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Mental Health

Specifically focusing on mental health disorders, I just feel like they're portrayed in such a way that diminishes the significance of them. For example, depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder are common ones, let's talk about it.

1) They can't be fixed through love. These are real conditions that people experience and more often than not, are experienced for the rest of their lives. Now, I understand that love is a real thing that we all want and newsflash, even with mental health disorders, we can find love. But remember, they don't just go away in a snap. They're real and it needs to be more than just a plotline that can be discarded.

2) This is personal, but if you want to write a scene with an anxiety attack, try to be realistic. As someone who has had them, they're not fun but they're real. Not to mention, overwhelming and sometimes come on for the smallest reasons. Use your senses. Write about how the character is feeling, the trembling of their body, the shortness of their breath or palpitations of their heart. Just create an image of what their feeling because that's what happens. It's scary and overwhelming, but if you're going to write about it, be real.

3) If you plan on writing a character with a mental health disorder, make sure that their normal behavior also coincides with it. Remember mental health often times impacts your behavior as a whole, not just into an episode unless you may have something like Bipolar Disorder. I know some people that will have an episode, but they experience behavior before and after that episode that let's us know something is going on. Also, they can be totally average people, mental health doesn't discriminate. Maybe your character is a popular high school girl who is facing a lot of stress because of her struggle to be perfect and the everyday hardships of just being a teenager. Maybe they don't have that many friends, but don't mind it and are just trying to get by. My point is everyone questions their mental health at times, even the people you think have it all. It's a disease that doesn't discriminate and has real impact on all of our lives.

Now, I am not an expert but I am someone who's suffering from mental health problems. I am not going to say exactly because that's personal, but I know other people are struggling too. Just a message to those of you who may see this and are struggling a bit, even those who don't have a disorder: it's okay. For a long time, I have struggled to come to terms with myself and my own experiences, but I realized that's fine. It's okay to struggle as long as you take the necessary steps to get help. There's nothing wrong with getting help because it's not weakness. It's you taking autonomy over your health and deciding that it's not going to control you anymore. That's power that you all have and I hope you all realize and take back.

If you do suffer from mental illness, write what you know. Be real and authentic. Take your writing and use it as therapy if it helps. I wish you all the luck and happiness as you take your journey into taking you health back and living that bad bitch life that you deserve.

If you don't suffer from a mental illness, but are writing about it, be respectful and try to be as authentic as you can. I know that you, someone who could never really know, are possibly limited from personal experience. I commend you for showing a variety of people in your work and tackling this responsibility, but try not to use this as a commodity or to give a character some "spice" or a plotline. Make sure this is part of your character but not what defines them. People with mental health disorders are real and most of the time, pretty boring. We still like ice cream, doing puzzles, maybe balancing chemical equations and drawing up some RICE tables.

Note: I wrote this on my laptop and I realized writing on this, forces me to write in a more formal way and I can't help it. Whatever. If you have anything to say, go ahead. Start a conversation, speak your truth, booboo.