#but at the same time i jsut can't conceptualize any other way it would make sense or doing some shint like 'oh actually mental illness

[icewindandboringhorror]

I have a question about your fantasy worlds. Are there the same type of illnesses (mental and physical) as in our world or is it something that's different between each species/race?

me, whenst getting a question about anything vaguely related to fantasy stuff:

This isn’t something that I’ve thought about too broadly (in the sense that usually I think about illnesses for each species as I’m making them, rather than on the large scale of the entire world as a whole) but I can give some general details about it so far ,,

(this actually isn’t too long, and is much shorter than my other posts where I ramble about stuff, but I guess I’ll put it under a read more anyway just because I’m not sure about whether the length of it would be annoying to people who don’t want to read it or not lol) 

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MENTAL ILLNESS

The humans of our world (earth) and the humans (and other humanoid species) of Nanyevimi are generally pretty similar, at least in terms of brain structure and some other biological things. Though the worlds aren’t connected at all (since.. Nanyevimi is an entirely separate fantasy universe lol…), humans and other creatures in my world I guess  just happened to evolve under somewhat similar circumstances, as the worlds are fairly similar to one another, at least in certain environmental and atmospheric ways and stuff. (also obviously just.. as an earth human, when creating a fantasy world I’m going to base humanoid creatures there kind of off the humanoid creatures that already exist around me lol) 

Though, in Nanyevimi, modern humanoid species have been around much longer than earth humans have been on earth**, and also magic and stuff exists in that world, so since they’ve had much more time to evolve and outside factors influencing them that are different than on earth, obviously they’re not all EXACTLY the same. While some are very close (like a human or an elf from Nanyevimi could probably be understood well by a regular earth human doctor or something, since physically they work nearly the same), others (especially older or more magical species) may not be as similar to us. 

**( Though most history in Nanyevimi any further back than 2million years is pretty much lost due to the Mysterious Time Gap, there are still a few scattered remains of ancient things. The already advanced* state of society 2million years ago when modern records ‘’begin’’, implies that though the details of it are lost, there definitely would have to have been years of development before that time. So most people assume advanced* humanoid life (magical species like Jhevona and elves and etc.) has been around in Nanyevimi for at least 3-4 million years, and earlier less evolved forms of them (maybe more animalistic forms, similar to how some primates are with humans) have been around even longer. So they’ve had a bit more time to change and split off from each other, and have more diversity than humans on earth do among themselves (though obviously that’s not the only reason, since.. there are a lot of things like magic that also influence their evolution being different from human’s evolution on earth, even if they occurred in environmentally similar ways and etc. ) 

*(“Advanced” in the sense of having complex communication and social structure, etc. Even 2 million years ago there were obviously huge cities and trade routes and advanced transportation technology and elaborate government systems and religions and cultural traditions and etc. etc. like what we see in the modern human realm today. Which again is why obviously civilization in Nanyevimi is older than 2million years, even if records stop at that point, all those things don’t just spring up out of nowhere lol, just nobody seems to remember what came before them.) 

ANYWAY, 

basically most of the brain parts and functions are fairly similar between humans and many supernatural species. Supernatural species are more likely to have variation in physical areas other than the brain, such as  having extra organs (or less), different skeletal frames, different limb structure, processing food in a different way, different patterns of hair growth, horns, other anatomy things , physical changes that vary due to magical properties, etc. 

But the brain structure in most cases will be fairly alike between all (earth humans, nanyevimi native humans, elves, jhevona, etc. While there are some recognizable differences , definitely in terms of structure and parts present it’s usually very similar between them), thus for the most part, mental illnesses in their world actually would be quite similar to ours, as the minds of supernatural creatures don’t operate too differently than our own and still have many similarities in their responses to things and the general way that the brain works.  

Though of course, this is something that varies by species, as some have mental illnesses that would be very specific to their own kind/people who experience the same things due to their species, such as groups with very unique psychological experiences, or etc. 

