It's really hard writing about someone with a mental illness.
Especially if you've never actually experienced the mental illness you're writing about.
Aedryan, one of my main characters, has Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) also known as Multiple Personality Disorder.
While his case is not... textbook, he's still presenting symptoms of DID.
For these kinds of things, it's best to do your research. The great thing about the age of the internet, is that you don't have to crawl through HUGE medical textbooks to get at what you want. Google will do most of the work for you and in about 1/10th of the time. I went to Google, and typed in Dissociative Identity Disorder.
In the top five results, I got Wikipedia and WebMD.
I would strongly suggest to avoid Wikipedia at first, considering it's all user edited. On the other hand, if the page you're looking at has fantastic sources, I would also check out the sources at the same time.
I picked WebMD, for our little example here.
It's a nicely lined out article. It lists a brief summary of what DID is, whether or not it's a real mental illness and the symptoms of DID. There are several pages of this, which I can only assume to be treatments for such. For now, let's assume that your character isn't going to get traditional treatment for their affliction.
So, we're going to take the list of symptoms, and translate that over to character behavior.
The article says that DID sufferers have a hard time recalling certain memories, or can sometimes be unable to recall what their alternate personality does or says. This ones easy, your character doesn't always remember things they've done.
The alternate identities have their own age, sex, or race. Simply put, you can have a black woman stuck in a white man's body... and for the outcome with that, I can only find hilarious.
Then there's a laundry list of "may also experience." I'm just going to copy that right from the page.
These are not a package deal, so you can pick and choose which ones to include, each of these directly affecting behavior. While, it may sound fun to throw them all in, it's really not recommended, because your character would be... nonfunctional? You want the character to be able to function, but have varying degrees of difficulty doing normal things.
So, let's say that Aedryan, has DID. His symptoms are: Depression and Auditory/Visual Hallucinations.
In the prologue, we see him walking BESIDE his alternate personality. They're having a conversation, and he's obviously depressed about it. His shoulders are slumped, his head is low and his hands are in his pockets. He isn't smiling, and he's being all doom and gloom about what had transpired; however, since his memory is holey, he ends up not being able to piece together exactly what had happened.
Now that we've got behavior down, let's quit assuming he won't be treated for this in the long run.
Page four of our WebMD article says that "While there is no 'cure' for DID, long term treament is very sucessful, if the patient stays committed." So, if you want your character to get better, there needs to be some commitment from him/her. Reading on... "Effective treatment includes talk therapy, medications, hypnotherapy and adjunctive therapies such as art or movement therapy."
So really, there's tons of places that you could go with this. Your character could have a therapist. He or she could be an artist. They could also be popping 30 kajillion different pills.
At the same time, if your story is in the more recent past, they could have had 'shock therapy', which is what used to be thrown at everyone who displayed some sort of mental illness. Same way for the future stories... don't be afraid to have a little artistic license and MAKE STUFF UP. It's your story, have fun with it.
Today's Source Webpage: WebMD
Also please visit my DeviantArt for some cheapy photo prints!
Prints N Such
Especially if you've never actually experienced the mental illness you're writing about.
Aedryan, one of my main characters, has Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) also known as Multiple Personality Disorder.
While his case is not... textbook, he's still presenting symptoms of DID.
For these kinds of things, it's best to do your research. The great thing about the age of the internet, is that you don't have to crawl through HUGE medical textbooks to get at what you want. Google will do most of the work for you and in about 1/10th of the time. I went to Google, and typed in Dissociative Identity Disorder.
In the top five results, I got Wikipedia and WebMD.
I would strongly suggest to avoid Wikipedia at first, considering it's all user edited. On the other hand, if the page you're looking at has fantastic sources, I would also check out the sources at the same time.
I picked WebMD, for our little example here.
It's a nicely lined out article. It lists a brief summary of what DID is, whether or not it's a real mental illness and the symptoms of DID. There are several pages of this, which I can only assume to be treatments for such. For now, let's assume that your character isn't going to get traditional treatment for their affliction.
So, we're going to take the list of symptoms, and translate that over to character behavior.
The article says that DID sufferers have a hard time recalling certain memories, or can sometimes be unable to recall what their alternate personality does or says. This ones easy, your character doesn't always remember things they've done.
The alternate identities have their own age, sex, or race. Simply put, you can have a black woman stuck in a white man's body... and for the outcome with that, I can only find hilarious.
Then there's a laundry list of "may also experience." I'm just going to copy that right from the page.
- Depression
- Mood swings
- Suicidal tendencies
- Sleep disorders (insomnia, night terrors, and sleep walking)
- Anxiety, panic attacks, and phobias (flashbacks, reactions to stimuli or "triggers")
- Alcohol and drug abuse
- Compulsions and rituals
- Psychotic-like symptoms (including auditory and visual hallucinations)
- Eating disorders
These are not a package deal, so you can pick and choose which ones to include, each of these directly affecting behavior. While, it may sound fun to throw them all in, it's really not recommended, because your character would be... nonfunctional? You want the character to be able to function, but have varying degrees of difficulty doing normal things.
So, let's say that Aedryan, has DID. His symptoms are: Depression and Auditory/Visual Hallucinations.
In the prologue, we see him walking BESIDE his alternate personality. They're having a conversation, and he's obviously depressed about it. His shoulders are slumped, his head is low and his hands are in his pockets. He isn't smiling, and he's being all doom and gloom about what had transpired; however, since his memory is holey, he ends up not being able to piece together exactly what had happened.
Now that we've got behavior down, let's quit assuming he won't be treated for this in the long run.
Page four of our WebMD article says that "While there is no 'cure' for DID, long term treament is very sucessful, if the patient stays committed." So, if you want your character to get better, there needs to be some commitment from him/her. Reading on... "Effective treatment includes talk therapy, medications, hypnotherapy and adjunctive therapies such as art or movement therapy."
So really, there's tons of places that you could go with this. Your character could have a therapist. He or she could be an artist. They could also be popping 30 kajillion different pills.
At the same time, if your story is in the more recent past, they could have had 'shock therapy', which is what used to be thrown at everyone who displayed some sort of mental illness. Same way for the future stories... don't be afraid to have a little artistic license and MAKE STUFF UP. It's your story, have fun with it.
Today's Source Webpage: WebMD
Also please visit my DeviantArt for some cheapy photo prints!
Prints N Such
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