Writing About a Character With Mental Illness?
Question by ????: Writing about a character with mental illness?
I’m writing a screenplay for a contest and one of the requirements is some form of disability, and under the list of “disabilities” is mental illness.
Basically, a young man (around age 17-19) living on the coast with his sensitive, passive, small town father and his innocent, withdrawn little sister struggles with the return of his mentally ill mother. I was thinking addiction (probably alcohol) or perhaps depression or bipolar disorder, because I’ve had hands on experience with them.
My main concern is that I make the mother completely unlikable. I have only one scene planned so far. The young man is in the living room, his little sister asleep leaning against him, and his love interest arrives. It’s after an argument with his mom, and they talk about how he just wants a chance for a normal life for his sister. His love interest says something along the lines of, “She doesn’t need it to be perfect. She just needs her family.”
I don’t want to belittle and downplay the fact that the mom has a mental illness. I’d like it to be more like Silver Linings where it’s a happy ending, I just don’t now how to make it engaging. It can only be 40 pages long. Can anyone suggest anything/critique/etc? I’m really nervous about the whole mental illness thing. How can I make sure I do everything tastefully?
I don’t want to make her completely unlikable, but I suppose the only experience I’ve had personally with any of the above mentioned illnesses were negative and I’m afraid I’ll sort of veer into that mindset. I’m obviously very aware that having any kind of mental illness makes you a bad person, but perhaps unable to relate with or difficult to live with, and I’d like that to come across without making it seem like I’m generalizing mental illness. D: AHHHH.
But I’ll check out Sybil. Thank you!
Best answer:
Answer by Lynn
First, pick one (or two, if you really, really like doing lots and lots of research.)
Second, research. Since it’s a contest, you can’t research everything and really get into the head of the person (unless the same contest is coming back next year, in which case, while others are scrambling this year, you’re giving yourself a whole year to do it right.) Start with WebMD, wiki, and all the usual suspects for where to research medical stuff. Then look for the related association for whichever one you pick (like AA for alcoholics or charities and research people for bipolar, etc.) And keep going, until you hit the little gems. The small stories from people who have or are going through it now. Really get to understanding it.
And then? Well, is Mom the protagonist, antagonist or supporting character? She sounds like the last one, but she is Mom. It doesn’t matter how mean Mom is, Mom is Mom. No one can truly and completely hate their mothers, because they are their mothers. If you want to look at royally screwed up women called Mom but the daughter still loved her, read Sybil (or The Three Faces of Eve, but Sybil is somewhat newer.) Sybil and Eve had what used to be called multiple-personality disorders, because their mother’s screwed with their heads big time. There was nothing to like about the mothers except “they’re Mom.”
It’s doable. It’s a lot of work. Good luck.
Edited:
Ohhhh, you wanted mom to be UNlikeable. lol
Trust me. Read Sybil and you’ll find out how.
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
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