Like for example, due to inherently being open vehicles for spirits most of the time and also having the rare ability to create their own pockets of reality, the Verrucalt likely have some mental illness classifications that could be unique to themselves as it would be hard for the diagnostic criteria to apply to any other group since the problems would be so specified and unique.  Or they could maybe have the same diagnosis that a human has but in a very specific way, such as a severe phobia but specifically centered around their constant loss of control of their bodies to spirits or something that wouldn’t be applicable to any other species (especially not humans who don’t even have any remotely similar abilities), since by nature they are literally unable to experience the same scenario as the Verrucalt. 

And an extension of that would be that it could also vary by skill set some, and not just species (though a majority of abilities or one’s inherent powers are at least partially determined by their species). So like perhaps due to the unique nature of their situation, those who do soul magic commonly could have issues specifically related to that, like a very recognizable collection of symptoms that seems to occur only in people who use this type of magic, that may or may not be recognized as an illness but is debilitating to their functioning and exists solely due to their specific circumstance or things that only people who do that type of magic would be able to go through and have resulting issues from. 

Like maybe people who practice soul absorption (extremely rare) have a specific name for the mental symptoms and trauma that results from essentially merging the souls of others with your own having your minds connected for a while as they fade away inside of you, etc. Which literally just wouldn’t be applicable to anyone else except for those who have had that precise experience. 

–( sidenote: Though of course a lot of this depends on how specific you want to be with classifying a mental illness, and how broad you want to keep the criteria. Like usually diagnostic criteria are not extremely specific to situation (kind of like how OCD is a broad label, even though every person with OCD has their own unique obsessions and compulsions and way that they experience that, and there are some trends in what those may be about,  there’s still not like, multiple entirely differently classified disorders solely depending on precisely what your obsessions/compulsions are about or something, they are all just classified together under the broader label of ‘OCD’), so I might be being a bit over specific here, at least when viewed through the lens of human mental health knowledge. But I think given the lack of broad connection in the supernatural realm and how isolated smaller cultures and groups can be, they would have their own classifications for sometimes very specific things. 

Like for example, Jhevona who practice dream magic having their own label for basically ptsd that is SPECIFICALLY ptsd relating to trauma experienced during the course of being in a dream realm. As they personally experience that differently than they would in waking life, and perhaps conceptualize it differently , and feel it necessary to make a distinction between the two.  Even if in our world we would look at it and just say “those are the same thing, they both just fall under the label of PTSD”. 

idk  I try not to view their cultures through much of a lens of my culture (though obviously I still do, some element of framing from your own references is inescapable) so I don’t want to just say “oh well idk if the mental health system in my own country of the USA on the planet of the Earth would make a distinction between those things then they should be the same for elves as well”. When I really think in some cases, especially in isolated groups, it wouldn’t make sense for them to all conceptualize their health systems in the exact same ways. But I still wanted to clarify just in case anyone reading this would be like “but wait aren’t you being overly specific with mental illness classifications?”, like probably, in the context of our world,, but for an isolated group of demons only pulling from their own culture with their own specific innate magical abilities and own unique experiences, idk , they would probably make some distinctions that we wouldn’t.  ))–

But yeah, generally, a majority of humanoid supernatural creatures are prone to most of the same mental illnesses that humans are, though the way they conceptualize it and the rates of them will vary drastically by culture/species. Despite some more global areas, most groups and cultures are still quite isolated in the supernatural realm, and there is no real centralized mental health system, so  each group of people with a common experience (so mostly same species, or sometimes same ability set) would possibly have large differences between the way they conceptualize the same idea or the language they use even if they’re talking about the same thing. Or like mentioned above, they may draw more or less separations of specifics (like one culture would consider two similar sets of symptoms to be completely different disorders, and another group would perhaps classify them as both falling under the same thing, etc).

 But classification differences aside, their brains are pretty similar so they are prone to just about all of the same things humans are, with perhaps the addition of a few specialized mental illnesses resulting from their unique experiences that humans could never experience. 

Similarly,  depending on the species,  some mental illnesses may be more common while some may be nearly non-existent in the population,  just depending on the genes and especially environment they are in as a group.

 Like for example disorders seen in those who have been through repeated severe trauma would likely be pretty common in the Avirre’thel , mostly in the older generations, given the many periods in their past involving nearly constant violence coming from the Fanyin Elves, and also the unique issues of their immortality.

