#and its not in like a scary villain schizophrenic psycho way but sort of in a like. hes saying really ridiculous and kind of cringy shit

[computerpeople]

having a schizophrenic character in a group of popular image-obsessed shallow rich kids is a really fascinating concept to explore which i might end up doing later in some fanfics because of how strongly schizophrenia is a disorder that essentially erodes your ego. it's something that's extremely hard to explain to other people but it starts to strip you of any care you'd have about what others think of you in a societal aspect, which is okay when it comes to social anxiety (this is something i think josh would have a lot, being the cool confident friend when in reality hes just sort of detached from reality) but i also think it'd be a nightmare for someone like emily since josh wouldn't exactly care to have the social graces she'd want him to (or would have had years ago before it started getting bad)

[tlbodine]

Ableism, Mental Illness, and the Horror Genre

Horror has a problematic history with the mentally ill, and I think there’s a lot to unpack there in terms of ableism and deconstructing harmful tropes. 

* For purposes of this discussion, I’ll be using some potentially-triggering terms like “insane” and “crazy” and “lunatic” and “psycho” and I kindly ask that you don’t take that as any sort of endorsement or reflection of my values -- just as a bundle of terms familiar in the genre. Tread forward carefully. 

Loosely speaking, I think mental illness has three flavors in the horror genre: 

Stories where people with schizophrenia/DID/whatever are the villains 

Stories set in or using mental hospitals/asylums as scary plot devices

Stories about people going insane/losing their grip on reality (or thinking they’re going insane because of the supernatural shenanigans happening in the story) 

I don’t think that these three tropes are necessarily closely related, and I don’t think that any of them are inherently ableist if dealt with under certain circumstances -- but let’s go back to the beginning and try to break it down a bit.

What is Ableism? Why is it Harmful? 

Before we get started, let’s talk about why we should care about this at all. So what actually is ableism? 

Ableism --  The practices and dominant attitudes in society that devalue and limit the potential of persons with disabilities. A set of practices and beliefs that assign inferior value (worth) to people who have developmental, emotional, physical or psychiatric disabilities.

(Source: http://www.stopableism.org/p/what-is-ableism.html) 

Ableism against the mentally ill stigmatizes people who have mental illnesses. It dehumanizes and “others” them. In horror media in particular, it promotes the concept that “crazy people” are dangerous, which can lead to acts of violence against them or an overall lack of compassion. 

I’m a firm believer that there are no bad tropes, and that people are always free to write the stories that speak to them - but I’m also a firm believer that you need to take responsibility for your creations and be aware of the effects your words may have on the world. So we’ll look at how mental illness is portrayed in horror media, why it can be problematic, and some ways to subvert it. 

Mental Illness, as a Concept, is Relatively New (and a lot newer than the horror genre)  

The concept of ableism is even newer. Many, many tropes are rooted in times when social concepts were different. Human behavior hasn’t changed much, but the way we talk about that behavior has -- and stories have a way of sticking around after the cultures that created them are gone. So we have a whole stack of tropes and narratives and ideas that are tied to older ways of thinking. 

So for example: At various points in history and across various cultures, mental illness as we know it today may have been viewed as demonic possession, fae magic, witchcraft, etc. In other words - a lot of the tropes we already associate with horror may in part have been used as an explanation for mental illness symptoms (and the mentally ill may have endured terrible punishments for it throughout history as well). 

Then, as more modern medicine started to be practiced, and psychology began to be developed, the concept of mental illness started to develop...and sometimes that, too, was horrifying. 

Here are some supplemental reading links on the topic you might find interesting: 

http://nobaproject.com/modules/history-of-mental-illness

https://www.healthyplace.com/other-info/mental-illness-overview/the-history-of-mental-illness

http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1673/the-history-of-mental-illness-from-skull-drills-to-happy-pills

Even in modern times, we still don’t fully understand how the brain works and what causes mental illness and the accompanying behaviors -- and the unknown continues to be scary. All of our fears live inside unanswered questions. And that is why these narratives continue to hold sway. 

