Mental illness+disability in OCs discussion

Mental illness is something that's been a huge interest to me and something I wanted to add to my characters because I myself deal with mental illness and wanted to feel less isolated. So much so that I have been taking psychology classes and doing way too much research than what is probably necessary for characters and rp. I'm currently in my Abnormal Psychology class, which while I am not learning as much as I was hoping for due to the pandemic screwing up classes, I am still learning new things.

I see nothing wrong with giving characters a disorder or disability when done right and for the right reasons, it adds depth, explains unusual behavior and gives them something to grow from. I'm going to use my comfort character, Dylan as an example. 

My character Dylan is who became the one I gave a mental disorder to, to explain his actions and behavior and to give him something learn and grow from. He has Antisocial Personality Disorder along with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I rarely use the term sociopath due to it's infamous use in movies but that is what ASPD is in a nutshell, just not exactly how Hollywood likes to depict it. When it comes to Dylan, he is not a psychopath, I don't like how people so readily use the term to describe any violent person, because that's not what a psychopath is. If you want a psychopath, go meet Kevin, he is my only true psychopathic character. Dylan is a murderer, but in the world he lives in, it's not really surprising. He's cynical and callous, distrusting of others and feels wronged by the people around him because of what he was put through. He is damaged and broken down and at the end of his rope. Dylan is the side effect of the world he lives in, someone who was seen as lesser than those around him and treated as such and as a result, he fought back violently. But despite this, he is receiving help, he is being encouraged to move on with his life and not let the past control him. He struggles and backslides and rarely sees the light at the end of the tunnel, but he does want to better himself, and he finally has people in his life willing to stand by his side and pick him up whenever he falls.

Hi! Sorry if this has an obvious answer or if I did something wrong, but is D00dl3s' possession too similar to a bad representation of DID/alter systems? I only wanted to create a character who was possessed and shared a body, but looking more into it, I feel bad for possibly doing something wrong. She's possessed by another, much more sinister and chaotic, demon, as that's what happens in my character's universe when a soulless being eats a soul, so their minds somewhat merged together and they share a body. Since I was worried, I even made them split bodies just in case. I don't want to remove it completely, as her whole backstory would no longer make sense. Thank you to anyone who helps me out!

I myself have a character that essentially personifies my disability because it's a helpful venting strategy, especially when I can write them however I want! Some days I want to write about some uncaring, heartless person who cares only for themselves, other times I want some dumb "I'm sorry uwu" stuff to comfort myself and having a character like that allows me to do that - would recommend lol

I’m not gonna write out a huge, huge list of things about being autistic. I will say that it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. There’s a lot more to autism than stimming and being ~different~! A lot, lot more.

For example, I can’t visit any cities or stadiums, can’t go to concerts, can’t sit near the screen at a movie theatre, because I can’t stand people or noise. I have like 1 friend because I don’t understand how people work. I have to separate wet food from dry food, and if they touch, I can’t eat it. I can’t eat a lot of food because the texture is god awful (some foods that come to mind are lasagna, hummus, certain cheeses, curry and quiche.)

Dumb trivial shit like that, but it’s not dumb to me because I’ll have to deal with it for the rest of my life. It’s who I am. A lot of creators often detach autism from a person, and call it an ailment or a problem. Please never do this, because there is no cure for autism. This is just who we are!

toothlocker (sorry if you didn't want to be pinged) yes this so much!! i don't know if it's the circles i run in, but recently i've been seeing this infantilization of autistic traits (ESPECIALLY STIMMING, i've seen someone unironically say uwu happy flappies before) in characters and i hate it SO much. it seems most autistic characters i see these days are either uwu innocent babey or Smart Boy Who Sometimes Says Weird Jokes And Speaks In Monotone All The Time And Has A WeIrD qUiRkY oBsEsSiOn and i HATE IT!

i don't stim, but i speak louder than i have to because i have auditory processing problems! why don't people explore that aspect of it? or, like you said, small things like eating food a different way (i always eat my meals in the same order; eg if i have a burger and fries i ALWAYS eat the fries first, and like you said i can't stand it if a food i don't like has touched one that i do) or how i always sit at one certain seat at the dinner table. it's these little details that make someone's character less of a borderline offensive caricature and more... an actual person?

people seem to fixate so much on making their characters Obviously Autistic without realising that most of us (namely women, since the diagnosis comes later in life for us) learn to mask the ''obvious'' traits. i wish someone would have a character that experiences that struggle! autism isn't just some little quirk or horrible ailment that ruins any chance at a social life, and the fact that people seem to narrow it down into those two things makes me really sad.

