So, I feel like I should clarify. When I am talking about mental illness/health, I am not referring to 'oh, I have trouble paying attention sometimes,
I must have ADD'. As I mentioned somewhere before (here?) I am of the opinion that doctors nowadays are grossly over-diagnosing certain disorders (like ADD, like ADHD) to make their own lives easier/because people exaggerate their shown symptoms (lol, look at me, I have problems focusing on people!!!) or to simply sell drugs.
Furthermore, I don't think those that are genuinely ill (speaking more in terms of actual illnesses and not so much the disorders) will openly speak about their issues. Like, at all. If you can come on RPG and declare openly 'oh, I have anxiety disorder!' then something inside of me switches and goes 'well, apparently you're not as anxious as you say you are.'
So for the purpose of this discussion I was going to ignore those people and focus solely on those that are actually mentally ill. Like I said, I
personally have met a lot of people that cope with one illness or another, on RPG. I was posting here merely to, say, see if that was correct for others too. It seems not - or at least, it seems that the idea of what constitutes a mental illness causes some people to believe that we are either all mentally ill, or nobody is. I thought I was clear with what I was trying to discuss but it seems not.
My bad, I guess.
@Shoryu Magami In my opinion, depending on the illness, it might make someone less inclined to see reality, and more inclined to see their view of it. Take for example anxiety - if someone experiences anxiety in an unhealthy way for unhealthy reasons, then I would say that, sure, they understand the workings of anxiety better.
But they might also have some ideas about it that do not match reality. Think for example their personal experiences with anxiety.. the idea that people do not understand anxiety, that people laugh at people with anxiety, or something like that. It doesn't happen in all cases - but to them it certainly seems that way.
Regardless, not really central to the point I am trying to make. I agree that someone with a mental illness/disorder (depending on the type, obviously we should not expect someone with severe mental disorders to understand their own conditions) might understand their own disorder/the feelings this disorder creates better than someone who does not. On the other hand, I also feel like in some cases it might severely limit someones understanding of reality/objectiveness of the disorder.
@Lady Amalthea Inclining to agree with you here. I think that artists, creators, or creative people generally do divert from the norm. It has also kind of become the stereotype (of creative people) that they are different and I suppose we can all agree that that is at the very least true in the stereotype way.
I think the question of whether it is healthy or not depends entirely on the intent of the roleplayer. If you are escaping
for the purpose of enjoyment I don't see why not. This type of escape, to me, seems like it offers some form of enjoyment similar to a hobby while maintaining real life duties and such. It doesn't push away the thought that, okay, I am mentally ill and I need to fix that.
But what I have seen as well is that (especially younger roleplayers) get caught in roleplayerguild and use it as a literal escape from reality. It is no longer a hobby (though, I am sure they enjoy it) but it becomes an alternative to real life - and that I find is dangerous, because it means people will not deal with the real world and instead go here to escape. Again, noticeably more present among younger roleplayers, who may or may not be genuinely ill (we have all felt depressed at a young age in our teens, though I would not chalk that up as depression).
One example for this I could give is a guy I roleplayed with who had problems at home, and got addicted to the internet/roleplayerguild as a means of not dealing with his family. And to me, that is very dangerous, because it's bound to 'explode' at some point.
Now obviously that does not go for all roleplayers, but it's still an interesting thing to me.
@BrokenPromise We seem to be on the same page, though again, I wasn't talking about labels. I was talking about people that are genuinely mentally ill. So while I agree with your argument, I don't really think it matches what I was trying to say.
The issue I have with what you wrote for example is that ADD, while it's a disorder/illness, can be chalked up to be a personality trait rather easily. And I agree that with the overdiagnosis of ADD and ADHD among other it's becoming more and more alluring to do that as we see more and more people that do not genuinely have ADD/ADHD/what have ye being diagnosed with those.
However, as those are not the ones I want to discuss (because we are on the same page about that) I feel like I should point out that those who
are genuinely suffering from those things do in fact genuinely have ADHD, and writing them up as 'just not being able to sit still' is avoiding the problem.
I think the first step is stopping the over-diagnosis, because that's what hurting those that are really incapable of focusing/sitting still.
@Dynamo Frokane More or less the same goes to you.
@Heap241 Now see, that's where I think you are wrong. Let us first separate 'being depressed' from an actual depression. Everyone is depressed every once in a while and you are correct in that, but these people do not suffer a depression. Being sad =/= a depression. And just like that your argument falls apart. Do I think there was ever someone who wasn't depressed? Um, no, probably not, most people get depressed now and then. Do I think there was ever someone who didn't suffer a depression? Well, yes. A lot of people never suffer a depression of the size where it becomes unbearable to do anything at all.
