Okay well I get a lot about what you're saying but the fact that you had to end that w/invalidating my mental health issues is.. shitty & doesn't rlly make me wanna engage with this conversation anymore. You do not know anything about me nor my lived experiences, don't speak like you do. Just because I can confidently say in this moment that I have struggles doesn't mean I always do.

@crapshoot 8 minutes ago (edited) I didn't mean to imply I knew anything about you or your lived experiences, and I'm sorry I came across that way:

When I said "other people with other mental health struggles that are perhaps different from your own", I did actually mean perhaps different, not definitely different; it was not meant to preclude you having the same issues.

Even if you can always confidently say you have struggles, that doesn't invalidate the struggles themselves.

And I did say I wasn't vaguing about you.

Your mental health issues are valid.

You don't have to continue this conversation further ofc; in case you're still reading though, if you sometimes struggle to say you have struggles, then you can understand why some people may feel the need to portray mental health issues in "jokey"/"tropey"/less straightforwardly serious ways, right?

[ms-scarletwings]

I genuinely don’t have words for the conglomerate of emotions this scene makes me feel