Characters and Mental Illness

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Saetje's avatar
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Hey guys,
Here's a discussion I've been thinking about for a while: how do you take on your characters and mental illness?

What I mean is, if I EVER diagnose any of my characters canonically with a psychological disorder, I only want to portray said things in a respectful manner. I don't want to glorify it or demonize it, and I want them to get help in-story (or are already seeking help and their arc isn't so much about their illness, it's just a part of who they are). I'm actually seriously considering one of the characters in the Gemini Journey cast struggling with a disorder canonically since they align so well with what I've read about it, and that's how I'd like to play it out (either the character seeks helps with the love and support of those around them and/or is already struggling with said thing going through the ups and downs of treatment as their character also goes through other arcs).

BUT I also think it's entirely possible (And common) to live life never having been diagnosed with something, never realizing one is suffering from something, perhaps even being ostracized for that something as a personality flaw. And I have a few characters whom I think do ride a spectrum of certain things and show symptoms, that I as God-and-creator can pinpoint or align with such-and-such disorder, but they as characters do not know themselves.

And sometimes I'm not even sure if I should pin down certain personality traits AS a disorder or just let it be part of the character and move on. Does that make sense? At what point do you make the disorder a canon thing, at what point do you say "this character DEFINITELY has such and such" and not "this characters shows some symptoms that align with what I've read about this disorder and I'll keep that in mind"? I think sometimes it's too easy to fall into defining every little thing. Some things don't need definition.

I'm just wondering how other people choose to tackle defining their character's traits, and consider tough topics like this. How do YOU choose to take on disorders with your characters?
© 2015 - 2024 Saetje
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Naoru's avatar
I guess specifically for Gemini itself, you should choose what to do with the character depending on if it'll make for nice story telling or character development :) It seems like you know your characters well enough that if you explored that side of them, it would turn out good and the character would be whole in plenty of ways alongside their illness ^^

Speaking personally with Headcase, I am a bit torn about the comic itself. Its based on a RP that was just written for fun, so the story is going to get pretty OTT and unrealistic sometimes, because thats kinda fun to write and draw!
But I do agree that media in general stereotypes and misinterprets/exaggerates many 'disorders' and 'syndromes', and that does lead to problems mainly based in people either being scared of those with mental illness or with my own personal experiences with autism, ocd and anxiety, people dismissing genuine struggles because you dont fit the stereotype they've seen in media. Sooo because I do agree with that, I'm kinda contradicting myself a little with my webcomic maybe? But it is just a fun project, and was never really set out to depict real life and just be a fictional drama. My way to tackle that is to just explain and assure that the webcomic is fictional, shouldnt be taken too seriously, and that the story is a personal exploration on the characters and not the issues surrounding mental health irl.
Having said that, we both actually did our research on our main characters individual problems, and they're all definitely more then just the listed symptoms, they have their own personalities and in the end, I do think our webcomic portrays the characters in a positive and well rounded way, because it is just about the characters and not so much what they're suffering from. Many people have said they think HC portrays mental health in a very good way, and I guess thats down to showing both the 'normal' and 'abnormal' sides to all our characters ^^

On the subject of deciding if you should 'label' your character or not by their personality traits, Archie in HC is autistic, but I have purposely not mentioned this. It will be mentioned at some point as part of the story but I cant remember when XD I decided to not label him as this, because it isnt important to the story, and Archie is a happy working adult after all! I think maybe in some cases its important to label or point out things like autism, to debunk the stereotypes where people assume you're only autistic if you're anti social/ have savant math skills etc... but in my case, I also like debunking the sterotype by introducing Archie as just himself, and then mentioning after readers have got to know him that he is in fact on the spectrum ^^