OCD is very misrepresented in character writing. When it's severe, it can take you out of school for three years, nearly end your life on multiple occasions and humiliate you endlessly in public spaces.  I don't really have any right to tell people "FIX IT OR ELSE SJDFHGLKDH" because I know that not everyone understands how debilitating it can be when it's severe [I was 12 when I developed it and all of the doctors were baffled by how severe it was for someone my age. I couldn't eat, drink, talk or move because I thought I would be punished by God], so I try not to mind it too much. 

Kara's got autism, ADHD, Aspergers, misophonia, and anxiety.

@toothlocker @nebulynn @jaytxt (just in case y'all don't want to be pinged)

I'm an ADHDer with an autistic best friend, and have also noticed that ADHDers have very similar symptoms to autistic people. I also find the uwu happy flappies an annoying thing to just generalize, even if I'll admit that I do do something similar. When I'm really excited for something, I basically bongo cat on my thighs. I literally have a emote of my sona tapping because I do it in real life. But its not the same for everyone, and for me its that I get super giddy to the point that I have to release the energy through motion, but i'm a really animated person to begin with. I talk with my hands all the time. I'm constantly in motion. Stimming just takes so many forms. Some are a little gross but there's so many other ways to show it. For example, my normal stimming often takes the form of a lot of physical stimming, but is usually foot tapping, leg kicking (if im laying on my stomach), rubbing the shaved part of my hair, popping my knuckles and fidgeting with my nails (they're very long naturally and if anything gets under them I can feel it. It drives me nuts and I have to clean under them...literally doing it as I type this because something is under my left ring finger nail and ugh).  It also sometimes takes the form of like, scab picking and trichotillomania (to a minor degree. Mine is usually focused and brought on by boredom usually. Its also generally on my arms and legs and as a result i have a lot of weird little scars on my legs.) (spoiled for mentions of SFW body-oriented compulsive behaviors that might gross someone out.)

I overstim super hard on sounds and smells. Strong smells make me gag and I suffer from misophonia, but at the same time I physically can't think without music. I've learned to control it more at sit-down jobs, because like jaytxt and nebulynn mentioned, I...try not to draw attention to it, but I still have to get up and move a lot or hum. Also I don't really see anyone put overstimming in their ADHD or autistic characters. Personally, I get irate when I overstim, and then if it continues, I'll literally break down crying. Like I literally get a headache and break down. 

nebulynn i have a loud voice too!

i wish i was told about it much earlier tho :( my voice sounds normal to me...

also depression is like feeling like a zombie or feeling empty

i think it can manifest differently in different ppl tho

also ocd is nothing like the stereotypes

there can be some organizing but the motivation for the organizing is that something bad will happen or u get bad thoughts, not the conventional reason why most ppl organize

ocd =/= someone having a lot of pet peeves

agree with all the posts wrt to autistic characters! as Crossroads (apologies if you dont want pings!) said, there's a lot of overlap with adhd and autism symptoms as well! my brother has adhd while i have autism, and growing up with him was... eventful haha.

also i think i should clarify its not the act of stimming itself incorporated into a character that irritates me! it's when people add only the most common, most 'inoffensive' one, and its ONLY when the oc is happy, so their character can still be uwu babey. like i hand flap sometimes, but the only thing akin to stimming i do on the regular is playing with my hair. and there's the more harmful stims too; i've met a few people who start hitting themselves or, in an effort to stop themselves stimming because they see it as embarrassing, pinched their skin to the point of pain. like, this is just one faucet of autism but see how much more detail you can go into beyond the basics?

and lophiusdragon same on the voice thing! noone ever told me until recently; at school i always got in trouble for speaking too loud (or, since putting expression into my voice is a conscious effort for me, my teachers would accuse me of being sarcastic when i was telling them things)

WHILE I'M SPEAKING ABOUT VOICES one thing i've noticed i tend to do is have little bouts of repeating speech things i've picked up. recently it's been golly because i find it funny to say, haha. some other ones have been saying YAWN when i yawn (ok i was 7) and when i was younger i used to meow at people? i'm not sure if that was some form of me being nonverbal at that age. same goes with typing on a smaller extent; i pick up phrases or use emojis but can stop using them completely within months. it's like a very very small scale hyperfixation!

I personally find a lot of characters not representing a mental illness quite right. As a person with DIAGNOSED depression and maybe a case of ADHD, I find it quite insulting how others representing depression and the other things that come along with depression. It's not a little edgy or "quirky" personality trait. It makes me uncomfortable but i believe that the people representing mental illness wrong are minors that don't understand how terrible living with mental illness and mental disorders is. As a minor, I did my research and etc about my ocs, I'm not afraid to plunge into dark topics tbh, as I'm trying to represent mental illness as correctly as possible. I believe having oc's with mental illness is not wrong, I just believe that people should be doing research on such and not just take these things as anything "uwu edgy boi" or "owo depressed girl", it's honestly quite depressing.