Recently I have been thinking about about illnesses and how they are commonly portrayed in the media and in stories whether it be on episode or in more traditional books. This is mental illnesses and more physical ones (although they are both sometimes intertwined). I have seen them portrayed really well sometimes and also … not so well 
. So I wanted to know some other people’s opinions on this. Do you think illnesses are usually portrayed well and if so I would like some examples of how they did it well? Also if you have personal experience with any illnesses do you like the way they are normally portrayed? Do you even like them being portrayed at all?
P.S. This is supposed to be helpful to authors thinking about portraying serious topics in their story and also to just have a place to discuss your views on it. It is not supposed to create drama or be triggering to people. Also I apologise in advance if my questions at the end are confusing they are just supposed to be kind of like prompts. 
I’d say there are always parts that are portrayed accurate and some just “romanticized”, like every psychopath being highly intelligent which is not the case or them along with schizophrenic people are like always portryed as murderers and criminals when schizophrenic people are actually more likely to hurt themselves than others. It’s usually the extremes that are represented in movies and shows from what I’ve seen.
Ya I’ve kind of noticed the same thing. Like when it comes to mental illness especially the stereotypes are usually used for the character.
Yes I totally agree, I hate when authors try and include someone with an illness in their story but its full off stereotypes and most likely not true.
good writing is among others about knowing what you write about. Its not wrong to want to inculde it…I mean Episode encourages authors to include all kind of diversity.
Just the problem is most authors have only breaf idea about the ilnesses or disabilities and not making the research it usualy ends up as cliche or too schematic.
Also what is bit agains it is the overall type of the stories readers come for…most readrs come as it seems for some nice romance story, they do not want to read too deep stuff (unless it is deep love lust and hate). So even including it due to this lot of authors will not point it much out…which is understandable if they want to keep the “everage” reader.
I have hardly read every story so I can’t say no one portrays illnesses well lol. But in my experience, the poryrayal is often incomplete. I think a lot of people get worried about portraying a chronically ill / disabled character in a way that says their life is totally miserable so they create characters who “overcome” their disabilities. Not necessarily physically, but like…emotionally. They are so “strong” that their illness doesn’t bother them. This kind of narrative is what’s called disability porn and it’s the “you’re so inspiring for just living every day and not being miserable” trope. In the end, this doesn’t help anyone because people start to internalise this narrative that chronically ill and / or disabled people need to be “strong” all the time and that if you admit how miserable things are, you’re failing…what? yourself? your friends? society?
Not everything is doom and gloom sure, and most of us have some genuine connections and interests and whatnot that make life significantly better. But some days are just…f*cking hard, man. And it’s totally okay for people writing stories to give that nuanced portrayal. Especially when a large portion of why things get so hard is the fact that we live in such an ableist society. Society is the biggest disabling factor. There’s no reason that we can’t prioritize accessibility and understand that different people have different needs and limitations, but because there’s a collective and institutional narrative that certain ways of existing in the world are “normal” and that everyone who doesn’t neatly fit into that description is “abnormal” and therefore less valued, it makes life for chronically ill and / or disabled people a million times harder.
One really clear illustration of this is like - if you live somewhere that it snows in the winter, the city always clears the snow off of the stairs before the accessible ramps. Why? They say because “more people use the stairs” or “don’t need the ramp.” But like - if you clear off the ramp first, everyone can use it - even able-bodied people. That’s how deep a lot of this stuff goes.
And for a lot of people, illness and disability fall into that category of “invisible.” And for people who don’t have this experience, it’s hard for them to understand and sometimes hard for them to want to understand. And we face a lot of pressure to conform to ableist standards. Some days you might feel fine and go for a walk and not need any mobility aids. And some days you might feel not as great, but know you could get things done if you’re using a brace / cane / scooter, etc. But because you don’t need them all the time, people assume you’re “not really ill” and the more you hear it, the more you internalize it. I really don’t know how to explain how deep this can go and how harmful it can be. And there will always be some days where you just…can’t. But truthfully, you have more of those days when you feel forced to exceed your limitations.
I think another thing that doesn’t get portrayed enough is how difficult maintaining relationships can be. Because when you’re the friend who can’t commit to plans since you don’t know how you’ll be feeling that day, or you’re the friend who needs extra support at times when it’s “inconvenient” there are people who just can’t deal with that. It’s funny because sometimes people will try to “help” you at times you don’t need it or in ways you didn’t ask for (which can be pretty infantilizing) but when you do need it - or you need some understanding - it can be hard to get. I’m not saying this as if every aspect of our lives completely sucks all the time and our lives are devoid of meaning or anything. But just…the reasons that life is so hard is not just because of our illness, but the world around us that is unforgiving of people with different needs. So any author who wants to include illness in part of their story, I would just encourage them to think about this and give a more nuanced portrayal.
