Category Archives: Depression

Writing Extremely Flawed, Mentally Ill Characters

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MEDION DIGITAL CAMERAIs hard. There is no way around that. Even if you, yourself suffer from severe mental illness, getting into the head of people in the throes of illness is difficult. What motivates “normal” people to do what they do, trying to figure that out, in the vise of everyday life, is terribly hard, so imagine when those motivations are complicated by hallucinations, traumatic events, social awkwardness, and being young and away from everything you’ve known into some place that makes you feel less than human? My girls and guys are real people so it was a struggle for me to paint them with a careful hand without tainting their motivations with my opinions of them. Of course, that isn’t fully possible; I have some unresolved issues with these folks, if I didn’t I wouldn’t have written it.

I let a woman who we will call Minx DeLovely read an alpha/beta of my novel. She loved it, suggested edits, and let me know that she didn’t like my main character but that my main character was extremely real and that kept her reading. That was what I was aiming for- no character should be perfect, and Amber, my main character is tragic and isn’t certain she will survive her youth to heal from her past. She really doesn’t want to, but forges on anyway.

And I guess that’s what makes her relatable, if not likable, the fact that despite the pain and anguish and feeble attempts at stopping everything, she moves forward, unhinged, unaware, but desperate. Desperation makes people survive during the most harrowing times.

My antagonist, is the opposite. Sure, she isn’t too keen on life but she thrives on the attention she receives and stops at nothing to continue receiving it, no matter who it hurts. That’s the basis of Histrionic Personality Disorder and it is etched in every fiber of her being. She cannot stop, for if she does, she stops feeling, being. A holy hot mess. She, too, is unlikable but she is real, not just in the sense that she really exist but because sometimes the bullshit stops long enough for her to emote and when she emotes you can connect with her, try to see from the edges of her world. At least I hope that comes through. She isn’t evil, she’s troubled, just like every kid in the novel.

So. Plenty of mentally ill characters out there but I hope to have distinguished mine from the pack by making them real and relatable. Stay tuned!

 

Borderline Personalities…Everywhere!

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One of the things that is most difficult for Borderlines is the great and mounting stigma of the illness. For years in the psychiatric/medical community Borderlines were kept in the dark about their illness; psychiatrists often stated it was a difficult illness to explain, an Sad Girlsanomaly of the psych world. Often times, because of the nature of the illness where patient becomes abnormally attached to caregivers, seeking out the approval and attention of said caregivers and when the caregivers couldn’t act on a Borderline’s demand and the Borderline would fly off the handle or self-injure, they were/are labeled children, often ostracized, ridiculed (yes, ridiculed) and humiliated by the people charged to take care of them. Saying that a Borderline is a petulant child in need of attention is an oversimplification of the illness and often harmful.

Searching around on the internet, I was trying to find true stories of people with the illness, for you to get their perspective. I found some good information and stories. One story bugged the shit out of me, however, because of the vitriol coming from the poster of the story, clearly stigmatizing all Borderlines, that they will not recover, that, if you’re in a relationship with a Borderline female, get out, etc. This article did not take into consideration many males are Borderlines as well. Still, the article is a good example of Borderline Bashing that since going on my research journey, I’ve come across plenty of times on the interwebs.

I found some inspiring stories of people with BPD and some that are still suffering. One woman found that faith has helped her cope with symptoms.

In my novel that I am writing I try to convey the heaviness of the illness as well as some of the stigma surrounding it. The reason I didn’t go heavy handed on the staff abuse was because it is already heavy and somber. Amber is a Borderline and is aware of this but only on the surface. Her frienemy Briana is also a mixture of personality disorders. Most of the kids in the book suffer from some kind of behavioral or personality disorder, as many of young adults then and now are being diagnosed as such, sometimes without merit. Medication helps because sometimes a Borderline has a concurring illness such as Bipolar or Dysthymia (major depression).

Borderlines are popular targets for the media and the interwebs. Have you heard any BPD horror stories? You can leave them in the comments. Looking forward to it. :-)

 

Histrionics and Borderlines, a Recipe for Total #FAIL

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So why do I say that? I have experience dealing with both Borderlines and Histrionics. I don’t want to divulge too many details as that would give away too much of the plot of the novel, but what I will say is that both Histrionic and Borderline Personality Disorders can overlap because of how similar they are.

How similar, you ask? Well, symptoms of Histrionic Personality Disorder are:

  • Be uncomfortable unless he or she is the center of attention
  • Dress provocatively and/or exhibit inappropriately seductive or flirtatious behavior
  • Shift emotions rapidly
  • Act very dramatically as though performing before an audience with exaggerated emotions and expressions, yet appears to lack sincerity
  • Be overly concerned with physical appearance
  • Constantly seek reassurance or approval
  • Be gullible and easily influenced by others
  • Be excessively sensitive to criticism or disapproval
  • Have a low tolerance for frustration and be easily bored by routine, often beginning projects without finishing them or skipping from one event to another
  • Not think before acting
  • Make rash decisions
  • Be self-centered and rarely show concern for others
  • Have difficulty maintaining relationships, often seeming fake or shallow in their dealings with others
  • Threaten or attempt suicide to get attention

Well, if that doesn’t look eerily similar to BPD then what does? The whole spectrum of personality disorders can overlap and seem muddied from time to time. The protagonist of my novel could suffer from Avoidant Personality Disorder (more on this another day) or Dependent Personality Disorder easily. But she doesn’t. She’s Borderline.

Her enemy, the other main character, is Histrionic and Borderline. When they first meet, it is a sport of exerting wills on one another. But as they soften, they become entangled in one another and one another’s experiences in the most unhealthy ways. This is a recipe for what seems to be a lifetime of #FAIL for both, though one of the characters tries to supersede the trauma that such entanglement makes.

