The Complex Problems with Mental Illness in Fiction | a video essay

I want to preface they say say by saying that I'm a trained youth counselor for a youth mental health and suicide prevention helpline and I've been helping people struggling with the depression suicide self-harm otherwise for years now I wrote this essay from their perspective and this video will contain a deep discussion of suicidality self-harm and other mental illnesses if this is going to be difficult for you to engage with then I've linked a video of some adorable kittens up in the corner playing table soccer fear to go watch instead I would ask you not to watch this video resources are also linked below and I encourage you to always take care of yourself first if you like to continue let's begin don't come near me [Music] broken are the more evolved on a psychopath Madison I'm a high-functioning sociopath do you research [Music] I want to kill myself I've decided not to stay I doubt they'll kick up any fuss hey it's Hannah Anna Baker me a life of the questions of these recurring of the endless trains of the faithless of cities filled with the foolish but could omit these life answer and he'll are here this video is brought to you by my patrons whose support allows me to take weeks to research consult on and create projects such as this wouldn't be possible without them if you like to support me then please do so at the links down below in the trade of Japanese place on his RK Shinju by qu Komatsu Mon same on the characters took ube on a hearts who fall in a forbidden love the tragedy of this story unfolds when tacuba is forced into marriage by his uncle and stepmother and a con man tries to take a hot suit for himself unable to be together the two decide to kill themselves in a double suicide they find a peculiar dead tree and their two Cubana hatsue into their lives they died together rather than live apart but then something happened as the plays popularity grew in the early 1700s there was a string of copycat double suicides their mimic to the methods used in the play and others like it young lovers unable to be weird would go out into the woods and end their lives together this became a big enough problem that in 1723 the topic of a Shogunate band performances of Shinju plays in other words they discovered what is known as the worth or effect named after johann wolfgang von goethe some book The Sorrows of Young Werther which saw a similar spike in suicides copying that of the character in the book after its publication in 1774 the challenge with writing characters who struggle with a mental illness or who into their lives is that even though the author might feel that they are writing for one audience they are inevitably writing for to the audience unaware of or unaffected by ex say suicidality and self-harm and the audience aware of and affected by eggs and that makes things complicated part one you are at you yeah just keeping the rhythm Spielberg's 1998 film Saving Private Ryan changed the war film it opens with a graphic depiction of the Omaha Beach landings on June 6th 1944 its lauded for stripping back the facade we often see around the horrors of war comparing it to 1962 s the longest day where men heroically chair as they charge forward from the boats to fight tyranny Spielberg sees the mean slaughtered to the moment the boat opens as they were in 1944 nothing is sanitized here including the fact that war is a traumatic experience throughout the story kept another experiences the mental toll of war and this develops into something of a post-traumatic stress disorder a mental illness commonly experienced by War veterans the prologue features that breakdown arising from survivor's guilt emotional stress from surviving where others died he freezes in terror during the landing itself unable to act not the glorious hero that we often see and later in the film his hands begin to shake when out of combat known as neurogenic tremors and early sign of PTSD and the whole film is technically a traumatic flashback for him the film is rightly praised for raising awareness of the true mental toll war takes on veterans and helping us connect with those suffering from PTSD it encouraged a new wave of support for their mental well-being in other words Spielberg deliberately framed of this film for that first audience unaware of and unaffected blind combat PTSD it's accurate and a good representation of combat PTSD and war right well it's more complicated than that war veterans have always had one of the highest suicide rates as a demographic and around two times as likely as non veterans accounting for six thousand of the forty-seven thousand dollars that died by suicide in the US and 2017 13.5% despite only accounting for 7.9 percent of the adult population suicidal thinking is itself a symptom of PTSD and despite its warm reception in 1998 soon after its release studies began linking the graphic depictions of war two veteran PTSD being triggered the Veterans Affairs support hotline saw a steep increase in calls for professional help in its wake and dr. Debra Richter a PTSD therapist described the film as the ultimate trigger for post traumatic experiences there is a rare Keir spielberg certainly did a lot for that first unaware of an unaffected audience but he did it in a way that real wakin to the personal trauma of that second affected audience that is particularly prone to suicide Wayne C booth wrote about this strange experience in his book the writer of affection I even weep tears I know to be false though they are physically real Saving Private Ryan may be a sobering experience that helps me Impa thighs with those who fought but to those who have experienced the horrors of war the film they know to be fiction brings trauma and pain that is physically real but in spite of this I think it'll be pretty difficult to argue that Saving Private Ryan is bad or harmful representation as a fiction piece it's incredibly well done and stories like Ned Vizzini Zitz kind of funny story a star is born and Saving Private Ryan serve as examples that perhaps there is no risk-free good art or at least we cannot discard a fiction piece simply because it carries some measure of risk and that risk is perhaps an integral part of this conversation between these two groups about mental illness through fiction and allowing stigmatizing ideas about mental illness to go unchallenged as harmful in itself so with this in mind it's difficult to talk about mental health representation infection without addressing the Hannah Baker in the room thirteen reasons why part