Mental illness+disability in OCs discussion

If people have questions relating to mental illness or psychology, I have a minor in psychology (decided to change it into a minor after almost getting a major in it) and have some masters classes in guidance counseling. I am not registered, so my words shouldn't be used for real life. But I am diagnosed with Bipolar 1, General Anxiety Disorder, Autism/Asperger's and have some OCD issues. I also have friends and family with a plethora of different diagnoses. A lot of my characters suffer from some sort of OCD, especially D&D characters. I also know better ways to write some of the issues as someone who writes myself and know some really good sources for information, just ask for a specific issue and I can see what I can help with. I also know about medication and their side effects, obsessions (what people use to treat themselves), or self medicating (there are many ways to do this).

Also with mental illness, everyone has depression, everyone goes through mania, however, what differenciates mental illness from a normal person is prolonged/extended or severe periods of times of suggested behavior. Also you have to decide which DSM (Current is DSM 5) you want to use to define mental disorder, as society progresses, certain behaviors are removed from DSMs and some are added. (For example in the past different sexualities were considered a mental disorder, and depending on the time period men and women had certain illnesses that was more focused on them, for example Hysterias was mainly a female illness in the past and women. ) I can teach what I know and I am willing to learn more too, as it is an interest of mine. Please be willing to use me as a resource.

Whomever is modding this, please do tell me what I should blackout if anything, just because I don't always understand what should be in spoilers in situations like this.

**Disclaimer - I am not a psychologist, psychiatrist, or therapist, do not use what I say in real life without consulting your own doctor first please.

heya! i hope offering help is ok! if anyone wants to make an oc with things that deal with self-harm, anxiety, or is a csa survior hmu!! id love to help anyone with these topics as its something ive seen been thrown around in.. offensive ways.. yeah! hmu if u wnt help :)

I’m currently writing 2 blind characters (one on here, Dodge in my keepers folder, and one not on here yet) that are both totally blind. I personally am not blind but my vision without glasses (and even with glasses rn shdhsjsjsj) is horrible, but I’d still really like to get some pointers from someone who is blind or legally blind, or someone who’s close friends with a blind person!

I’ve done some pretty thorough research, but nothing is a substitute for talking to ppl that have experience ^^

I’d like to add that I’m mentally ill (GAD, OCD, and a depressive disorder diagnosed) and I highly suspect that I am autistic (Asperger’s), so if anyone wants to ask me about that I’d be happy to share my experiences!!

I don't think I'm going to be saying anything no one else has said. But yes, I think including mental illness/ disabilities is perfectly fine to do provided you put effort in the research. Research is always the key to portraying various conditions. I do have a tip or two on how to do this that if anyone's interested. As good of a place Wikipedia is to start, that's never where you should end. One way to aid your research is to look into anecdotes from people who have the condition in question. It's usually a good start to hear from real people about how they handle mental illness/ disability

Another short note I have is about the comment I've seen about not letting the characters personality be overtaken by there mental illness. I've personally found a good way to prevent this is to write the personality as much as you can before integrating the mental illness. Idk if that would help anyone else, but it helps me not to focus on my character's mental illness too much. (I'm autistic with ADHD and have some anxious traits myself so this is topic I'm passionate about.)

I I haven't seen this mentioned, but I've only seen two pages so maybe someone said it earlier. It might be different when writing a story, but for roleplay I generally don't outright say "this character has this disorder." I just write their personalities/ actions and it comes out. But I don't know if that would work for every one. Usually it's because of my personality disorder coming out in character and not me deliberately aiming to make a character with a specific illness too. Or I'm writing characters with acute trauma and not necessarily anything chronic. 

Borderline personality disorder is something I very rarely see good representations of. Or non military based PTSD. 

I also think people forget/don't realize that not every violent/unbalanced/or even self-hating person has to have a mental illness. And having one isn't an excuse to behave a certain way.  

If anyone needs Help Writing or Creating a Maladaptive Daydreamer then feel free to pm me! I have major Maladaptive Daydreaming Disorder and can help with quite a few things related to it :) (Less traumatic causes, the daydreams themselves, common triggers, how to add it into writing ect. If I can't speak from experience, I may link a website.) I'm always here to share experiences about these ^^

This hasn't been posted in in over a month but worth a try-

Anyone with Selective Mutism that could give me advice/tell me their experiences with it? I'm writing up a character for a dnd campaign (set in a renaissance period) that has it and I'm doing my research on online resources, but many of them focus on children only and not on any adults and how they live their life/cope with it/struggle with it. I'd like it to not be a basic on/off switch and from what I read Selective mutism has triggers which would be really interesting for me to hear about! From what I understand it is a type of anxiety disorder, so I was wondering if there are any additional anxiety problems that come with it?

For a bit about the character,

He is a guy that has had this since he was a young child, struggling to speak and his parents generally just letting him be if he was unable to speak (As he still actively communicated through gestures, eventually being taught sign language by a deaf family friend). His life choices went a bit down the drain as he went down into a path of crime, finding comfort in approval and praise from people who didn't look at him funny when he didn't speak (They likely found that good, as if he did ever get caught by the guards he would most likely be incapable of ratting anyone out), eventually he got out of this life and is now acting a bit like an anti-hero, doing good through bad actions.

This is very condensed but hopefully the gist of it can help a little with having this guy have a bit of a realistic depiction of this.

Personally I think it's fine to include that stuff when writing characters and stories, just be respectful, y'know? If you don't mind, I'd like to mention a couple of disorders and my physical disabily? 

I have been diagnosed with ADHD and Asperger's syndrome when I was little. In the past, I had no idea about what it was about me that comes from this. As I brainstormed and wrote about my characters, I learned a lot about myself and many characters I have possess these types of disorders, I believe it's helped diversify my cast and potentially gives those without them insight on how people with ADHD or Autism/Asperger's think or feel.

I have a genetic illness called Becker's Muscular Dystrophy, I won't go into specifics but basically, my body doesn't generate enough of what it needs for the muscles, it generates some however so I can still move mostly normal , I just really can't do a lot of walking physical activity or standing without becoming sore and tired after about 20ish minutes. I honestly don't know as much about it as I should. Anyway, I am bringing this up because I have a character with similar issues meant to represent those with physical limitations, not just MD. That is my main inspiration for their condition, however. 

The point I'm trying to make is, representation, when done right and with enough research and information, you can make realistic representations of people with different disorders or physical illnesses. I don't have much experience with mental illness so that's why I didn't mention it. I may delete this at a later date because I'm honestly not the most comfortable with sharing it. I don't know, what do you think?

Hello 👋.

So, thing is, I plan on writing a sistem (DID) character, making my characters whit anxiety more diverse (as they are based mostly on my personal experiences), want to write an autistic character (but don't know if will be able to because it's being hard for me to understand it as there are so many diverse simptoms and it varies so much and some people even suppress some of them), also thinking about writing a blind character.

I did lots of research on regards of DID, anxiety and autism, the rest I still have only real basic knowledge.

But thing is, if you are autistic or a sistem or has anxiety and wanna ping me to talk about your experiences thank you very much in advance.

Also if you have any suggestions about making a blind character (as from just what you think or if you are blind yourself or is close to someone who is) I also would thank a ping

And yeah, I've read the whole tread, but the more the better.

Also, I have anxiety, if ya wanna ask something fell free to ping me. Tho I don't know if it's my anxiety that got worst or if I developed something else, so there's that :')

I may take some time to answer stuff, but I'll answer even tho It may take time