have i written about this before? yes, probably, i don't really keep track of what i post in here anymore.
mental illnesses aren't fucking quirky.
i talked about this briefly in the last chapter, but it really needs its own chapter.
depression is not a character trait. anxiety is not a character trait. these are not quirks, they are illnesses. treat them like it.
so much fanfiction actually romanticizes depression, it's sick.
wanna know something? meeting some guy won't swoop you off your feet and make your depression vanish straight away. i had depression for three years, and fanfiction had convinced me that it's better to sit around and wait for someone to rescue you.
news flash: it's not better that way. you are not a damsel in distress. you want out of depression? fight for it. depression enters your mind and makes you believe there's no escaping it, and that you're just stuck with it until it blows over. that's not true. you can stop depression yourself.
you can't rely on others for everything. you are strong enough to live this long, you can be happy again too.
depression doesn't just blow over. it's rocky and hard to recover from it, but with that you have a choice: do you want to be happy? do you really want to give up your life? no. a lot of people think they want to die, you don't want to die, you want to start living again.
yes, the quote "it's gonna be okay" is true, but it's not gonna get any better without help from you.
ANYWAYS, that's not what this chapter is about. i vaguely remember doing a chapter about manic pixie dream girls, but i don't remember everything, so here we go.
Manic Pixie Dream Girl: A female character who's entire character is based around a guy's shallow definition of a "perfect girl", a nerd's wet dream girlfriend. She plays all the games he plays, likes everything he likes, and probably has a pixie cut or some other radical hairstyle. She probably has a "perfect body" but hides it under baggy clothes, and wears nothing but nerdy video game centric t shirts or ridiculously over the top outfits that are practically costumes.
Manic Pixie Dream Girls are the girls in the book who act cold at first, but really have a broken heart, that needs oh-so desperately to be healed. They smoke cigarettes and battle Bipolar Disorder. They're mysterious and shallow, and most of the time, they die half way through the book, leaving the protagonist boy to solve their death and put them to rest.
Whether they kill themselves or get killed, they teach the protagonist the moral of the story in the end, when the protagonist accepts their inescapable fate.
Girls shouldn't have to be broken to be loved.
You can love yourself and also be loved.
A lot of the media actually down people for loving themselves, but then turn their backs and call someone else an attention seeker for hating themselves.
To Long; Didn't Read: mental illnesses and disorders aren't cute. stop acting like they're cute.
