Requested by: lovely-ladybug

I say this for almost every chapter, but the best thing you can do to write this properly is research. Research. Research. Every mental illness is different, even if some work hand and hand such as anxiety and depression. For that reason, it's highly important that you know what you're talking about before you publish your story.

On top of that, remember that every shows different signs, eveyone's heads works differently. So, while you'll have a general idea of diagnosis and general symptoms, it's gonna be different for different people. Think of who your character is, their personality, how they were raised, who they are outside of their mental illness, how mental illness would affect them. All of these things will play a huge part in writing mental illness properly.

Understand that mental illness isn't an excuse in terms of bad behavior. Well, most mental illnesses aren't an excuse. You can't say a person killed another person because of anxiety or depression. However, extreme forms of schizophrenia and temporary psychosis can be used, along with a few others. But even then, there's more to the character than that. Don't call a villain insane just because of mental illness and not expand on how severe the mental illness is and how it led to their villainy. Often times, slapping an illness on a bad guy makes the reader dislike them because it's lazy writing.

Make them relatable. 1 in 5 Americans suffer from a mental illness (though that number is likely much higher), so lots of your readers will be relating to what you're writing. Because of that, you have to make it real. If you suffer from the illness yourself even better (although mental illness isn't a good thing and I encourage you to look after yourself and you health) because you yourself understand what you're writing.

Part of what makes romanticizing mental illness so easy is that people are scared to right it real. They're scared to make it ugly, to show how bad it can be. And because of that, false ideals about mental illness are born. So be real.

If a character has mental illness and you plan to have them in a relationship, understand that the cons must outweigh the pros. I don't mean in the relationship, but think about it this way. In The Fault In Our Stars, people claim it romanticizes cancer. It doesn't. Because it shows the pain, stigma, hair loss, fatigue, depression, loss of limbs, and death. The 'pros' are meeting August and a free trip to Amsterdam (which was a consolation prize for dying). The pros, though positive, aren't making up for the pain.

Yet they still had a nice relationship. They worked through their problems and fell in love. They supported each other through their struggles without having things come across as "Having cancer makes it easier to fall in love"

My own example is: "Having depression and crying to your SO about it is the perfect way to lead to sex so you feel better". Those types of things above are big no's. If what you're writing fits into this template "Having _____ means you can _____ easier", you're writing it wrong. If you look at it and think "Huh, people might want to have _____ because I'm saying that it makes it easier to ______", rewrite it immediately.

If you want to show that someone is romanticizing a mental illness for whatever reason, make sure there are consequences for it. Arguments, break up, legal consequences, so on. 

Simple.

Request are open and so is asking questions!

~Lydia