And that is the key point here isn't it? Just like with ADHD - do I think there are people that often feel restless and need to keep moving? Yes, probably everyone feels like that sometimes. But what about the people that
always feel this way, who literally can never sit still? Do you not think that to them it might be an actual issue? As in, it is literally something in their body that is making them feel this way, not just 'personality?'
And although I agree that someones conditions do not give them an excuse (socially) for their behavior, I do think that it certainly goes a long way to explain it.
So, I feel like I should point out that there is a gray area between 'traits' and 'disorders/illnesses' and that those often become visible when you talk about how it affects someones life. Someone that occasionally feels restless will not feel like it will affect their life all that much. But someone with genuine ADHD might feel like it does affect their life a lot. Writing that off as 'well, their problem, they should fix their personality' doesn't really help them because they are incapable of that.
But, once again, over-diagnosis has skewed what people perceive about mental illnesses and/or disorders. Again, these are not the people I want to discuss. I want to discuss the people who genuinely have something in their body/head that makes them feel the way they feel. Not Bob, your uncle, who thinks he has ADHD because he likes to be busy.
But how do you look towards illnesses like chronic depression and dysthymia, both of which can be proven that they are not only
personality but also the chemical balance in the body? Surely you would agree that in those cases it's more than just 'being unable to sit still' and actually becomes more grounded? Just for clarification - those are the people I am talking about. Where we can actually prove there is something inside of them that is causing this.
And despite that Roleplaying is a creative outlet, I still think it might have more adverse effects than positive. Being a great writer isn't going to help you if you are struggling with depression. It may help you cope, but when you break, you break, and being able to write a nice novel won't stop you from hanging yourself.
And that is really the question then; if you use roleplaying as an escape and do not focus on real life as well, is that dangerous? Does it mean you might 'break' sooner by ignoring your real life duties and such? And yes the same would go for videogames and movies and food and anything you might get addicted to as a manner of escape, I agree.
@Chrononaut Agreed on the first bit. Over-diagnosis is a bitch, as I said. This is the thing I've been pointing out though - those that are genuinely ill probably do not speak openly about it, and probably do not even look for professional help. Or at least, not immediately. For every diagnosis of depression, for example, I am sure there are 10 people (statistics show they are probably middle aged white males, so imagine if you're a middle-aged white male.. would you look for professional help? Probably not) that actually do suffer from depression who do not get diagnosed because they don't want to be diagnosed.
Your personal anecdote doesn't really do much for me though. Not sure what you wanted me to take away from that.
@Vilageidiotx Probably. I mean that really just highlights how we are all somewhat mentally ill, to varying degrees of it, isn't it? One could say everyone suffers from an anxiety type disorder - it's just that some people never suffer from the symptoms and others suffer from it to a much higher degree. So where do we cut off 'who is ill' and where do we say these are just personality traits?
@shylarah I think the reverse placebo effect is interesting, though. I mean, thinking about it, I would never accept professional help. And I could understand that some people might suffer a reverse placebo effect - imagine taking pills for your depression. I can imagine a lot of people would be satisfied with it because it artificially restores chemical balances making you feel 'happier'. But I can also imagine that for a lot of people, this wouldn't feel 'real'. And that might lead to a reverse placebo - where the medicine actually makes you feel worse because you realize you're not actually happy, you just feel that way because of pills.
Interesting.
I think you are on the right track when you say that escapism is something inherent to all hobbies. Though, I feel like roleplaying might again be a step further on the level of escape, because it doesn't focus on the 'self' as much as the 'other' (i.e. your characters) and takes away any thoughts about real life because, well, you're not thinking about real life, but about the character. But in the same way I'd argue that it is the same as reading, gaming, watching a movie, or playing a sport. It's escape in the end. Even social interaction can be 'escapism' from your illness. So, the definition of escapism really could be dependent on what you are trying to escape from. So as long as you are not working on (issue x) then you are escaping from it. That would mean that regardless of what you are doing, you are always doing something that is escaping from something else.
Perhaps a bit too deep there.
I suppose you hit the nail on the head, however, noting that anything that you do to escape ultimately does not come from the act itself, but rather the effect of that act being that you're ignoring something else. That would mean that in moderation it shouldn't be bad - as long as you're still working on real life.
As for what's healthy for me, I don't think RPG has anything to do with my problems to be fair. Like I said, genetics fucked me, so it's not like I can change anything about that. Going on RPG or not won't change the situation - which, like those with chronic physical disabilities, is true for most things in life. I find that in the case of genetic things that you can't change, it's best to just come to terms with that stuff.
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