two suicide is for the weak based on the book by Jay the infamous Netflix series follows clients in the wake of Hannah Baker's suicide not only does clay hallucinate seeing her but she leaves behind 13 tapes that give 13 reasons she kills herself addressed to different people the young adult fiction piece has been heavily criticized at length for a variety of well deserved reasons it was arguably linked to a twenty eight point nine percent increase in teen suicides in April 2017 and in particular showing graphic depictions of rape and they step-by-step method of Hennis suicide are dangerous things to do Jamie took korsky founder of to write love on her arms explained to that 13 reasons why is essentially narrated by a girl who after death is in complete control in getting revenge and I think that is a really scuri message this idea of control is important because suicide is often the ultimate manifestation of a deep sense of loss of control over your life and who you are while psychologists would call losing your internal locus of control for some people suicide becomes an outlet because it is the only way in which they feel they're exerting control over their own life making decisions that are their own and a similar feeling is often associated with self-harm the pressure around thus eventually the Netflix to remove the suicide scene entirely in mid 2019 yet it persists at season three now but the show's relationship with harm to that second group aware of and affected by suicidality and self-harm is more complex than that complex in a way that isn't just thing bad because communicates bad idea but complex in a way that reveals a bias about how we engage with stories that deal with mental illness one of the most criticized lines in all of 13 reasons why is when Skye Miller explains to clay that self-harm quote that's what you do instead of killing yourself suicide is for the weak there is a good reason to view this line as harmful it normalizes self-harm is a reasonable alternative to deal with horrific despair and it connects it to virtue and it makes it an act of strength that you are not weak thing bad because communicates bad idea but the thing is it's a commonly missed reality that for a small subset of the people who self-harm self-harm is a last-ditch coping mechanism not a safe one but a vital coping mechanism relied on when they're two steps from suicide when I've worked with people at this level of intense risk it's never as simple as stopping that person outright from self harming no exceptions full stop not only does this invalidate that person's emotions and thinking process which makes them feel more isolated from the person trying to help but it can put them at an even higher level of intense risk by undermining perhaps the only thing that is currently keeping them alive it is true that fiction like this can dangerously encourage or push people to self-harm by giving them a justification but in cases of extremely high risk our focus shifts towards finding them extra supports and placing barriers between them and the self-harm but not removing it entirely this is mostly through safety plans asking you to walk away from toxic and fireman's contact us or a friend before you follow through on the urge next time as well as finding less harmful ways for them to self-harm for example striking themselves on the skin with a rubber band so where does this leave us with scenes like those in 13 reasons why it comes down to the thorny problem of good mental health representation and what on earth that really means criticisms of the scene with sky usually rest on it perpetuating negative ideas for both that first and second audience that suicidal people are weak when this simply isn't true most of the time they've endured a lot of trauma hardship and stress because of us there's a pressure to create characters who self-harm or express suicidal ideation but none of these more risky sentiments like suicide is for the weak or self-harm is what you do when you don't kill yourself or medication doesn't work Vale's write stories where characters follow a standard healthy trajectory to recovery where counseling works and the drugs work and they find support and friends around them model suicide stories these stories are crafted to dismantle stigmatizing ideas and to help people who haven't suffered learn how to help those who have show that counseling is difficult that it works that medication helps and support from friends is vital all of which is really good but this kind of mental health representation is primarily effective for that first unaffected audience the message is far weaker for that second affected audience sky better reflects the experiences of many people in that second affected audience some of whom do believe that self-harm keeps suicide at bay which for some people in that darkest place is unfortunately true and it's not uncommon for them to believe that suicide is for the weak removing lines and ideas like this may mean that the story doesn't perpetuate negative ideas but it can also mean that it's harder for people who need help to see themselves represented in these mentally ill characters and if that's the case then how good a representation is it truly what I'm getting at here is that fiction intended to help self harming or suicidal people may be more effective when it depicts a character like sky reaching out someone who believes that suicide is for the weak more effectively than a model suicidal character who doesn't harbor any of these extra dangerous or more risky thoughts or if they do have them then they're brushed away with their logical talking to that those who don't suffer just wish would work a counter finding help in spite of these extra thoughts may be more persuasive because it better reflects their experiences in this light sky is kind of a better representation of mental health than Hannah Baker she exhibits a number of negative psychological ideas that those who self-harm commonly believe and she still finds help in the second season at a psychiatric hospital for youth but I'm talking about all of this for a reason primarily a thing called byun the client believing in the process is one of the most crucial things in therapy and it's one of the biggest hurdles to get over because depression and suicidality are primarily manifestations of hopelessness it's relatively easy to show the importance of therapy but very difficult to convince someone that it works especially when negative experiences of it aren't uncommon removing those more destructive thoughts like suiciders for the