Characters with mental illness

personally, i like to write in a third person, past tense. however, if i want to show what the character is thinking, i put it in italics.

My sister slowly became schizophrenic, and died after several years. it started with the laptop... then she thought i was coming thru the tv to kill her. "tyra banks talked to her thru the tv" and she named her voices... cyberbulling was a big deal in the news, so she called her voices cyberbullies. it was sad, very very sad. claimed that i could control her bladder with my phone.. that i could change court and police records. even claimed we were not related. good luck

RhodaD'Ettore said:

personally, i like to write in a third person, past tense. however, if i want to show what the character is thinking, i put it in italics.

My sister slowly became schizophrenic, and died after several years. it started with the laptop... then she thought i was coming thru the tv to kill her. "tyra banks talked to her thru the tv" and she named her voices... cyberbulling was a big deal in the news, so she called her voices cyberbullies. it was sad, very very sad. claimed that i could control her bladder with my phone.. that i could change court and police records. even claimed we were not related. good luck

Click to expand...

I'm sorry about your sister. It is very, very sad - schizophrenia is one of the very few mental illnesses almost universally recognized as an illness.

One of the things I'd most caution the OP against is the infuriating 'magical mentally ill' character. The character who hears voices, sees visions, is somehow on some higher spiritual plane or serves as a spiritual advisor or a foil who helps another character to some realization. It's offensive and ridiculous.

Ale H. Miller said:

Yes, my character knows about the illness and is aware that both types of hallucinations have been an issue in the past. How I'm writing it is that things have simmered down through medication and psychiatric treatment, but that a lot of the problems are coming back and resurfacing

Click to expand...

Yet again, visual hallucinations in schizophrenia are very rare.

Ale H. Miller said:

Yes, my character knows about the illness and is aware that both types of hallucinations have been an issue in the past. How I'm writing it is that things have simmered down through medication and psychiatric treatment, but that a lot of the problems are coming back and resurfacing

Click to expand...

There's an app that simulates the auditory hallucinations that go along with Schizophrena. It could be a good learning resource for you.

The one bit of advice I would stress is definitely do your research, but be prepared to disappoint someone. Because no matter how well researched, no matter how politically correct, no matter if you yourself are writing from personal experience, there is always going to be a group of people who are disappointed by how you portray such a character.

For example:

There are a fair number of fictional characters that have some sort of mental illness. How it works in the story varies widely. One of the best such characters is Sherlock Holmes, who seems to have had Asperger's Syndrome

Click to expand...

I'm only using the quote as an example and I am not trying to vilify the poster. However, describing Asperger's as a mental illness will land you in hot water with a huge chunk of the Asperger's community. Even if you've researched your topic exhaustively, there's a chance that you're going to spark some kind of wildfire in whatever circles that particular topic is considered a hot button issue.

Do your research and then write your story. Maybe it will help to set up interviews with a number of different subjects who are all tied to the same thing. (IE, a patient, a doctor, a family member of one or more of the above, etc)

cornflake said:

Yet again, visual hallucinations in schizophrenia are very rare.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I'm late to the party, but had to correct this. Visual hallucinations are the second most common. Most of the time these are called "flash" hallucinations. They last less then a second before their gone. My wife never has a hallucination longer then 10 seconds. Most flash hallucinations correspond with people faces, and especially their eyes. Lizard eyes or lizard skin are very popular, but for my wife it's jet black eyes, or corpse skin respectively.

Most schizophrenics (especially paranoid schizophrenics, though not exclusively) create an elaborate fantasy in order to explain their hallucinations. Popular themes include: Government spies, Lizard people/aliens, mole men in a hollow earth, and (in my wife's case) a zombie apocalypse on the verge of breaking out.

As far as co-morbidity, a person with that would be schizoeffective. That's schizophrenia +1 and they can bring anyone they feel like to the party. In my wife's case she's co-morbid with bipolar disorder, so she's double psychotic.

And if you want a cool character quirk, this one is free. My father in law (also schizophrenic) refers to himself in the plural. Instead of saying "my daughter" he says "our daughter." Instead of "I went to the store" he says "we went to the store" etc. He says it's because the voices in his head wanted to be included.

Hope that helps, four months late.

I heard a radio interview a few months back with a writer of a recent novel about a family where the eldest daughter has schizophrenia. As I recall, the author, Ann Eriksson, had done quite a bit of research and the book has had good reviews. It's called High Clear Bell of Morning and is on my To Read list: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IWTR5CM/?tag=absowrit-20 (And in case you're wondering: no, I don't know Eriksson.)

in terms of further research, here in BC and elsewhere in Canada, there are various Schizophrenia Societies that help support individuals and families. They're a huge resource, and if there's something comparable where you live, I'd suggest you contact them.

Also, in my former line of work, I came to know quite a few mentally ill people as clients, including schizophrenics. And I would say that even for those with insight into their illness, when the meds were working, there was often a sense that they were now well. That, combined with the desire to avoid the side effects, persuaded them to stop taking the meds. Which became a persistent cycle. Shrinks and supportive family help, sure. But from what I saw, nothing made more of a difference than a good mental health worker who saw the individual on an outpatient basis.

Good luck with your novel. We could use more insightful stories about the reality of serious mental illness in our society.