I think it’s important to fill the gaps in representation that have risen to the surface in our collective human canon, for those of us who notice them. It’s been my perception that many portrayals of mental health issues take the form of characters who are either chronically unsuccessful in most areas, or who have a singular defining moment when their need for help and or support is finally recognized. A “Rock Bottom” type of moment. While these are both valid experiences and very real and possible effects of suffering withchronic mental health issues, the problem arises when these are the only portrayals that many are exposed to.
These incomplete, one dimensional portrayals, in addition to sustaining stigmas around mental health, can also directly impede certain individuals access to the care they need because either they or the people in their lives protest that they don’t show the same obvious symptoms they’ve seen inmedia. It’s the ‘but she’s so smart’, ‘His grades are staying up’, ‘How could someone so functional be anxious all the time without anyone noticing?’, deflections. I’ve faced many of these myself in the course of dealing with my own largely invisible illnesses, including being denied the help I desperately needed because someone who met me exactly once decided that I was too articulate to be in severe agony. What they’re not seeing is everything under the surface. I can still compose a well-constructed sentence in severe pain, as I’m doing right now; what most people don’t aknowledge is that often it’s the only thing I can do in chronic pain.
I think this is why I’m so drawn to characters who are dealing with mental or physical health issues and or developmental differences whilst pursuing whatever they’ve chosen to do with their lives. Life doesn’t stop just because someone is struggling, it all goes on together in an often overwhelming soup of confusion and confounding variables. I’d rather tell a story about someone struggling and getting the help they need in the moment to carry on with what they need to do, rather than perpetuate the myth that a person has to experience some kind of extreme reaction or public breakdown to warrant them getting help with their mental health. It’s harmful and I’m not here for it.
Mental health issues affect anyone. Just like any group of individuals, people with mental illnesses or conditions can be traditionally successful, or not. Can be quiet or loud, type A or wallflowers, can be pretty much anything. Representation matters. Consideration matters. That’s all for now, until next week.