week can also leave some in that second audience feeling that well it worked for them because they don't have it as bad as I do which is a logical conclusion to come to when they don't suffer from the same psychological struggles as you only in acknowledging those deeper psychological difficulties like self-harm is what keeps me from suicide and not dismissing them with a single line can fiction truly help people at that higher level of intense risk by into therapy there's a really interesting example of depicting those more dangerous thoughts and by in in John Green's turtles all the way down it's about a girl called ASA struggling with obsessive compulsive disorder and a degree of germophobia she gets stuck in these obsessive spirals where she cleans her hands till she breaks skin and bleeds as well as worrying so intensely about the germs inhabiting her body that she pumps antibacterial soap into her mouth towards the end of the book there's this really hard scene where ASA reads a story written by her best friend Daisy and she learns that Daisy has been using fiction as a way to vent her frustration about Aizaz mental illness you're right it is kind of a way of coping with I mean ASA you're exhausting you're extremely self-centered like I know you have mental problems or whatever but they do make you you know I don't know actually they make me what Michel once said that you're like mustard great in small quantities but a lot of you is a lot I know from working with countless struggling people that almost universally the feeling of being a burden on those close to you is one of the worst parts and throughout the story though the characters make up that feeling of being a burden persists and Daisy isn't proved wrong for feeling that way Green doesn't say that you shouldn't feel this way it's a difficult reality of being close to someone who is mentally ill that he wanted to acknowledge and he was speaking from personal experience this depiction of the psychological struggle is gritty and draw but Greene has spoken about how while he is raising awareness of what living with this kind of issue was like his stories are primarily written as a way to process his own issues his own OCD and also to help others who suffer the same way feel less alone to reach out and find help like a dozen the story he's writing more for that second audience who are aware of and are affected by OCD and telling a story about a girl who fears that she has a burn on those around her and finds out she is and still finds help and support and those around her is a more powerful message it helps those who do struggle in a similar way to see themselves in her character as opposed to a story where the author just tells us that Daisy never should have felt this way this is built on by the fact that Daisy reaffirms that she loves her and wants to support her even if it is burdensome this is especially important because it's difficult to convince people who see themselves as a burden as worthy of support and therapy it acknowledges that their feelings are wholly valid but reassures them that they are still worth the effort mentally ill people don't need to be told that the world is sunshine and daisies some studies have even demonstrated a degree of depressive realism where depressed individuals perceive some things key word some things about themselves more accurately and on top of us one of the most common experiences for me as a helpline counselor is partners and friends of those struggling reaching out not knowing what to do and feeling awful about it how do I support them how do I make them better there's a real feeling of responsibility they're finding them support and helping them is also important and I think greens approach to the issue isn't just more honest but more positive and powerful the question becomes how we can help people live the best life that they can and buy into therapy and reach out for help fundamentally by an infection is about showing the full weight of that pain while also showing that it is not all-consuming but understanding this is only a small part and we soon arrive at a bigger more difficult problem the good story problem part 3 I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity one called beheading Fanta when it comes to creating art about suicide as the fact that many of the features that make for a good story are also those known to contribute to suicidal behaviors heightened emotions heroic or sentimental portrayals of suicidal characters and above all depiction of the suicide itself Rhett Rogan this is something that we as writers need to be aware of when framing a fictional pieces but the good story problem is compounded by something that fewer people think about the uncomfortable way in which we truly engage with fiction stories featuring self-harm and suicide are rife with these kinds of story beats all the right places by Jennifer Niven tells the story of theodore finch whom is described as a school legend some people worship Him because he's weird and he gets into fights and gets kicked out of school and does what he wants his bipolar disorder leads to poetic musings like you are all the colours in one at full brightness he's arguably heroic in a weird way we want to like him but by the end of the story his suicidal thoughts gets the better of him and he kills himself in my heart and other black holes by Jasmine warga we have Roman and as L a girl who sees the world through mathematics fall in love and they discuss at length how they intend to kill themselves in their suicide pact necessarily these types of characters do engage us emotionally because they're charming quirky and their mental illness often manifests in ways that are kind of endearing their stories are incredibly sentimental and the natural threat structure that these stories follow guide the reader to an emotional climax both of these stories feature scenes of heightened emotion that culminate in an attempted suicide sandra de castro buffington director of the Hollywood Health & Society program recognized why mental illness has been so often exploited in this way the problem is mental health has a lot of conflict to resolve and because of that writers have a natural desire to want payoff to this set up throughout the story and this usually results in the character getting bitter by the end it's what happens where there's L in my heart and other black holes and while we don't see the suicide and either of these books like we do in 13 reasons why the depiction of the suicide itself is still heroin and it's something that we don't usually