Comments on: Do’s and Don’ts of Including Mental Illness in Your Fiction https://booksbywomen.org/dos-and-donts-of-including-mental-illness-in-your-fiction-by-elena-mikalsen-ph-d/ Sat, 23 Jul 2022 18:48:19 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.3 By: Joanne Tubbs Kelly https://booksbywomen.org/dos-and-donts-of-including-mental-illness-in-your-fiction-by-elena-mikalsen-ph-d/#comment-202993 Sat, 23 Jul 2022 18:48:19 +0000 http://booksbywomen.org/?p=27914#comment-202993 I am the mother of an adult son who lived with schizophrenia (he died 6 months ago), and a former president of the Colorado chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. While I applaud the intent of this article (to reduce stigmatizing portrayals of people with mental illnesses in literature), I have several suggestions for improving it.

1. Do not use the word “commit” with “suicide.” People commit crimes or sins, but they “die by suicide.”

2. The information Elena offered about length of hospital stays is not universally accurate. My son spent more than a year at the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Fort Logan, where he was treated with dignity and respect.

3. Use “person first” language. For example, you might refer to a person with bipolar disorder or to people with mental illnesses. Do NOT say “the mentally ill.”

4. About state laws: In most states, including Colorado, people can be hospitalized against their will not just if they are a danger to self or others. My son was hospitalized many, many times because he was “gravely disabled” — in other words, not able to take care of himself.

I highly recommend that authors befriend many people who live with mental illnesses if they want to include believable characters in their books.

]]> By: Sylvia Young https://booksbywomen.org/dos-and-donts-of-including-mental-illness-in-your-fiction-by-elena-mikalsen-ph-d/#comment-181418 Tue, 12 Apr 2022 22:22:59 +0000 http://booksbywomen.org/?p=27914#comment-181418 Thank you for this article. I’m wondering if describing a person’s feelings leading up to the attempt is okay. I want the readers to feel the despair that my characters experience. Would this fall under what you think of as harmful? One swallows pills and the other tries to drown herself. Thank!

]]> By: Liz Flaherty https://booksbywomen.org/dos-and-donts-of-including-mental-illness-in-your-fiction-by-elena-mikalsen-ph-d/#comment-131516 Wed, 27 Oct 2021 11:00:45 +0000 http://booksbywomen.org/?p=27914#comment-131516 I just saw this for the 1st time and appreciate your insight and your advice. My heroine in THE HAPPINESS PACT suffered from clinical depression and while it was excruciating to write and I heard from a few readers that it triggered, I heard from more that, while they hurt for Libby, they empathized with her as well. The person who served as my expert found some of the story hard to read, but encouraged its writing. I will be forever grateful to him and to people like you who share helpful information. And to Libby, who–something other writers will identify with–wouldn’t leave me alone until I told the story her way.

]]> By: Jane Wilson-Howarth https://booksbywomen.org/dos-and-donts-of-including-mental-illness-in-your-fiction-by-elena-mikalsen-ph-d/#comment-75207 Tue, 09 Mar 2021 06:39:19 +0000 http://booksbywomen.org/?p=27914#comment-75207 Hi Elena,
I have only just strayed across this but enjoyed reading your post and found it gave me useful food for thought as I work on the medical memoir that I am writing.
Thank you!
Jane

]]> By: Do’s and Don’ts of Including Mental Illness in Your Fiction : Women Writers, Women's Books - Lacrecia’s books https://booksbywomen.org/dos-and-donts-of-including-mental-illness-in-your-fiction-by-elena-mikalsen-ph-d/#comment-50134 Sun, 01 Dec 2019 16:20:10 +0000 http://booksbywomen.org/?p=27914#comment-50134 […] normalization — Read on booksbywomen.org/dos-and-donts-of-including-mental-illness-in-your-fiction-by-elena-mikalsen-ph-d/ […]

]]> By: Faith A. Colburn https://booksbywomen.org/dos-and-donts-of-including-mental-illness-in-your-fiction-by-elena-mikalsen-ph-d/#comment-49964 Sat, 07 Sep 2019 16:06:34 +0000 http://booksbywomen.org/?p=27914#comment-49964 What a great and timely article. I copied it and filed it in my folder of things to consult as I revise my next novel. I hope you’re okay with that.

The book is set in the immediate aftermath of World War II and my two main characters are dealing with fallout of the previous two decades. The male is a combat veteran who’s having flashbacks. (I don’t know the lay term used back then.) The female had sustained repeated sexual assaults–short of rape. (The only way she could save her family was to sing in nightclubs starting at 15.) And yes, I do have a mental health professional that I consult, but it’s nice to have a few pointers I can work with before I take up her valuable time.

Thanks for the pointers.

]]> By: Top Picks Thursday! For Writers & Readers 09-04-2019 | The Author Chronicles https://booksbywomen.org/dos-and-donts-of-including-mental-illness-in-your-fiction-by-elena-mikalsen-ph-d/#comment-49958 Thu, 05 Sep 2019 17:01:58 +0000 http://booksbywomen.org/?p=27914#comment-49958 […] you are including a character with mental illness in your story, consider these do’s and don’ts of including mental illness in your fiction from Elena […]

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