How to Write a Good Fanfic

10.4.2 - Depression

"I feel sad," says John. "I am depressed."

No John, you are not depressed. It doesn't matter how much you say you are. It doesn't matter how much the writer tries to tell us you're depressed because you so very, very sad in a brief moment. Those of us who either deal with depression, know somebody who deals with depression or have researched the hell out of the subject know that you aren't depressed.

This may seem like rather strong words from me, but what does it feel like to see your personal ailment explained away as simply "you feel sad" when the ailment is so much more complex than that? Of course, some will argue that this is just fiction, so it doesn't matter despite the fact I've already talked about the fact you should never trivialize someone's feelings in such a manner which is exactly what the "it is just fiction" does in that it treats the person as if they're not a person because what they're going through isn't important enough to get right.

Yet, even getting past this the most disturbing thing regarding this particular ailment and it's representation deals with the narrative lie is also a lie people believe and in effect by writing a story where someone is depressed because they are sad.

I bring this up because I've had the unfortunate experience of having more than one young writer tell me their self-diagnosis of being depressed because *gasp* they happen to be sad. Here of course is where people tell me I should give the person the benefit of the doubt when they claim they have a mental illness in which I counter that there are actual hints which can tell you if a person is lying about having a mental illness.

Namely, for this one the major clue is how they define depression in the fact they outright tell me they're depressed simply because they feel sad. Another clue is their writing which is always upbeat no matter what they write, but the more they write in the upbeat town the more I wonder if they've really ever felt the symptoms of depression or anything beyond briefly feeling sad. By upbeat I mean everything is sugar coated in a way that you get the feeling the kid's lived a sheltered life where the saddest thing which happened to them is say getting a B.

That right there is the problem with how depression is represented. Everybody feels sad sometimes, but not everybody is depressed, so one can not logically conclude one has depression because one is sad. No, depression is where sadness and other negative feelings for that matter just don't go away no matter what you do to get out of this funk.

For narrative purposes I'm going to break up the types one will find in the narrative story into two types because I think this is the reason why the confusion arises. In a narrative piece there is the type of depression which is persistent and will always remain with the person and then you have the other type which is not. It is the one which is not which makes some people believe that depression is simply being sad because obviously some depression isn't perpetual. Except, that's not what is meant by perpetual.

A perpetual depression is the kind of depression which is caused typically by a genetic influence. It will typically have a trigger which will cause a person to go into a funk, but not all depressed states have a trigger, or at least a known trigger. I say the trigger may not be known because a person can't know everything going on in their environment. For example, unbeknown to the person facing the episode they may have slept through a siren going by their house because they're a heavy sleeper, yet their mind was still triggered into a response. The mind is also quite complex which makes figuring out triggers for the episodes difficult.

In reality all depression is perpetual in that it is the feeling of negative feelings over a sustained period of time which won't easily go away, so what is meant when we talk about non-perpetual depression?

Sometimes a depressive episode will be triggered by a one-time event in a person's life and then they're lucky in that they won't have to likely face another episode, or if they do it is rarely. One of the things which can trigger the non-perpetual episode of depression is grief over the loss of a loved one. Another thing which can trigger the non-perpetual episode of depression is losing a job. In these cases the perpetuation of negative feelings comes from the fact the trigger won't go away rather than because the feelings won't go away after the trigger is gone. That's why I say there are two different types of depression which writers deal with in narrative.

This said, both have a wide range of different kinds. I pointed out just the loss of a loved one and the loss of a job for the non-perpetual one, but for the perpetual one there are a wide range. Some involve temporary episodes while other involve persistent episodes. This si where I think more of the confusion regarding depression comes from. Perpetual and persistent sound similar and seem similar, but they're not. The word perpetual means "never ending" which means it will never go away whereas persistent means "continuing for a long period". The first describes the state of being for the person with depression, whether it will ever go away or not and the other describes the actual episodes the person is dealing with.

Along with the wide range of different kinds of depression there is also a wide range of treatments for the individuals, yet a wide range of reactions to.

One reaction which has always bothered me is the action of following in Bella Swan's footsteps where one goes comatose for months on end. While this does happen to some individuals, the situation was painted more as a "woe is me" and reminds me of Anne of Green Gables where she becomes over dramatic with woe because she thinks it romantic and makes her a romantic character, not because she is actually suffering. There is a definite difference between teenage angst and depression. Conflating the two should never be done, but depression isn't angst. Period.

Most of all, do your research. It's so obvious on this one when you don't but it's within the reader's rights to call you out on this whether you like it or not.