Are people with bipolar disorder always in an episode? Isn't there a period of time in which the person has a normal mood and no mood shiftings? (Excuse my bad English)
Yes, there are periods where the person is not in a mood episode. And no worries, your English is fine!
Can someone get ptsd for a bad dream they had?
While nightmares can be incredibly disturbing and have intense psychological effects, they cannot cause PTSD in and of themselves.
Hi. I'm in the early stages of writing a mentally ill character, and still trying to find a disorder that works well with my plot. I wanted her to present with psychotic symptoms, such as thought disorder, paranoia, and hearing voices (is there a medical term for the last one?). But I'm unsure if Bipolar I can adequately account for this. Do you think a bipolar I diagnosis is sufficient, or should I consider Schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type instead?
Firstly, the medical-ish term for hearing voices is “auditory hallucinations.”
And drawing from an earlier post I made:
Schizoaffective disorder - at least two weeks of psychotic symptoms WITHOUT a mood episode
Bipolar I with psychotic features - only having psychotic symptoms DURING a mood episode, and having at least two weeks of a mood episode without psychotic symptoms.
Hope that helps!
How long is it realistic for a child who used to be neglected to hoard food once in an enviroment where they actually get fed on a regular basis?
That depends on the character. Sometimes it might just be a few weeks; other times it could become a life-long problem.
Is it possible for an empathetic character to have dulled emotions due to bad experiences in the past or due to depression but to still remain as empathetic, or do the two go hand in hand?
Yes, it’s very possible for someone with dulled emotions / depression to be as empathetic as they were beforehand.
This can actually be a part of therapists getting “burned out” - they spend so much of their time and energy being there for their clients that they don’t have anything left for themselves.
What kind of psychological torment can I inflict on a celebrity? Precisely, an up-and-rising, naive one that expects the showbiz world to be happy and welcoming.
CW: sexual coercion, eating disorders
Almost anything you want, really. Depression, anxiety, PTSD (possibly from a casting couch type situation), the list goes on and on. I’d personally lean towards your character developing an eating disorder or body dysmorphic disorder due to the appearance-focused nature of showbiz.
Hope that helps!
Had trouble getting a clear answer on this via Googling. I read once that it is possible to have (via stroke) temporary brain damage that hinders the perception of the body even having boundaries - not "loss of proprioception"; it was described as feeling more like "temporarily one with everything/no separation from anything" so, 1 - Do you know what the technical term for that would be? and 2 - Would my character(s) be correct or incorrect to describe that sensation as a type of "dissociation"?
That sounds a bit like “depersonalization”, where someone feels that their own bodies / sense of self becomes less real. It is indeed a subset of dissociation, so it would be accurate to describe it as such - it’s just a little less specific.
is a "martyr complex" considered an official diagnosis? or is that just a symptom thing
It’s not an official diagnosis at all, sorry!
(2/2) Second of all, thank GODS for this blog, 'cause until I discovered you I'd been directing all my questions of the "my character is mental and I don't know what to do" variety to a friend of mine in medschool, and since one of my favorite things to do is creating characters who are challenged in various psychological ways, she's begun shamelessly avoiding me... So I'll definitely be back, but for now, a quick question: are schizophrenics capable of violence?
The first part of this ask didn’t come through, sorry!
And to answer your question… schizophrenics are just as capable of violence as any other human being on the planet.
Mental illness can do a lot of things, but it doesn’t strip a character of their inherent humanity.
Please also note that people with mental illnesses are more likely to be the victims of violence than commit it.
Hi! So, if a glass ceiling made of safety glass broke because the building caught on fire, and the glass fell about 100 floors, what would the injuries look like? The pieces were mostly small (less than newborn fist sized), but there were some larger ones and some pieces did not break until they landed. I'm assuming the glass would behave more like bullets than glass, and the larger ones would kill whoever was hit, and that they could cause burns because of heating in the fire? Thanks!
Heya! I only take questions related to clinical psychology (mental illness and the treatment thereof). Sorry!
So if a child was physical and mentally abused from the ages of three to seven, and then she lived in a somewhat happy home up until the age of 17, is it plausible for the trauma to still affect her if her abuser came back? (Her dad rescued her, she thought her mom was dead, her mom came back and killed her dad, and now she's stuck living with her mom)
CW: child abuse
Yes, it’s not only plausible, in the Shrink’s opinion, it’s virtually certain.
Can someone have a form of bipolar and have it triggered by something at around age 15, not being effected by it before hand?
15 is actually on the young side for first showing symptoms of bipolar disorder. Though it can occur at any age, the average age of onset is about 25.
So you’re good to go, Anon!
Sorry if this question is too broad, can I /not/ diagnose my characters' mental illnesses? Most of them I just write as I like, and then I realise that some of them meet the criteria for a MI and I start doing my research on that MI, but I'm sure I have missed some characters and would write them as NT instead of ND. Is it possible to write the character well when missing the MI? Additionally, is it possible that those characters simply have some symptoms of a MI but not the MI itself?
It’s ultimately up to you as a writer to decide whether or not you want your characters to be diagnosed with mental illnesses.
However, there’s also a diagnostic category type thing called “Other Specified [insert category of disorder here]” intended for people who display notable symptoms of a mental illness, but don’t quite meet the threshold for a full diagnosis.
If a child was put through emotional abuse for a portion of their childhood but then spent the rest of their childhood in a loving, happy home, would it be realistic for trauma to suddenly come rushing back as a teen/adult? If so how would this trauma present itself?
CW: child abuse, emotional abuse
Yes, that’s totally realistic. How it would present itself would depend both on the character and the nature of the trauma. Check out @scripttraumasurvivors for more info!
Hi could you help me with writing about OCD? I've read up on it but the thing is I'm mysophobic. Whenever I try writing characters with it I keep accidentally writing about mysophobia instead (Eg. washing hands or avoiding shaking hands w others - something I myself do often) I don't realize it until I'm done or am in the midst of writing T_T do you have tips on stopping this derailment?
Check out this old post I made about some of the different ways OCD can be expressed! Keep in mind that someone with OCD won’t have ALL of these kinds of things, but it’s a great starting point for you to incorporate non-mysophobia symptoms.
Could ptsd cause suicidal thoughts and a suicide attempt?
CW: suicide
Yes. Typically, this can happen when PTSD is comorbid with depression, but not always.
Character has a fear of losing/hurting her fingers specifically. Like, she'd rather lose a leg than lose her pinky finger on her non-dom hand. What should I call this fear? I can't find a somethingphobia that fits this fear
From the therapy side of things, it’d be classified as a “blood - injection - injury type specific phobia.”
You’re right in that there’s no one “somethingphobia” word that I could find that matches it exactly. “Traumatophobia” comes closest, but that’s just fearing being injured.
But using that as a base, the Shrink came up with a word for you: “Dactyltraumatophobia”. I make no promise that it follows the Greek syntax exactly, but it’s close enough for government work.