They can’t die and they’re mostly unable to pass out from pain alone, so like no matter if a gang of elves is beating you and your friends to ‘death’, you just have to live and experience it, and then you have to lay there for days/weeks in the woods in excruciating pain, just sitting there alive waiting for your own body to regenerate to the point that you can walk again, hoping they don’t come back and find you and attack you a second time,, etc etc.

 Being unable to die, means you’ll often live through things that are meant to kill you or would have killed you. Not that dying is a good thing, but just that you’re living through tons and tons of experiences that most people would never have to live through, because for them, the experience would have reached an end at this point (even if that end is death).. But since that’s not an option you just have to keep on living through it. You could get violently “murdered” and have your limbs ripped off and be burned alive 3 times in  just the span of a month and you’d still stay alive and mostly conscious through all of it, now retaining the details and memories and trauma from the entire experience. 

Also, not dying means longer life span, so where most people only have like 100 years or so of experiences to deal with, you’ve got thousands of years.  Where most people would die during being attacked, or die naturally at a fairly low old age, you just continue on forever, accumulating more and more (potentially harmful) experiences, with no break between them. You could probably go 70 years without having too much bad happen to you, but every extra year you live is another year something could happen, and by the time you get to like 700 years old it’s almost definite you’ve been through something traumatic at least once. Which obviously you wont remember every experience in your lifetime perfectly, but the longer you live, just statistically, the more time you have to experience harmful things and live through them now being affected by them, especially if you’ve spent those thousand years in a mostly hostile climate where elves are trying to burn your village down all the time and shooting your children with arrows for funsies.

 So anyway, the implications of the high amount of adverse experiences they’ve been through  due to their environment, in combination with all of this being nearly inescapable for them (you can’t just die and have it be over with),  would probably mean a much larger percentage of the population suffers from a variety of  trauma related symptoms and illnesses than other groups would on average.   

Whereas,  a group like the beach dwelling Verrucalt (as they are unaware of their hunted status and living in pretty much complete peace) would likely not experience hardly any of those same issues, given they’ve never had many conflicts in their environment and do not have much violence or even interpersonal conflicts culturally (like even abusive relationships and etc. are hardly even a thing, given their culture and also the small number, it’s easy for everyone to keep an eye on everyone as a community). It’s rare that a beach  verrucalt would experience really much trauma in their lives in general (especially since they are largely not as affected by the spirits as other verrucalt seem to be, and have their own way of rationalizing it/dealing with it culturally), aside from maybe accidental injuries or having a loved on die or something (and even then they would likely have a very strong and caring support system to help them cope with it), but definitely not on the scale of like widespread turmoil and violence etc etc. They’re a tiny isolated community with strong social connections and practically no outside or internal conflict, so they’d probably have much lower rates of trauma related symptoms than average. 

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So like anything, it would vary some by population, but in the supernatural realm it’s just that population is much more likely to be dependent on what species you are (due to general isolation),  so the rates of particular issues in a population, and the issues (and issue classifications) themselves, would be likely to vary by species and cultural environment, as well as unique abilities or experiences a group may have. But other than that, they’d be similar to us in most basic ways at least. 

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PHYSICAL ILLNESS

Physical illnesses on the other hand would be much much more varied, given that the biggest thing supernatural species vary in is parts of their anatomy and etc, which is why they may have many more diseases unique to them . Like a human could never get a Jhevona disease featuring infection of the horns, because humans don’t have horns, etc etc. 

Also, given that species in the supernatural realm are too genetically different usually to even breed, diseases are pretty much determined by species, as it would be really rare for a demon disease to show up in elves, or a vampiric disease to affect a ythrili, at least not in the same way (like if virus or something even did rarely hop species, it may be totally nothing to one group but devastating to another, etc.).

This is part of why, outside of EXTREMELY isolated populations, most people in the supernatural realm are pretty educated on species to species interactions (usually not ALL species because that would be A LOT of info, but at least how interactions would work with their OWN species and others that are significant (such as a species who’s blood they would be deathly allergic to or etc.)). 

With so many different groups there is a lot of potential for harm (such as most people in one species being carriers of an infection that doesn’t affect THEM but that would make an elf extremely sick, or a certain subspecies of demon having blood** that if a mere drop of it is ingested could make a vampire violently ill for years or etc) 

**(Blood is weird but thought to possibly contain magical properties or something because it seems to be a Big Thing in the supernatural realm, like blood of certain species can be helpful or harmful to you depending on the species you are. Whereas in the human realm it seems like, most blood is just blood..like you’re not going to drink some dog blood and drop dead on the spot or drink a monkey’s blood and suddenly feel more energized than you’ve ever been in your life. But with supernatural creatures (especially magic capable ones, which is why it’s thought to be a result of magic properties but not scientifically confirmed by anything scholars can detect) a lot of their blood can have specific combinations of interactions (MOSTLY harmful) depending on what species you are and what species the blood is from and how it comes into contact with you (like some blood is only harmful if ingested (like eaten), some is only harmful if mixed (like if you had an open wound and somehow got another persons blood in it), and some can be harmful even externally (like just having a drop of their blood on your skin could be harmful (though this is more rare)). 

Though still, the realm is kind of isolated so you usually only know about the species you come into contact with or the ones near you (like an isolated moth species down in the south wouldn’t know how they react to the blood or diseases of a species of northern elf they’re never even heard of in their lives). But even most isolated groups go out of their way to obtain some amount of information, at least about the people they’re most likely to come into contact with, and are usually very very cautious about letting outsiders in but especially about breeding or coming into contact with blood or getting close enough to them to catch a virus or something

 (which is part of why the supernatural realm, despite having such a wide variety of people and technology and magic and things that would make it easy for people to communicate, tends to be so isolated and inconsistent (like one area using glowing flowers exclusively for lighting and you go maybe 200 miles north and this other group has advanced electrical grids and then 1000 miles away from there people are just using fire and steam for everything, a little while further and people just use their own magic for lighting, etc. ) , since there have been many times in most groups where outsiders came in and things Didn’t Go Very Well (mostly like illness and etc.). Though most groups are not hostile to outsiders or harmful towards them, they do tend to be very cautious and distrusting about it, which gets in the way of trade or attempts at globalizing certain technologies and ideas. 

~(side note:  most people are okay with this. Like it’s not like there’s huge movements to globalize things, other than having the few central global areas and hubs of trade and stuff. Due to species differences and how large cultural gaps and stuff tend to be, most people, even in more global areas tend to have a cultural belief of like “well they’re not doing anything harmful to anyone and seem to be happy how they are so why intervene and try to introduce our own way of doing things”.  Though there are some groups who feel the opposite (many elves are bad about this, especially Fanyin and their allies),  I’d say a majority of cultures in the supernatural realm do not hold  ‘assimilate others to our ways’ as a high cultural belief or moral standard, thus even if it weren’t for the diseases and more biological basis for isolation, they would likely stay fairly separate anyway, aside from occasional trade and maybe intervening if some group is murdering people or something. There are not many attempts at globalizing technologies in the first place, etc etc etc 

(though it’s hard to know if this belief is naturally occurring or if the ‘just let other do what they’re doing as long as it isn’t harmful’ mentality being culturally common is in some ways actually a result of it often being historically bad to enter random groups because of disease (so like people who like to get in other’s business end up catching weird diseases and die, while those cultures who prefer to leave others alone don’t get into the same issues with genetic incompatibilities or viruses they have no immunity to and  end up surviving to pass on the ‘hey why not leave people alone’ mentality etc. etc))~

So anyway, diseases and physical illnesses can vary a lot between groups, and occasionally can end up being harmful to other groups if spread..But this isn’t much of a problem, since most groups in the realm are fairly isolated and have little contact with other species or cultures to begin with, and on top of that, most species are too different from each other for their illnesses to even be applicable to others . A majority of groups in the realm are so different they can’t even breed with each other, don’t have much in common culturally, live on different time scales (like an immortal species living next to a species that only lives 300 years), so aside from usually having a base knowledge of whether species around you are harmful to interact with or not (if the blood or naturally carried diseases of your neighbors can kill you, etc.), the health and physical aspects of other groups/species aren’t going to affect you much, unless they’re somehow applicable to you as well. 

