Haven't said much for the month, but what I would like to talk about is mental disorders. People really like giving their characters mental disorders, but they tend to just think trauma = spin the wheel.
People might not be logical, but there is usually a case of causality. As in, Cause-and-Effect.
For the record here, I'm not a psychologist, and I would severely recommend you look at this up on your own, if you are intent on portraying a character a specific way. However, that being said, how characters handle their own traumas is up to a writer. The amount of character trauma that is solved through legitimate therapy, where they have breakthroughs and realizations and learn how to process grief, is negligible.
This is for a very good reason: They're characters in a story.
For example, if you asked any random person suffering Depression where that Depression comes from, very few of them could give you a straight answer. In some cases, Depression is just hardwired into the DNA. And even when you do get a straight answer, that answer is vetted by the person, so they automatically blame family, school, or work, when the reasons are multifaceted.
In stories, everything has a reason. I mean, sure, you can have a character who just has Depression, but for the most part, you want an explanation other than Depression for Depression Rep, wa-hoo!
Okay, so I've throat-cleared a bit. Anyway, let's talk about your character's self-concept. This is ultimately what they believe about themself as formed by input on their lives. Mental illnesses typically revolve on negative self-concepts, such as "I'm worthless", "I'm fat", "no one loves me". (I won't get into some like Schizophrenia or PTSD, because those have a wildly different source).
Bulimia is created by people thinking they're fat. Maybe they were bullied for being pudgy, or maybe they think they can't be beautiful if they aren't skinny, or maybe their mom kept saying how fat they were.
A person who thinks they're worthless because they failed to realize their dreams isn't getting Bulimia (probably), they're getting Depression (maybe). Depressed people don't eat because they lack the energy or think they're worthless. Bulimics don't eat because they think they're fat.
"Emotions aren't logical".
Oddly enough, they usually are.
Let's take a character who suffers from low self-esteem. Why? Well, when he was young, his parents never let him help out around the house, afraid he'd break everything, and just took care of everything, so he has no self-sufficiency. And in-school, no one cared that he got good grades, so he never thought those mattered.
I'm going to take one of my own characters, Misty, from "Vixen of the Dead". She suffers from Depression, and her real self-concept is "I hurt people and I'm not sure if I hate that or not".
From her childhood, she was harsher and more driven than others to survive and win, maybe as a result of being abandoned by her father, maybe as a result of something else. As she grew up, others feared her power.
Being a wilder, she wasn't allowed near people too often, and when she was, she couldn't understand them very well. What she knew was that hunting spirits felt good, and the best way to keep people out of the woods was to break their kneecaps. At least one.
However, after her rageful adolescence, she reaches a more melancholic adulthood. Is what she did actually wrong? Why was she so violent? Is she at fault because no one loves her?
Everybody does have their own personality, and there's not always going to be straightforward "mental illnesses". Honestly, some characters have clear mental disorders that the author isn't even aware of.
Oh, and one more thing: Narcissism means more than just "I think I'm better than everyone else", and, in fact, that's not even how Narcissism works. Stop calling everyone you know a Narcissist, or I'm going to tell everyone you called your parents the N-word
Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment