Real Mental Illnesses And What They Should Look Like In Your Story
Hello friends, today’s tips won’t be the brightest because I am going to talk about the reality of different mental illnesses, and how you should write them if included. Warning to people who may have some and would rather not read about them this list will include, depression, OCD, eating disorders in general, anxiety, PTSD, ADHD, and autism. I do not have all of these so I did some research for them and I hope I represent them well in this post, that way some writers may stop romanticizing certain topics, or writing them wrong. Ok so here we go!
Romanticized depression:
Empty eyes, always good at something artistic like drawing, wears dark clothing and emo hair.
Real depression
Bloodshot eyes, might no longer trust themselves with objects like pencils, hasn’t showered in five days. Sleeping maybe one hour a night to sleeping maybe 12-15 hours through the day. And with depression it’s either no eating or overeating with your brain.
Romanticized-ish OCD (I guess it really does depend):
Clean room, organized things like books, colored pencils, etc, outfits that are color coordinated.
Real OCD:
Picking little holes in your skin, racing and intrusive thoughts, checking doors to make sure their locked, flipping a switch 10 times so that you don’t do something out of the ordinary.
Romanticized eating disorders:
Slim, on the beautiful side, refuses second helping while blushing from shyness maybe, might even be a dancer or something like that.
Real eating disorders:
Eroded teeth from excessive vomiting, hair growing all over your freezing body, puffy cheeks, refusing to eat things like carrots due to them being high in carbs. exercising excessively just to vomit. Using laxatives to lose weight as well. And then after this they are at risk of infertility, osteoporosis, heart damage, etc. (BTW this is me talking about eating disorders such as Anorexia Nervosa.)
Romanticized anxiety:
A smol soft lil bean that needs to be protected at all costs.
Real anxiety:
Biting your thumb or lip when your nervous to the point where their bleeding. Crying so hard you get to the point of throwing up. Shivering and shaking on the ground, losing sleep over time after after the “okay” point
Ok so with PTSD there can be a lot of different symptoms so I don’t think I really have much to romanticize so here is just PTSD
Real PTSD:
Flashbacks, dreams of certain events, flinching at high-fives, can’t feel hands, and suddenly questioning where you are, what year it is, and what happened, avoiding people, places, things, or memories that remind the trauma. intense physical responses when reminded of the event such as heart racing, fever rising, and out of breath.
Romanticized ADHD:
Compared to a cute puppy who can’t focus, Oh look there’s a squirrel! Ooh look at this pretty penny! Just a fidgety, puppy-like loveable little carrot.
Real ADHD:
Rereading same page over and over again because it doesn’t make sense. Last time you did something such as laundry was near four months ago, reality is a scary thing so you look at a mushroom hyperfocusing, to make the scary reality seem cute.
Romanticized Autism:
Adorable awkward, loveable, huggable, cute when confused penguin. A Rain Man -someone who makes random statements with no intention like randomly saying, “I like penguins” Has amazing memory.
Real Autism:
Melting/shutting down when stressed by stupid things. worrying about how/whether you interpret people’s cues/making so that your speaking tone sounds correct for context, or whether their weirded out or uncomfortable by things you said, sensory issues that can drive you crazy. Not adaptable to sudden changes in plans and freaking out.