Why Insanity is Frightening 

Let’s go back to my earlier assertion that there are three flavors of mental illness in horror, because I think at their core that each version preys upon entirely different types of fears: 

#1 The Psycho Killer Trope: 

As seen in: Psycho, Halloween, The Silence of the Lambs

Falls under the TVTrope “Insane Equals Violent” https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InsaneEqualsViolent 

Many urban legends also deal with “escaped lunatic” or “dangerous madman” character tropes. The gist of it is that a mentally unstable person is violent, commits atrocious acts, does not feel remorse (or much of anything else), and may somehow possess superhuman strength. 

This scenario is frightening because: 

A crazy person has no motive and cannot be reasoned with 

Crazy people behave erratically and unpredictably 

An insane mind is harder to understand, effectively dehumanizing the villain 

People with hallucinations or delusions can experience a twisted view of reality, leading to abnormal behavior (and cool cinematic effects)

Essentially, if you want to turn a human into a monster, making them “crazy” is an easy (lazy) way to do it. 

Now, here’s the thing. Sometimes, the mentally ill really are dangerous, such as people who attack their families while experiencing delusions. And if you consider sociopaths to be mentally ill, then a good number of serial killers and other violent people count as mentally ill: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/wicked-deeds/201409/the-sociopath-serial-killer-connection

All the same, there are many ways that this trope can become ableist and damaging: 

The overwhelming majority of mentally ill people are non-violent and are actually much more likely to be victims of violence themselves in real life. There are a lot of reasons for that. For one, many severely mentally ill people end up homeless (or homelessness exacerbates existing mental illness), and the homeless are a common target of violence. For another, people’s fear of insanity can lead to them perpetuating violence against the mentally ill. Nasty cycle, right? 

The other big problem with this trope is that it’s not portrayed realistically 99% of the time. Real-world psychopaths are generally not known for their cackling insanity and childish violence. Schizophrenics and people with DID/multiple personalities are statistically very rarely violent, and their violent tendencies are really overblown in media. And that is probably the biggest thing: If the only time we ever see a schizophrenic character in a story is when they’re a crazy killer, then we the audience are going to start thinking that all schizophrenic people are crazy killers. Because most people don’t know anyone with schizophrenia, and they’re not used to ever seeing positive or compassionate portrayals of those people in media. 

#2 The Haunted Asylum Trope: 

As seen in: The Ward, Session 9, American Horror Story: Asylum, and more video games than I can possibly count

Falls under the TVTrope: Bedlam House https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BedlamHouse

There are two flavors to the haunted asylum trope, and they can overlap or happen distinctly. The first is where the action takes place in a now-abandoned building that was once a mental institution and is now haunted as shit. The second is where a person is committed to a mental institution that may or may not be haunted and endures all manner of terrifying things up to and including: abusive staff, ghosts, violent patients, and torturous “treatments.” 

There are more examples of this trope than I can possibly list out, and its roots dig back real deep into our not-so-distant past. Stories like Poe’s short story “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether” is an early treatment of the premise (compare and contrast with the film Stonehearst Asylum, which is basically a re-telling); Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, while not precisely horror, is a trope codifier for a lot of things that show up in these stories. 

There’s a lot to fear in this setting: 

“Treatments” that were dangerous and brutal, like lobotomies and electro-shocks, being essentially forms of torture 

The idea of being locked up against your will (a justified fear in certain points of history, when locking up your inconvenient relatives was a viable option)

Being locked up somewhere occupied by those same murderous-madmen from the previous trope 

Ghosts and vengeful spirits who are really pissed about all of the above 

In some ways, the haunted asylum trope is actually anti-ableist, or at least inverts the ableism of the psycho-killer trope, in that the “madmen” are often sympathetic characters rather than the villains. However, it then creates its own set of problems. 

One of the worst issues with the “haunted asylum” trope is it is anachronistic. Modern mental health care isn’t perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than it was 100 years ago -- but people don’t have a lot of cultural touchstones for what a modern inpatient care facility looks like. Painting psychiatrists and other mental healthcare staff as sadistic torture-lovers isn’t exactly doing the profession any favors. 

