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[Silver Night]

I think there are a couple of issues here.

1) There are a couple of different ways that people use 'capsuleer dementia'. You mention both of them: The first is as an explanation for people saying OOC things. The second is usually referring, in my experience, not being mentally ill in general, but the tendency capsuleers have for being apparently violent psychopaths or sociopaths - there is a set of similar symptoms usually displayed. Those two things can overlap. (lol, I owned ur fleet etc).

2) RPing mental illness. This can, sometimes - even often - overlap the above also: if you are playing the IC aspect of capsuleer dementia. I think, though, that it mental illness IC is fairly common within the RP community, and is often done in a way where Evil=Crazy and Crazy=Dangerous are not automatically true, except largely in cases of 1) above - which does to my mind refer most often to certain types of mental illness that seems to strike capsuleers. The whole remorselessly killing berjillions of people thing, detachment from humanity (and its attendant expected emotional responses), etc. In many cases, though, I think that IC mental illness that isn't of that form is likely not something many other people see. After all, going on an over the top murder spree is pretty high profile and dramatic. Being depressed, on the other hand, can be something you aren't even aware of in a fairly close friend. Ditto many other mental illnesses. I have a character with fairly serious PTSD, and noone outside her family and doctors are (IC) aware of it as far as I know.

[Andreus Ixiris]

Yeah, this is actually the viewpoint I dislike. The assumption that mental illness equals 'scary and dangerous.'

I'd say I have the most admiration for people who can play out the difficulties of being mentally ill without suggesting that this makes their character evil or amoral or whatever.

Well I have Asperger's Syndrome and given that I roleplay him, I'm pretty sure Andreus does as well. Even in terms of stereotypes Asperger's Syndrome is hardly the most evilscary mental disorder, though.

[Halete]

Halete certainly has her bouts of 'ax-crazy' and I don't believe she's 'subtle'. That said, I still enjoy her immensely. She has her own biology and when I play she comes through as very fluid to me - and those I RP with closely - and she comes to life.

I strongly stand by her not being 'evil', some would disagree.

I tend to give her losses and gains around the times of pod deaths, and occasionally (albeit less frequently) across jump cloning. She is also fully functional (if eccentric) in most situations, only really growing violent when under stress. 

I tend to agree that the more interesting 'crazies' are the subtle type, usually, but I'm curious as if people have problems with Halete due to the opinions I'm seeing present in this thread.

Do get in touch with me if this is the case.

I think the problem more lies in mental illness being used by people to try and be edgy. These characters are often not very well thought through.

[Aelisha Montenagre]

Yeah, this is actually the viewpoint I dislike. The assumption that mental illness equals 'scary and dangerous.'

I'd say I have the most admiration for people who can play out the difficulties of being mentally ill without suggesting that this makes their character evil or amoral or whatever.

Well I have Asperger's Syndrome and given that I roleplay him, I'm pretty sure Andreus does as well. Even in terms of stereotypes Asperger's Syndrome is hardly the most evilscary mental disorder, though.

I really cannot enhance this point beyond what the two prior posters have stated. 

I have had my brushes with clinical depression, and the only people it's scary for are the afflicted individual and those close enough to be told in worse moments of how bad it can really feel.  A lot of the fear of mental illness is similar to 'body horror' effects that people have expressed concerning thalidomide or amputation visuals - 'Does it hurt?' and 'Oh god what if that happened to me?'.  Mental illness or even mere difference can be all the more scary as it is invisible aside from what may appear to be 'random outbursts' or a slew of subtle differences.

A primal fear of not being whole (disclaimer - not implying people with disabilities 'are not whole' - this is for highlighting the ignorance, not a judgement), and an unhealthy dose of ignorance put mental illness firmly in the terrifying category for a majority - and I must admit that the idea of losing my faculties to alzeheimers, psychosis or the likes, no matter how unlikely that may be, scares the bejeezus out of me.  It is easier to externalize that fear and project it, victim blaming of a form, than it is to rationalize that fear as internal.

Blind acceptance of this possibility is almost as bad as fear driven ignorance.  The only real way to understand is when people in your life feel close enough to you to share, and maybe even answer some questions - no matter how childish they may seem.  Sometimes being told 'no it doesn't hurt , but it feels like X' works miracles in building up some surface level of understanding.

[Andreus Ixiris]

Yeah. It's an unfortunate problem that even among the roleplay community many people are openly and gleefully disrespectful of such issues.

[lallara zhuul]

Is this a similar issue to people that have mental problems as real lesbians have with the Space Lesbian trope?

[Andreus Ixiris]

Is this a similar issue to people that have mental problems as real lesbians have with the Space Lesbian trope?

In part.

It's also that a lot of people tend to be deeply disrespectful about disorders in general.

[Halete]

For what it's worth, I have been professionally diagnosed with severe depression and described by my therapist as possessing strong 'gender dysphoria'.

I live in a shared household with several other people of varying and colorful clinically diagnosed disorders.

If there is anything that I try to be concerning such issues, it's respectful.

[Vincent Pryce]

Does anyone else feel uncomfortable with the way mental illness is often handled?

Yes. As the assholes who do it most often have no idea what it's actually like to live with one and have very ridiculous conceptions of how this shit works and use it as some retarded excuse to do some weird ultraviolence fetish crap.

[Ciarente]

In real life, people with mental illness are far more likely to be the victims of violence than people without; and far less likely to be perpetrators of violence than people without.

Cheap stereotypes of 'crazy' abound in popular culture, RP is no exception, and in my opinion they're not just disrespectful, they're dangerous, because by feeding misconceptions they affect people's behavior and their level of support for public policies that make a real difference to people with mental illness.

[Natalcya Katla]

Katla is a psychological mess, having suffered from long periods of depression through much of her life. She also has a couple of debilitating, though not precisely crippling, phobias.

The scary dangerous crazy bits of her are all ideology and philosophy, though, not mental illness - though it can be a coping mechanism for her mental illness, sometimes.

Ruby doubtlessly comes off as insane to many people, but she's not actually mentally ill, as I see it. She's just socialized very weirdly.

[Shintoko Akahoshi]

Does anyone else feel uncomfortable with the way mental illness is often handled?

Yes. As the assholes who do it most often have no idea what it's actually like to live with one and have very ridiculous conceptions of how this shit works and use it as some retarded excuse to do some weird ultraviolence fetish crap.

This, basically. I've almost never seen it used as anything other than a crutch to support some sort of "I am a human God striding among the little worms" RP.

[Creep]

As someone who was diagnosed years ago with Sadistic Personality Disorder (nonsexual, not associated with Anti-Social), I always sneer at the wildly ignorant depictions of Sadists in RP.

[hellgremlin]

I think I've played my character's mental illness to perfection. Everyone who interacts with him considers Istvaan suave, charming, powerful, and dangerous. No-one outright calls him a sociopath, even though that's what he blatantly obviously is when you look at him from a psychologist's perspective.

Much like in the real world - the psychos are the ones running things

[Morwen Lagann]

I think a lot of people confuse being callous, uncaring or just plain jaded for having a psychological disorder.

Morwen's got her own laundry list of issues, but rather than try listing them or w/e, I'd rather reveal them by just letting her be herself, and let people figure them out through interacting with or watching her.

She'll admit to some of them if confronted about it, but she definitely doesn't go out of her way to use it as an excuse for her behavior like some people do. People who do that annoy the crap out of her (and me, IRL).