Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2013-10-17 09:46 pm
azurelunatic) wrote2013-10-17 09:46 pm
The unrelenting tedium of mental illness metaphor: why "depressing" is a lazy description
Dear writers of fiction, we need to talk. Specifically, about use of mental illness language in a figurative fashion, such as:
Elly had a depressing job.
More articulate motherfuckers than I have addressed other problems with this at greater length; suffice to say the following:
Using clinical terms with great abandon may be your right as a person whose use of those words is not subject to professional rules, but watering those terms down with hyperbolic use lessens public perception of their gravity when used in a clinical context, and
When your obnoxious friend is acting erratically just to piss you off and you shout "stop being so crazy!!" this has roughly the same shape of problem relating to people with mental illness as when your obnoxious friend is yet again pissing you off and you shout "stop doing that it's gay!!" -- it's not a good thing for LGBTQ* folks when that happens.
But on to the writing problems.
Using mental illness as a shorthand to describe something big in the life of your character can be really really lazy and also less effective than your writing deserves. It's imprecise. There are enough similarities in how people with a given mental illness experience it that symptoms are able to be written down so people can recognize and diagnose it, but everybody's experience of that mental illness is going to be at least slightly different. Your impression of "depressing" isn't going to be necessarily the same as your reader's, and you owe it to your reader to give them a good story.
Don't tell me a job is depressing. You don't need to give me a whole wall of text, but lay out in a few words what aspects of depression it's meant to be evoking. Is Elly's job depressing because it's full of unrelenting tedium with occasional bouts of screaming? Sure, why not? But it could cause Elly crushing desperation. It could be that Elly's supervisor is into nonstop micromanagement with a side order of soul-killing abuse. The workplace could be all noise and chaos such that Elly cannot find a quiet moment to think.
Finding the right phrasing may not be easy. An intermediate step: so Elly's job is depressing. Extend that sentence. Elly's job is depressing because: and fill in the blank. Elly's job is depressing because Elly doesn't like the job. Great. Thanks, Elly, you've given us a lot to work with. Let's try it again: Elly doesn't like the job because: they're all shitheads. Well done Elly, way to use your articulate, polite, grown-up words to describe the situation. Elly's co-workers are all shitheads because: ... oh, my. Elly does not have a good opinion of the general common sense of these people, in this or any universe. Elly is really really tired of looking for versions of this job where the co-workers do not "suck ass" or, um. Comport themselves like fucking loser noobs on the opposing team, I guess is the best translation. Thank you, Elly, for your thoughts.
Sometimes you may have a character who does toss around gratuitous mental illness metaphors with (possibly cheerful, possibly belligerent) abandon. This sort of thing happens, and when it does, you can't always reason with the character or their word choice. If you do encounter this, examine whether that word choice is true to the character, rather than it just being the word that your hand first encountered when rummaging about in the description box.
Go well, good people of the internet, and write on.
Elly had a depressing job.
More articulate motherfuckers than I have addressed other problems with this at greater length; suffice to say the following:
Using clinical terms with great abandon may be your right as a person whose use of those words is not subject to professional rules, but watering those terms down with hyperbolic use lessens public perception of their gravity when used in a clinical context, and
When your obnoxious friend is acting erratically just to piss you off and you shout "stop being so crazy!!" this has roughly the same shape of problem relating to people with mental illness as when your obnoxious friend is yet again pissing you off and you shout "stop doing that it's gay!!" -- it's not a good thing for LGBTQ* folks when that happens.
But on to the writing problems.
Using mental illness as a shorthand to describe something big in the life of your character can be really really lazy and also less effective than your writing deserves. It's imprecise. There are enough similarities in how people with a given mental illness experience it that symptoms are able to be written down so people can recognize and diagnose it, but everybody's experience of that mental illness is going to be at least slightly different. Your impression of "depressing" isn't going to be necessarily the same as your reader's, and you owe it to your reader to give them a good story.
Don't tell me a job is depressing. You don't need to give me a whole wall of text, but lay out in a few words what aspects of depression it's meant to be evoking. Is Elly's job depressing because it's full of unrelenting tedium with occasional bouts of screaming? Sure, why not? But it could cause Elly crushing desperation. It could be that Elly's supervisor is into nonstop micromanagement with a side order of soul-killing abuse. The workplace could be all noise and chaos such that Elly cannot find a quiet moment to think.
Finding the right phrasing may not be easy. An intermediate step: so Elly's job is depressing. Extend that sentence. Elly's job is depressing because: and fill in the blank. Elly's job is depressing because Elly doesn't like the job. Great. Thanks, Elly, you've given us a lot to work with. Let's try it again: Elly doesn't like the job because: they're all shitheads. Well done Elly, way to use your articulate, polite, grown-up words to describe the situation. Elly's co-workers are all shitheads because: ... oh, my. Elly does not have a good opinion of the general common sense of these people, in this or any universe. Elly is really really tired of looking for versions of this job where the co-workers do not "suck ass" or, um. Comport themselves like fucking loser noobs on the opposing team, I guess is the best translation. Thank you, Elly, for your thoughts.
Sometimes you may have a character who does toss around gratuitous mental illness metaphors with (possibly cheerful, possibly belligerent) abandon. This sort of thing happens, and when it does, you can't always reason with the character or their word choice. If you do encounter this, examine whether that word choice is true to the character, rather than it just being the word that your hand first encountered when rummaging about in the description box.
Go well, good people of the internet, and write on.