If the public associates getting mental health care with the kind of things they see in media...well, they won’t be very supportive of that care, right? And that’s a big problem. 

And, of course, if your haunted asylum is also home to crazy psycho-killers, you have a two-for-one ableism problem. 

#3 The Am-I-Losing-My-Mind Trope: 

As seen in: The Shining, 1408, The Babadook

Falls under the TV Trope Through the Eyes of Madness: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThroughTheEyesOfMadness

The diverse sub-genre of “psychological horror” quite frequently utilizes some form or another of this concept -- “Are these things actually happening, or am I losing my mind?” I’m the first to admit that I’m a sucker for this trope. It’s probably my favorite thing about the horror genre. But that doesn’t mean it’s wholly unproblematic. 

There are a few sub-types of this trope: 

Gaslighting, where someone purposely manipulates a character to make them feel like they can’t trust their own perceptions of reality 

The “I think I’m going crazy but wait actually it’s a supernatural event” trope 

The “something happened and it made me go crazy (and possibly violent)” trope

Of these, the third one has the greatest risk of becoming ableist. It’s sometimes used to give a backstory to the psycho-killers in #1, and it has some troubling implications. For one, the idea that trauma can make you go crazy is...overly simplistic at best. We don’t fully understand mental illnesses, but we do know that they are often linked to genetics, brain injury, neurological disorders, childhood experiences, etc. etc. etc. In other words, it’s pretty fucking insensitive and reductionist to suggest that a single traumatic event can “drive someone crazy.” 

The other issue is that, in these cases, being crazy (or being viewed as crazy) is the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen to somebody, right? Like how often do we see the harmful trope of someone experiencing something, then being locked away in one of those mental institutions from #2, and then their life is effectively over? That has to feel pretty awful for the people who do suffer from mental illnesses in the real world. 

So, Okay, How Do We Fix It? 

All right. If you’re still with me after this long exploration, you’re probably wondering: OK, TL, I get it, but what am I -- a horror writer -- supposed to do about this? How do I tell scary stories without falling back on harmful tropes? 

Gee, I’m so glad you asked! 

Not every story is the same, and there is no single “do this and never be accused of ableism” formula, but there are some tips I think can make a lot of difference: 

Ask yourself: Why am I writing this story? What is it about the premise that intrigues and frightens you? Drill down to the core of your motives and mine the untapped potential of fresh ideas rather than regurgitating more well-worn tropes. If you want to write a story about being locked in a place with violent people, can I set it somewhere other than an asylum? If I want to write a story about a murderer, can I make him frightening without him being insane? 

Do your research and portray things realistically. Research here means original, real-life cases and events. If you want to write about a mental hospital, look at real mental hospitals and draw your inspiration from them rather than drawing from the stock tropes in other stories. If you have a psychiatrist character, learn about real psychiatric treatments in the time period you’re writing about. If you have a schizophrenic character, research the actual symptoms and behaviors associated with schizophrenia. 

Question what your thematic choices are actually saying. Consider the implications of a plot point or character, and decide whether you’re comfortable with them. Be self-aware about what you choose to include. 

Practice good representation. A lot of the harm from ableist narratives comes from the mentally ill character being the only representation of that illness - not just in their story, but in every story. Consider including sympathetic, non-villainous characters with (realistically portrayed) mental illnesses. If you have several such characters, it’s not so bad if one of them is indeed a villain. 

Get a sensitivity reader. Find somebody who is familiar with what you’re writing about, and get them to read it and tell you if you’re being an asshole. Ideally, get more than one. Someone who has first-hand experience with the topics you’re writing about can tell you whether or not you’ve missed the mark (within reason). 

Invert and avoid stereotypes: This goes hand-in-hand with doing your research. Study the tropes that are common in the type of story you’re telling, and think of ways to challenge or invert the most common stereotypes. Not only will you avoid falling in the same traps, you’ll also give your story a fresh and refreshing twist that the reader will enjoy. 

I hope this was helpful. If you have more thoughts, feel free to add them below! 

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