I've noticed people on the internet love diagnosing fictional characters with mental illnesses and trauma

  • Why is that? Genuine question


    And it's always the ones without any indicators of a diagnosis


    The most hated ones are also the ones with actual signs of conditions or illness LOL


    Like Abuela Alma in Encanto who has clear undealt-with trauma. No one has sympathy for her but for some reason every other family member has some sort of condition cause that's what the fandom says :huuh:


    Another one that comes to mind is Elsa. She has notable isolation issues and unstable and impulsive emotions but she's called bland, "terribly-written", or too irrational...... That's the point!!!! :mad:


    For me the worst is the crap Hannah Baker gets for being bad represention for depression cause she's "stoopid" and "always contradicts herself". E.g. when she asked her bf to go away and later said that he abandoned her, when the principal offered his help but she refused it, etc.


    But the fact that they're so irrational is actually really accurate because a nentally ill person acts and thinks without logic, because the ill brain works outside of the norm. It's called a mental illness because it affects your daily life through behaviors and actions


    Isn't it pretty wrong to say that a character is bad represention of mental illness because they are irrational or act outside of the norm? :watt: :watt: or that they're a bad person because they act and speak without thinking straight?


    Why would you want a character representing depression to be written like a person without depression? :suure:


    I assure you most of these fans diagnosing other people with conditions and justifying it by saying they have one themselves have perfectly stable brains and are doing it cause it's a trend. The healthy brain will never understand the ill brain so we need to stop acting like doctors or diagnosed patients :sweatr:

    out of service

  • Part of it is the romanticization of mental illnesses. Whether or not they realize it, these people love having some sort of disorder because... well there may be a lot of reasons why. Some people think it's cool or fun.

  • Why would you want a character representing depression to be written like a person without depression? :suure:

    It’s because of how mental illness has been romanticized or demonized and/or made people who suffer from it a victim of their condition that everyone should feel sympathy for or fear… So portraying someone with mental issues as not so likable but also not evil is confusing to people. I feel most are only familiar with the black and white portrayal of people with mental illness that grayed characters like you mentioned are just put into a box.

  • Because too many people suffer from self diagnosed Holywood versions of actual mental illness these days, and they tend to romanticise them so they can make their made up illness part of their identity.

    But when faced with the reality of mental illness, many people still do what humans have done for hundreds, even thousands of years - They reject the person who is actually suffering from a mental illness because much like having a severe physical illness, it's really neither cool nor fun to deal with. Not for the person with the mental illness and not for their friends and family.

  • I'm not saying she has a mental disorder but she clearly has issues, also why do you think she's unbearable?

    Her attitude towards Anna annoys me.

    She thinks her sister is useless and she can do everything on her own. She puts herself in trouble for being so selfish and Anna is the one who saves her. Sometimes Anna gets hurt trying to save her sister and that tells a lot about how much Anna is brave.

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