see it's kind of horrifying in its own way and it's taboo all of which catches the audience's attention more and makes for a good story in a more conventional sense so where's the problem these narrative tropes do on average engage us emotionally help us empathize and motivate us to act more by confronting us with problems that we don't usually see but they do so not by engaging us with the realistic experiences of those suffering but because it's a good story it sympathy for mental illness experiences that people don't truly have and what kind of empathy is that the fact that TD Daniels and Scorsese's shutter island' suffers from hallucinations and delusions and is described as the most dangerous patient after suffering great trauma makes for a great story but the empath II that we developed for Daniels's character and the mentally ill more broadly is a misinformed empathy perhaps the most pervasive of these tropes is that love can cure depression in Stephenie misers New Moon Bella becomes despondent and depressed when it wood leaves her at the beginning of the book yet her depressive tendencies evaporate almost the moment that he returns to her and confesses that he always loved her towards the end of the story even if realistically those sorts of problems would still stick around for a while even if it was situational love is not a magic potion and it's kind of hard to understate this but depression can make relationships really really hard once again it cultivates a misinformed empathy this is why I prefer stories where characters might grow but as a need for zini puts it life is not cured life is managed and this problem of Lin's has made worse when we account for an even more superficial level of the good story simply writing a story where characters a likable or even attractive make us more likely to want to take action so it's no surprise that Naveen describes violet as a cheerleader and almost like a china doll when Theodore French as the bear boy and for an even more egregious example in the film version of pezzini's it's kind of a funny story this yes this little crinkle is the scar on Noelle's face pushed off to the side and barely visible whereas in the books as described as lining her cheeks and forehead with clumps of white skin on the inn's where they're healing it's this minimizing of the ugly parts of mental health and from Jennifer Lawrence to Bradley Cooper this is something that you'll see everywhere in the visual medium but the fact that these books and 13 reasons why as a series ranked as some of the most popular stories about mental illness also expose an uncomfortable reality about how we engage with fiction telling a story about an unlikable or less conventionally attractive suicidal character is less likely to inspire empathy and an audience because it doesn't follow that sentimental narrative that we like imagine if 13 reasons why I was told from the perspective of Skye as opposed to someone like Anna Baker and this is why mental health is so often linked to romance it's an easy source of heightened emotional tension for the predominantly female young adult readership a good story and this isn't really sanitizing mental illness so much as it is playing into the cognitive biases that storytellers have been using since the days of Achilles is bronze God's six-pack now none of this means that you can't write a good story about mental illness that's also helpful to both of one of these audiences they don't need to be plotting narratives with little tension and no heroic characters but we do need to be aware that sometimes doing justice to the topic and discussion of mental illness would mean taking a less conventional storytelling route that doesn't maximize tension set up and payoff the three things that we've been told make for a good story the best example I can think of is that the climax is the highest point of tension in the story so we might think to use the worst suicidal episode a character has ever had but this cannot immediately be followed by a quick release of tension when they overcome it with a permanent the reality is that the worst suicidal episode someone has is almost definitely in the middle of their mental illness not near the end it would cultivate that misinformed empathy but the worst offenders of the good story problem were the ones you've probably already heard of Hitchcock's Psycho M night Shyamalan is split each exploit real illnesses for the sake of a goodish story but do nothing for either the first unaffected or the second affected audience James McAvoy's character is a truly dishonest portrayal of dissociative identity disorder perpetuating ideas that those who suffer from it are violent when statistically they're 10 times more likely to be the victims of violence and only 4% of violent acts can be attributed to mental illness unlike Shutter Island and New Moon they don't even cultivate a misinformed empathy they cultivate rejection suspicions in isolation of the mentally ill in that first audience and those in the second audience certainly don't identify with its characters despite this I'm not someone to say that you should never betray someone with mental illness and antagonistic roles simply because of the stigma that has associated it with immorality since the Romantic era but when it becomes the entire justification for their evil acts then that for me crosses a line but because M night Shyamalan was just the worst he's also guilty of the exact opposite problem in split there's this horrible scene towards the end where he sees the self harm scars on our main character and allows her to live because quote broken are the more evil so here we go romanticization part for the broken are the more evolved [Music] in emphysema it's kind of funny story the main character Craig has been infatuated with this girl called Nia for years after he checks himself into a psychiatric hostel when he nearly kills himself she turns up and says this strange line you've told me all this stuff about you when you're really you're mature you're not like all these other people with their stupid little problems you're like really screwed up in a good way the way that gives you experience this line feels like it was almost written as a direct response to how mental illness is often used in fiction as shelah malama so quaintly puts it the broken are more evolved that being mentally ill makes you more complex deeper wiser more mature the TV series perception features a character who stopped taking his medication because his hallucinations helped him solve cases yeah that's the premise