There is a third character who suffers from Avoidant Personality Disorder, who is the pinnicle of grounding for the protagonist. It is a he, and he is also in this tangled web of misery and hijinks, to the detriment of all three.

So what compelled me to write these troubled characters? I knew them. I knew all three very well, lived with them, cried with them, picked up the pieces of each one, ultimately failing and moving on. It is me moving through a turbulent period of my life, laying it out on the page like a roadmap to the past so that I may find comfort, peace, and answers where there ultimately aren’t any. But hey, there’s no harm in trying?

The differences between my life and this story are many and one key to difference is the ending. Some writers punish what they don’t understand, people who have harmed them in some ways and when I wrote the original short story to this novel, I punished plenty. But working in a notebook, I laid threadbare everything I felt and as I decided to write the thing, I found I actually loved these people, despite the pain they caused and am trying to paint them with as deft a hand as any writer to confess a trauma in either fiction or non-fiction.

People who suffer from these disorders cannot help how they feel, that is, until they learn how to think their way out of initial discomfort and past the intense emotions their automatic thoughts bring. An automatic thought? I can see your wheels turning. “Aren’t all thoughts automatic?” Kind of. But these thoughts that are thought by the sufferer of these illnesses are not recognized. Sort of a like a thought switches a feeling and the person doesn’t even know what the thought that triggered the anger, depression, suicidality was. It takes a ton of practice through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Mindfulness therapies to recognize the thought behind the feeling.

Often times, though, BPDs and Histrionics leave therapy. BPDs don’t trust easily and Histrionics don’t believe they need therapy at all. With BPD there can be a history of lurid and intense attachments to therpaists which make a consumer/therapist relationship hard for both parties. The Borderline becomes frustrated and hurt that their needs aren’t being met by the therapist and leave. Histrionics, on the other hand, will enter therapy only to quit after a period, believing whole heartedly that nothing is wrong.

This isn’t true of all that suffer, I just want to point that out. But it is true of a lot that suffer.

Do you know someone who suffers? Do you suffer from either one of these disorders? Leave a comment in the comments section. I’d love to hear from you.

 

You Just Keep on Pushing My Love, Over the…Borderline Personality Disorder???

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Not only have I aged myself (I was a little girl when that came out so there :-P ) I have let you in on a little secret. My two main girl characters are, what they say in the mental health field, “Borderlines”. That may sound callous, but it is the reality of a person who suffers from the disease.

So what is it? As I write this I am consulting my DSM IV (I bought one off of eBay for $5- a steal! They cost at least $160. If you haven’t signed up for eBay, um, what are you waiting for?). I’m going to list the criterion and break it down for you a little bit after I’ve listed them.

1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment

2. a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation. (i.e., he is the best thing to ever happen to me/ I fricking hate him! I hate him- all within a small period of time.)

3. identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self (I’m a goth /I’m a gangsta! /I’m a goth again)

4. impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (eg. spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating)

5. recurrent suicidal behaviors, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behaviors (eg, cutting, burning self)

6. affective instability due to marked reactivity of mood (eg feeling depressed, irritable or anxious and only lasting a few hours, only rarely more than a few days)

7. chronic feelings of emptiness

8. inappropriate intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (eg frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurring physical fights)

9. transient, stress-related paranoid ideations (thoughts) or severe dissociative symptoms

So what does all this mean? Well, it means essentially you’re pretty messed up and how you got that way is usually through some intense trauma and heartache. Borderlines report having been sexually, physically and emotionally abused and/or negelected at some point in their lives. Not just talking my Uncle touched me stuff though that is still very significant. A lot of times Borderlines have been beaten by mom, neglected by dad, sexually abused by Uncle and raped by a friend. And because of this the cycle of victimhood never stops and we get BPD.

Just like with any personality disorder, there are no cold hard facts and proofs or causes just behaviors and patterns that are diagnosable.

So why is this significant? Because 1 and 5 people in the US suffer from BPD and most are women, though men are diagnosed just not as often and (this is done purposely.) That’s right. Maybe your friend from high school seemed a little upset when you didn’t want to talk to her five times a day. Or your girlfriend in college seemed a little needy and would throw temper tantrums when you called at 8 pm when you said you were going to call at 7, accusing you of not loving her and she hates you now. These are not even extreme examples. It happens.

My characters are teenage girls, which is usually when the diagnosis happens. I am still trying to figure out a way to work in when the main character gets diagnosed, as that is a pivotal moment for her, or anyone for that matter. In real life, back when the novel is set, they did not know much about BPD so they wouldn’t elaborate on what it was, how you got it, why you had it or how they were going treat it. Reality was, you were stuck and no one cared. The stigma, amongst your normal peers and in the mental health field, the people treating you even, was that you were a hopeless case that wanted as much attention as possible. We know that’s not the case now. Still the stigma is great and real.

The girls don’t like each other. The second MC and antagonist, if you could call her that, has Histrionic Personality Disorder as well as BPD. If you thought BPD was delightful, then hang onto your seats for the next blog post! Just kidding. The girls don’t like one another as most people who suffer from the illness are cautious when they meet new people. They don’t trust easily or they over trust immediately. The range of perception and emotion differ from one sufferer to the next.

The purpose of both of them having BPD is to show how co-dependency works in such fragile relationships and minds, both girls about to become adults at 17 years a piece, and that love can happen, even through the twisted emotion and nature of the illness.

This blog post is kind of long so I’m going to stop. For more information on BPD follow these links.

BPD Family

Mayo Clinic