So today's topic is mental illnesses and how to write them requested by @followthestarshome (it wouldn't let me tag you sorry).

I'll be talking about how to not romanticise this and make it as accurate to the real thing as possible. I'm going to be using my story (again) as a reference since it is about mental illnesses.

Step one: Research

You should always, always, ALWAYS do your research. Research is key to these sorts of things. I'll be using PTSD as a reference for this part. For those of you who don't know what PTSD is it is most commonly known as post traumatic stress disorder and found mostly among retired soldiers, rape victims, and people who have suffered from a traumatic experience.

I did at least three pages of research on this mental illness and you should always get as many notes as you can; the more pages, the better.

I suggest using .org sights mainly for these types of things because they're more reliable with their information rather than .com. When doing your research on this make sure to divide your notes into sections sort of like this, but you're definitely not limited to this of course;

-what is it
-what does it do
-symptoms
-effects on everyday life
-personality the person has with this
-can it be cured and how?

Step two: Create your character's back story

So in Beautiful Disasters, Shiro is the one person affected by PTSD. When you're creating your character that has a mental illness you must keep in mind how a mental illness is gained by a normal, real life person. In real life a person with a severely traumatic experience such as a plane crash or being at war, will get this disorder because it was a life altering experience. Since that is how it happens in real life, that's how it should happen in the fictional world.

Shiro was abused by his father as a younger child and ultimately got PTSD from non con sex (rape) which gave his this disorder. This disorder severely impacts his life because he has a struggled of allowing people to touch him because when he feels someone's hands on him he associates it with his father and it causes him to have a PTSD episode sometimes or other times he flinches and tries to get away from the person. PTSD also affects his sleeping patterns, his social life, and even his life at home.

Step three: don't romanticise it

This should sound easy but it is actually quite difficult when being applied to your story, trust me. It's really easy to slip up and make your serious story about the healing process one takes to turn into a "romantic" story where "love can heal all". This is not at all true in real life, sure having people be there with you DOES HELP SOME but it doesn't heal you completely. You complete the healing process on your own.

When writing with an illness it is best to keep in mind what exactly your character suffered from to get to where they are today. Shiro suffered as a rape victim so I could easily make Beautiful Disasters into a story about how Allura tries to get Shiro back out there completely disregarding his past experience but that would be in some ways romanticising his condition which is NOT OKAY.

When writing his character I often times refer back to step one (my notes) and read through them to make sure I don't miss anything while writing Shiro. You should try to portray the symptoms of a disorder/illness through subtle ways in the story for example; PTSD victims are easily forgetful so I may have Shiro forget something small and simple like where he placed his keys or how to fold a letter properly which would most likely slip over the reader's head which is totally okay. You want the reader to be able to look back and make the connections on their own (show vs tell essentially).

I really suck at explaining this because it comes naturally to me when writing so my apologies if I can't really make an understandable explanation. So for the moment here, we're going to shift our focus off of Shiro and onto Allura who has dysthymia.

Dysthymia is basically another form of depression but you feel an immense amount of guilt in something. In her social environment at school she's often portrayed as closed off because of the way I describe her. She doesn't make a lot of eye contact with her peers and looks down, she is always fidgeting with something when talking to someone (I.E. her tie), and she will try to remove herself as quickly as possible sometimes. However, when something bad happens, she automatically believes it to be her fault due to her dysthymia. I.E. she and Shiro were kissing and she causes him to have a PTSD episode she took the blame for it because in her mind it was her fault for even being there with him at the time of his episode.

EXTRA INFORMATION:
Keep in mind that mental illnesses/disorders are not at all fun and games but rather things that are extremely hard to deal with.

I have Mysophobia which is the fear of germs and along with it comes OCD and anxiety so I struggle daily with my social environments because I'm afraid of contracting some sort of sickness or disease which makes me extremely fidgety and restless. If someone sneezes I may jump slightly in my seat or I'll glare at the person, if someone touches me I make a mad dash to the hand sanitizer and I tell them to not touch me again. It's something I find extremely challenging to deal with and to see someone romanticise it and make people want to have it is highly offensive to me because it is NOT easy to have.

Basically, to keep yourself from romanticising a disorder/illness you have to keep in mind all the things you did in your research and remember that only the patient can really cure themselves through commitment and hard work.

Yeah this was poorly explained so if you still have questions please ask in the comments and I'll answer them directly. Just remember the steps and hopefully you can write an accurate story.

-Anri