of the show so where did this come from romanticization was really something that came out of the late postmodern movement and literature throughout the 1990s postmodern works place the marginalized other at the center of their narratives and hopes to D stigmatize them Daniel Bukowski and professor P Dante is described it as putting emphasis on multiple realities and distrust of totalizing discourses fragmentation irony pastiche and collage films like 1982's Blade Runner tells an empathetic story about the other in their society with an ending that suddenly turns the antagonist into a victim from the 1950s to seventies postmodern books typically dealt with sex and drugs and mental illness only became a prominent topic later on putting emphasis on the reality of living with such an illness and that it's a character struggle not a character flaw as it was so often used the primary way that these postmodern works did this was by creating a likeable character from their marginalized group and putting them at the center of their narrative however in create it maybe Chuck Behler Newark's Fight Club puts a likeable character that we can root for suffering from dissociative identity disorder and insomnia at the center of its narrative romanticization seems to have grown out of this trend humanizing mentally ill people by creating likeable protagonists and helping us identify with them where they used to be used as villains is one thing but that desire to reduce stigma can result in stories where writers ignore the harsh Jameses that mentally ill people live with on a day-to-day basis entirely or in some cases they turn them into character strengths and a 2011 paper on resisting the steamer of mental illness soit's discussed how self restoration is an important coping mechanism after experiencing social devaluation with mental illness being the thing that puts you in that socially devalued class self-restraint being finding new meaning and identity for yourself identity formation is a crucial part of the young adult experience and a study looked into how stigma can play into your personal identity in other words the label of the useless depressed girl who can't hold down a job isn't just something that people think of you but it's part of your label for yourself and self restoration is about finding new identity about finding new meaning for yourself and finding a new sense of self outside that social devaluation is an important part of the recovery process part of this is because shame and poor self-esteem associated with accepting a stigmatizing label make social interactions difficult and less genuine and often leads to isolation when a person is unable to feel genuinely connected to others it becomes difficult to fully accept helpful feedback knowing that the world is not actually seeing the true self romanticization is an adjacent problem to this where people fully incorporate their mental illness into their personal identity so losing it can become a loss it was what made them special it was what made them more evolved because of this not only can romanticization cultivate an identity formation that makes it harder to emerge from mental illness but it also incentivizes people who are not mentally old to ironically sometimes wanted to be part of their identity of course the myth of the tortured artist exists for a reason Vincent van Gogh is the epitome creating beautiful art partly because of his psychological issues and showing mentally ill characters contributing to society is a really important kind of representation acknowledging their difficulties does not mean calling them useless but much like portraying mentally ill characters as antagonist becomes a problem when it's the justification for their actions writing characters who only contribute to society and those around them because of their mental illness crosses a similar line though not a mental illness but a disorder Sherlock's not a psychopath Anderson a Maya functioning sociopath do your research a form of antisocial personality disorder that helps them solve crimes and do what needs to be done it's a disorder used in the same kind of way even if I really do enjoy the series it's kind of that good story problem all over again identity formation in young people is really important infection can help with that creative therapies have been shown to be really important to finding a sense of self-worth for those with low self-esteem so when it comes to romanticization the problem isn't so much dishonesty about mental illness its what we're saying in between the lines helping people engage with films TV series and books that have characters who have so much more than just their mental illness can really help with identity formation especially in that second audience and especially during recovery but things have changed in recent years how we engage with fiction and how we identify with characters has evolved there's a deeper level to this now than TV shows and books and films life has become a lot stranger part 5 does it matter [Music] in Donuts 2015 episodic game life estranged the player has to intervene to save Kade marsh from suicide by throwing herself from a building it happens in the aftermath of sexual assault intense bullying and social isolation that you may or may not have contributed to depending on your decisions up on the roof you will have to pick the right dialog choices to convince her to step down some of which will not be available if you made different choices and most of which you will only know the answer to if you paid attention throughout the story for example knowing which Bible verse she has written in her diary and a few misstep if you fail Kate jumps and she dies there is no save point there is no rewind there are no second chances honestly this section of the game hit me personally hit me harder because I've been in that position where I get a text from someone I love saying goodbye and not being able to stop them attempting I wouldn't be able to get there in a time I couldn't say the right things I couldn't stop them trying I felt responsible for them and I felt guilty because I knew that I was one of the only people in the world who could these sorts of games change how we interact with fiction because of agency and the psychological mechanism we discussed before called the locus of control which is about where we perceive power in our lives coming from it can be either internal meaning it's within our control or external meaning things are controlled by the world around us depending on the issue both internal and external can