Blog

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.

A well-researched exploration of how mental illness can interact with queer identity, especially for those just discovering themselves during a volatile time of life and those with less well understood identities.

The Mara Dyer trilogy remains one of the best fictional depictions of PTSD that I have come across. That just makes it more disappointing when the series badly misses the mark on other issues.

Despite their proclamations to the contrary — “don’t tell me you’re one of those people who becomes their disease” — the characters are shown to have nothing in their lives that isn’t about their cancer.

A nuanced, natural depiction of disability, realistic in both its physical presentation and the character’s emotional reactions.

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?

I saw a lot of myself in Drea, and I imagine other autistic folks will be able to do the same. It was so nice to see accurate representation, because as an autistic person, I don’t see that very often.

All in all, 100 Sideways Miles is not a perfect portrayal of what it means to have epilepsy. But it is respectful and spoke to me on unexpected levels.

If our contributors could tell an author writing a character with their disability one thing – besides “do your research” – what would it be?

For disabled characters, being cured is a common trope. What’s more, in most of these narratives, the characters are cured because they’re better than they were at the start of the book: kinder, gentler, braver. And finally, finally, they’re normal and whole.

I can’t tell you how many times people have been dismissive or incredulous about my mental illness, simply because I don’t fulfill their preconceived notions about bipolar individuals.

According to pop culture, mentally ill people are magically more creative, filled with a manic drive to create art that pushes them to the brink until they finally explode.

ADD isn’t an end of the world big deal. It’s really, really not. But it is a deal, it’s a thing. It’s a disability. It puts you on a different default setting.

The two or three months I managed to get by on the reduced dose were enough to convince me: My psychiatrist is lying. I don’t need medication. I’m fine. I can beat this. Until, of course, I couldn’t.