OC reviews And Tips (Closed)

Tip 1 // Characters With A Mental Illness

Wow, looks like I finally got round to doing one of these tip things, and of course I'm going to start off with writing a character with a mental illness and what not to do.

Sadly, mental illnesses are a common thing in society and effect the lives of thousands of people, which is why you should be careful when writing.

By careful, I don't mean avoiding the darker stuff, if you're going for a mature audience you're allowed to show the more graphic side of mental disorders. You can really show the horrors people experience when suffering from these things.

I mean research. On top of everything else, research. The more research you do, the more realistic the disorder seems and the less likely chance you have of glorifying it.

Glorifying a mental illness is the worst possible thing you could do. There are some common tropes I see in people that are just beginning to start out, or in fanfiction. Here is a list of common mental illnesses and symptoms that are not to be taken lightly:

-Anxiety is not cute, it is a serious mental illness that a lot of people suffer from and it us horrible to deal with. It isn't pretty girls getting nervous to talk to a boy they like, it's panic attacks, nervous sweating, an awful feeling of uneasiness all the time. Just because you feel anxious, does not mean you have anxiety. Anxiety is so much more then feeling a little scared from time to time and it's such a horrible thing to feel.

There are other signs and symptoms for anxiety than being nervous, some examples:
~Nibbling/biting/picking at lips or skin round nails
~Fiddling with something such as bracelets, sleeves, rings, etc
~Asking someone to order food for them
~Asking someone to go the bathroom with them
~Not wanting to go anywhere by themselves
~Stress or panic over most new things, even though they're small matters

-Depression is such a horrible thing to ever experience, but a lot of people do at some point in their lives. There are a lot more symptoms of depression than selfharm. There is:
~Eating too much
~Not eating enough
~Lack of sleep
~Too much sleep
~Zoning out
~Feeling of overwhelming numbness
~Depressing/suicidal thoughts - this does not mean they will cause harm to themselves, but most people suffering with consider it.
There are plenty more symptoms, but I'm not experienced enough to talk about them here.

If you do decide to make your character hurt themselves and it fits, do not glorify selfharm or suicide ever. Impressionable people can easily be effected by this and think it is an okay thing to do. That means no pretty boys kissing old scars because the protagonist is beautiful and needs to live herself. The amount of times I've read about a couple in an original piece that are just about to sleep together and he sees her scars, only to individually kiss each one and tell her that she doesn't need to anymore and she just stops after that is unreal! I've met a lot of people who have told me they've done this to themselves, most of the time you aren't calm enough to react like that, hell, one time I wasn't calm enough to act. Most of the time they struggle to ever bring it up, and when they do they feel ashamed, and no matter how I beg and plead with them to stop, they rarely ever do, because they need professional help. If they are at that level, they need to seek professional help in order to try and get better. You, your character's love interest, or your protagonist are not anyone's savior. If you want to help them, convince them to see a specialist.

There are other methods of selfharm than cutting, but I'm not going to mention them here because they are more specific and may be triggering. I'm here to educate, not upset.

-Sociopathy isn't that badly misrepresented, but I'm here to say that not all sociopaths are murderers or ruthless killers. They lack empathy, but that doesn't lead them to kill people. Sociopathic characters could be really interesting to write, considering that they blend in and copy other people, but they're not all murderers and they're not all bad. This is also know as antisocial personality disorder.

-Schizophrenia is often used in characters to make them 'insane'. This one is a very serious disorder that is incredibly hard to deal with. I don't really see this one being glorified, just done wrong, their are more symptoms to schizophrenia then just hallucinations. They suffer from:
~Delusions
~Confused thoughts
~Disorganised speech
~Trouble concentrating
~Movement disorders

-OCD is not just cleaning everything, it's doing something is a specific way or thinking something horrible will happen. It is a very serious mental disorder, but people brush it off as someone being a 'cleanfreak'. I personally don't know much about this disorder, so I'm going to leave it at that.

These are the main disorders I see in ocs that are done incorrectly, of course there are a lot more but I don't know enough about them to correct people's writing on something like bipolar disorder. So instead I'm going to give you a list of mental disorders that are less common but could be interesting to see in a character.
-BPD - borderline personality disorder - very hard to diagnose and distinct, a lot of research needed to accurate portray it. Causes the individual to feel uncomfortable in themselves.
-Capgras delusion - a psychiatric disorder in which a person holds a delusion that a friend, spouse, parent, or other close family member (or pet) has been replaced by an identical impostor.
-Psychosis - where you receive or perceive reality in a different way.
-Narcissistic personality disorder - inflated sense of self worth.
-Somatic symptom disorder - extreme focus on physical symptoms and belief that the worst possible thing is causing the pain.
-Conduct disorder - occurs in children and teens. Long lasting display of disruptive and violent actions.
-Kleptomania - inability to resist stealing items that you generally don't need.
-Hyohochondriasis - worry baiut being ill of getting ill
-Schizoid personality disorder - difficulty expressing emotion and shows a restricted range when when communicating with others.
-Histrionic personality disorder - always wants to be the centre of attention and feels uncomfortable when not.
-Acute stress disorder - response to a traumatic event that develops dissociative symptoms. Often feel guilty about pursuing usual life task.

Obviously, this is a short list of mental disorders that I don't think I've ever seen in characters. If you choose to use one of these please still do a lot of research, it's easy to read about a disorder but portraying it is a whole other matter.

Finally remember that mental disorders are not personality traits. Don't make the disorder the entire focus of your character, make it an aspect if their life that they deal with. Having a mental disorder does not make your character unique or special, just like it doesn't with real people. Don't make your character revolve around their mental disorder.

*These tips are things I've thought of after spending nearly five years on this site and been reading nearly my whole life. If you disagree with anything I've said, that is completely fine and you obviously don't have to follow anything I've said*