be good fiction like Paper Towns where we can't control what characters do reinforce that external locus of control we can't influence the actions of the characters that we may or may not identify with and that is actually a healthy thing to learn we can't control others and in the wake of suicide attempts though abusers and Nikhil gence can contribute to the attempt helping those around the person accept that they cannot blame themselves for what happened is really hard to do I would know feeling responsible for people you care about is only natural and it's incredibly difficult to shift that locus of control from internal to external especially when you're stuck in the cycle of if only I said this if only I did that but stories like life is strange places in the position where we are the only variable the game that can cause change if something goes wrong then nothing else could have stopped it but you it reinforces that internal locus of control when it comes to the lives of others I saved Kate but when the game first came out fifty percent of people failed on that rooftop this doesn't mean that the story itself is problematic though the bystander effect is real a socio psychological phenomenon whereby people are less likely to help when more people are also standing by giving people a sense of responsibility to reach out like max does by shifting that locus of control internally may be a positive for some people especially in that first unaffected or unaware of group but that's more of a personal thing that's about my experiences that not everyone will have and I do love the game I very attached to the characters in the story because of that personal dimension know the problem with interactive games when it comes to mental health is what we'll call the boss problem games are usually structured around obstacles that must be overcome or defeated and fitting mental illness into this framework is difficult much like writing a good story reducing mental illness to a challenge to overcome by picking the right dialogue choosing the right therapist making the right drugs can make it seem incredibly easy to overcome and win it it becomes a mathematics problem which doesn't really reflect the reality that we can't calculate our way to recovery life is strange I think actually does this better than others as well as games like Alice the madness returns and I think that's because the primary reward in those games becomes the fact that you overcame them into the illness not new abilities equipment or experience points which are used as a reward tokens in most games these games recognize that there's inherent value in overcoming mental struggles and so the agency we are given becomes a way to model overcoming trauma in real life part six but good amid these life so where the hell does this all leave us with I want to carry this by saying that I primarily drawn from my personal experiences as both a helpline counselor and from my personal life so my emphasis has been on self-harm and suicide but there are very real and very valid mental illnesses that I didn't discuss in detail here and I don't want that emphasis to reinforce the there is no war in Ba Sing se mentality that a lot of people struggle with where they aren't sure if they're mental illness is valid because it isn't talked about in the mainstream enough know these are just more about my personal experiences the question is though how do we write a good story that deals with mental illness there are some clear things that we can do like don't show the suicide and don't show the method and Lauryn Thomas writes about the importance of double voiced narratives like it's kind of a funny story where negative ideas like counselling doesn't help but challenged by other characters in a way that encourages seeing both sides you can ensure that it's never depicted as simple to resolve you have to do your research add trigger warnings where you think they're appropriate other experts have encouraged writing in third person so as to not limit the perspective of the narrative but a lot of these changes are mostly cosmetic see the truth is I don't know I don't I don't know this video has been about how totalizing theory is about how to write mental illness in fiction broadly unhelpful so offering one in return would be redundant life leads itself to complexity before it lends itself to answers one of the biggest challenges as a suicide helpline counselor is walking the line between validating pain like whatever might be causing them to self-harm and endorsing it it's natural for the untrained person to go okay and freak out and no more self-harm and not listen to why their self harming validating them in that way and that's actually really important to their recovery to emerging from this it's really crucial for getting them to stop and this kind of a similar struggle in fiction do we give hope for healing or validate the long term struggle do we explore difficult issues or do we protect people from triggers do we confront the problem or do we show things that might help make it bearable it's hard see New Zealand's media guidelines around suicide have come under harsh scrutiny recently with the highest suicide rate had nearly double every OECD country for 15 to 19 year-olds and triple or even quadruple nearly every OECD country for 10 to 14 year-olds and a while ago they discovered a truly disturbing fact they found evidence that even writing neutral news reports about suicide and self-harm normalizes it as a way to deal with the despair and stories are almost inherently never neutral their emotional roller coasters this video included and so here's kind of the hard question should I even be making this video I don't know if you are struggling with whatever it may be I've linked a number of resources down in the description below that I would really like you to check out and if you know someone who is struggling go and talk to them check up on them one of the biggest hurdles to getting help is initially reaching out feeling that they can do so feeling that it's okay and you can break that barrier first it's crucial all I can hope to do is write consciously in hopes that someone struggling will find some meaning in this world so often full of darkness and despair something best encompassed in this line from Robin Williams in the Dead Poets Society a man who tragically took his life in 2014 on me o life of the questions of these recurring of the endless trains of the faithless of cities filled with the foolish but good amid these o me o life answer that you are here [Music] you

