The Real Narcolepsy
Bad depictions in popular culture foster the narrative of the lazy narcoleptic: They’re lazy. They’re late/unproductive/lethargic employees. They’re uncaring lovers or absent friends. And so on and so on.
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Review: The Gone series by Michael Grant
Pete’s autism is portrayed over and over again as being non-stop pain and suffering. That got incredibly hard to read; do people really think this is what autism is like?
Review: I Funny by James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein
We have so few stories—especially lighthearted ones—with wheelchair-using characters that I’d hoped I’d be able to recommend I Funny, but it’s a dangerous narrative wrapped up and presented as “good messages.”
Review: Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves
Hanna is a character with bipolar disorder; she’s not “bipolar disorder, the walking human diagnosis.” I think people who share the disease will find something soothing in seeing someone who both manages and mismanages her illness realistically.
Discussion: Stigmatizing Treatment of Mental Illness in Fiction
Many characters who may be mentally ill reject treatment out of hand, considering therapy a waste of time and suspecting medication will turn them into a zombie. Why are these narratives so popular? What are the alternatives?
Discussion: Magical Disabilities
When we talk about disability and sci-fi/fantasy, the first thing many will think of is the magical disability trope. But what does this trope entail and imply? And how can you subvert it?
Review: All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
The writing and characters are wonderful, but if you’re looking for a book about depression, I’d pass on this one.
Wheelchair Users in Fiction: Examining the Single Narrative
The most common wheelchair-using character has acquired paraplegia, but why is this particular narrative so prevalent, and at the expense of all others?
The Trope of Faking It
The notion of people faking disabilities is not at all new or novel–and, like many, many disability tropes, it’s a harmful one.
Depression Has No Straight Lines, Only Lies
What about readers like me, who never see their own illnesses depicted? To see story after story where depression draws a straight line to suicide is, for better or for worse, expressing that depression only functions in one way.