Though supernatural creatures can still technically have some conditions that are also common in humans, it just depends on their anatomy specifically. Like some Jhevona don’t have digestive tracts so they likely wouldn’t get like, human digestive issues or whatever, but they do all usually posses hearts which function mostly the same ways as human hearts, so a heart attack or other heart condition could be something that a Jhevona may have, just like humans do. 

There are a lot of species specific health problems though,  but I haven’t planned a lot of them out yet lol. Other than like, the ‘glass sickness’ in the Ythrili , and I have mentioned that due to the deals with the ancient demon during creation with the originals, the Avirre’thel/vampires do have a lot of disease in the population (as I think that was one of the curses/cons to their agreement with the demon) but I haven’t planned many of them specifically, other than maybe mentioning that thing where they often grow too many extra fangs (like wisdom teeth but Worse) and have to have a lot of surgery to remove them lol.   

It’s definitely a Thing that all species will have their own unique health conditions or common complications, I just, don’t have many established examples  because I haven’t written that far for some of my species lol ! 

But yeah, most diseases in the supernatural realm are species specific, or specific to only a few species, which is why it’s really common for doctors to be specialists only within a certain group (such as treating elves exclusively or etc.). Though there can be broader range healers, especially people who do healing magic. Usually with higher level healing magics, what you heal isn’t dependent on your knowledge of their anatomy and is more of a general repair spell, so expert magic healers can sometimes deal with a huge variety of smaller illnesses or surface injuries and such, regardless of species. Though there are still many injuries that would be too complex/take more magical energy than most healers have/require some extensive knowledge of the species’ anatomy  in order to fix, as healing magic is not uniform or broadly applicable for all injuries at all, just many, and depends heavily on skill level or exact nature of the magic.  And especially in global areas, there are many doctors who specialize in as many species as possible to know about and treat all forms of diseases and injuries even in those with totally different anatomy or etc. 

But for the most part, medical systems are centralized to the people they are related to. Like in Navyete (where the Avirre’thel live) most doctors are vampires or demons specializing in vampiric or demonic conditions, because those are the two largest populations in Navyete (though of course also some doctors for humans and elven refugees coming in from Fanyin)... but like if you’re like a Ythrili or something and you end up in Navyete somehow, you’d have trouble getting medical care, unless it’s a more simple injury that could be helped with regular healing magic. Diseases and other physical ailments and general illnesses tend to be heavily specific to a person’s individual species. 

Though there are many broad conditions (like most everyone can get broken bones or heart conditions or a brain injury), every species is going to have a lot of illnesses and especially viruses and diseases and such that are specific to one group or a few similar groups and not anyone else.

 Sometimes there can be slight variation within a species (like between sub-species or etc.), but that usually has more to do with differing rates of health issues than having different health issues entirely (like maybe one sub group within a species has like slightly higher immunity to something than the rest of their species, but wouldn’t have their own specific diseases that don’t affect the rest of the population). 

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SO YEAH,,, uh,, the main point I guess is: Yes, technically species in the supernatural realm can have some of the same mental and physical illnesses as we do in our own human earth

but:   

Mental illnesses are the most similar, though still have some amount of variation by species or other classifications of similar experience (and will be conceptualized very differently depending on culture)

and 

Physical  illnesses CAN be the same  as ours depending on the species (like whether they have the same body parts we do or not),  but do tend to have much much more variety, and health conditions are usually specific to species and their own unique genetics and anatomy (and will also be conceptualized differently by each culture). 

Hopefully this makes some amount of sense and isn’t just me rambling forever, like usual when I feel the need to do too many side tangents lol, sorry for this being so long (and despite it’s length I still feel it’s too basic.. like I should have more specific examples of health conditions planned out but I don’t so it feels Incomplete lol… curse me for not having like, an entire list of supernatural health conditions on hand > : U ) ! But hopefully it answers the question well enough ! If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! Thanks for giving me an excuse to talk about things I like to think about too much lmao