Channel: Hello Future Me

Views: 393,051

Rating: 4.9794106 out of 5

Keywords: explained, theory, lore, analysis, how to, world awareness, fiction, joker, split, life is strange, kate marsh, sherlock, shawshank, saving private ryan, star is born, turtles all the way down, john green, fault in our stars, looking for alaska, tfios, all the bright places, my heart and other black holes, shutter island, bladerunner, alice the madness returns

Id: 6c8o68ghGBM

Length: 42min 53sec (2573 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 12 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/scarywolverine]

Hello Future Me consistently makes great video essays

[u/DrafiMara]

To those who are put off by the video length: watch it anyway, if you have time. It's a long video because it needs to be long, and it is both very well done and very useful.

[u/The-Vaping-Griffin]

Hello Future Me deserves more subscribers. #hailmishka

[u/[deleted]]

This video blew me away. It perfectly articulated how I've long felt about mental illness in fiction, while also teaching new ways to incorporate it in a way that is both impactful and realistic. It's worth the time to watch it in full.

[u/Ultimate_Cosmos]

Hello Future Me is always making great videos.

[u/FusRoDahMa]

Saved to watch when my children are in bed.

[u/AoiBunnie]

This was pretty brilliant. It makes me want to go back and look over the story I’m currently writing to see how I’m covering the DOs and DONTs. I don’t want to give a false or bad representation of mental illness but I’m also only pulling from my own experiences and what I deal with.

[u/sirgog]

Six minutes in and already this is incredibly well done.

[u/ollie_francis]

Started watching this guy because of his Avatar videos. Legit pop-thinker/philosopher for geek culture.