It's quite popular in horror movies, shows, and books to use mental illness to write disturbing characters and fucked up plotlines. Schizophrenia, Dissociative Identity Disorder, and Antisocial Personality Disorder (Sociopathy or psychopathy as many people know it but those aren't the correct terms), being the most commonly used.
While we all love a good ol' messy bitch of a character, if you need a mental illness in order to write a horror book, you probably don't know the difference between your large intestine and your brain.
Your book about Jaxon the sexy sociopath or Sarah the schizophrenic girl having her voices help her escape that dirty ass 1950s-style asylum even though it takes place in the 21st century, is shit. It's cheaper than using rape as a tear jerker, and it gives me second-hand embarrassment for the author.
I blame Shane Dawson for half of this shit, I didn't see as many books romantizing ASPD until his Jake Paul commercial with that pathetic excuse of a person who's a "therapist".
You're creating stigmas that have effects on the way normal people view those with mental illness for the sake of your entertainment. Imagine a book with a black character written as a ghetto thug, or a gay guy written as sassy and feminine. What's the difference between that and the way you write "psychopaths"?
Nothing about mental illness to someone educated on the topic is nightmare inducing. But if mental illnesses make you as a person uneasy, then get your ass off Wattpad and learn more about them. (Hate to keep using racial examples but it's the same as a white person being uncomfortable around black people. The uncomfortability stims from misunderstanding and stereotypes.)
As I always fucking say in this book, don't write things you don't fully understand.
Anyway, I could go into a lot more depth about this topic but it's 3AM and I don't feel like it, so that's all I have for now. See y'all in another 6 months.
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