There are a lot of authors that portray mental illnesses pretty good, personally when I write about a mental illness I do a lot of research before I write down anything because it’s super important.
What I don’t like is using mental illnesses as an excuse for a character to be an asshole. It’s a stupid stigma, being mentally ill doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to act mean to everyone.
A good example of mental illness being portrayed correctly is a story called Second Chance by Josie Jackson. It’s such a cute story and the way it’s written, it looks like she’s written it from experience and it feels so real.
My opinion about mental illness, the story is better if it’s written from experience, that way, it’s not stigmatised.
And unfortunately I have seen stories which were very badly written.
I’ve read second chance I personally quite liked it.
I definitely think that those stories/movies where somebody struggling with a chronic illness or disability only has a positive outlook are very unrealistic. It’s much more than that. Of course a lot of people seem to be very positive but there is definitely still a lot of struggles to get to that point. Nobody is perfect, we all have our ups and downs even if we aren’t struggling with bigger issues like these. Because of this it really is just unrealistic to make out like every struggle is so easily overcome.
Also my aunt has an undiagnosed (because they aren’t actually sure what it is) auto-immune disease similar to MS. She has some good days and some bad days. She uses a cane sometimes to help her get around and because her disability isn’t visible and she is quite young she often gets looks. I completely agree that this side of it often isn’t shown.
Ya I don’t think mental illness really excuses offensive and rude behaviour. And people should always research delicate subjects when they are thinking of including them in a story.
Really!! So have I! It’s a fantastic story about mental health! Needs more reads 
ive seen more stories bring mental health into their plotline, some better than others but so far I haven’t seen anything too egregious. but I can probably count on one hand the amount of stories I’ve seen (probably more out there, I’m sure) that feature characters with physical or intellectual disabilities. and im not faulting anyone, like I get it. its a confusing/unfamiliar topic for many people also insanely hard to do on episode. the amount of overlays/directing needed for a character with severe/multiple disabilities or to keep a plotline bumpin with a nonverbal character is almost too much. i tried and after about 5 chapters i was just exhausted and had to give it a break
I think certain mental illnesses are portrayed very poorly and incorrectly in the media. I have OCD and I constantly see it being misused. OCD is looked at as an adjective and as something that everyone has. On top of social media and real life, I’ve also seen Obsessive Compulsive Disorder being misused in some Episode stories. I have two stories published on Episode that are about OCD where I try to explain it better. I wish it would be taken seriously.
I feel like OCD is one of the most misunderstood mental illnesses just in the way it is constantly thrown around. Like no offence but it sounds really stupid to say “I’m so obsessive compulsive disorder” or that things are triggering their OCD when something is messy because that’s their interpretation of the mental illness.
Hmm… As someone who suffers from mental illnesses as well as having it run through my family… I’m not too fond of the way it’s portrayed. I haven’t really come across any stories that deal with mental illnesses but I’m not surprised that there are writers who don’t know the full scale of what it means to be mentally ill. Nor would take the time to research before writing.
I would like to add that a pet peeve of mine is when people watch cutesy videos or something and say “this cured my depression”… They think they’re being funny but it truly irritates me.
I understand what you mean. A lot of the time mental illnesses are thrown into sentences as adjectives or just an emotion. Obviously somebody can feel anxious without having an anxiety disorder but like you don’t feel a bit OCD or have “depression” that lasts five seconds until you get a cupcake. People really need to do research into the things that they discuss in their stories.
I agree with mental illness not being portrayed correctly. As someone with a mental illness as well (OCD), I recently came across someone who is in the middle of writing a story about OCD while not actually having it themselves. I’ve written a couple stories on Episode about OCD and it was even hard for me to write about it. This person who is writing it has such little knowledge about it, that it’s probably going to be a bunch of stereotypes and make the misuse of OCD greater. I saw the person asking random people who claimed to have OCD questions, not realizing she was just misusing it herself as an adjective. Ugh. (I wrote this quickly, sorry it’s poorly written lol)
Yeah, it’s best that people not right about it, unless they take their time to familiarize themselves with mental illness.
I agree, personal experience is the best teacher when it comes to writing about mental illness. However, if you don’t have that, you can still portray a mentally ill character fairly well if you do enough research on the mental illness(es) they have.
There are a lot of badly written stories out there, but there are also some good ones - one I’ve read is Thousand Dollar Friend by Luna Rose. It’s got likeable characters, a LI who’s actually respectful and kind, and tons of diversity. (Plus, the author of the story is autistic (and while I wouldn’t call autism an illness, some of its effects can clash with the ways society currently works), and the story is centered around autism, so it’s written from experience)