"Inaccurate Portrayal of Mental Illness" - Debunking the Myth | Olivia J

"An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all," -Oscar Wilde

"(in)accurate portrayal of mental illness"

That phrase gets thrown around a hell of a lot these days. 

And I'm sick of people abusing it. 

Phrases like this get thrown around concerning shows like 13 Reasons Why, and basically any other form of art that involves a story. However, it is grossly and inherently problematic because it assumes something extraordinarily harmful about mental illness itself:  that mental illness is homogenous. 

I think that most of us can agree that 13 Reasons Why is not a good show. The writing is poor, the characters are inconsistent, and the depiction of suicide is harmful. 

Now before you all light your torches and call me a hypocrite, let me establish:  there is a wrong way to portray mental illness, but there is not one single way to portray mental illness. 

Let me explain. Portraying mental illness incorrectly involves assigning inaccurate or inconsistent symptoms to a mental illness, perpetuating harmful or incorrect stereotypes and stigma around mental illness, and not portraying mental illness as something that is treatable. Basically, the wrong way of portraying mental illness is spreading inaccurate information. Most other things are up for debate.

The tricky part is that many people - including myself - found 13 Reasons Why as a very harmful and inaccurate portrayal of mental illness (I'm looking at you, producers-entirely-ignoring-the-advice-from-a-psychiatric-board). It idealizes the fallout from suicide, spinning it out to be revenge instead of untreated mental illness. It blames suicide on everyone else instead of Hannah Baker. It never puts a quantifier on mental illness, and paints an utterly hopeless picture of the topics it explores. 

However, I've spoken with many people who have identified with the bullying and social aspects of 13 Reasons Why. And who am I to invalidate their feelings and experiences? Despite that the myrad of reasons why 13 Reasons Why falls flat on its face, bullying can contribute to mental illness, and if 13 Reasons Why resonated with someone - if someone saw themselves in 13 Reasons Why and they felt it was an accurate portrayal of their struggles with bullying and mental illness - then I have no right to tell them any differently. Because guess what?

There's no one single way to have a mental illness. 

From depression, anxiety, and trauma, to schizophrenia, disassociative identity disorder, and eating/substance abuse disorders, everyone experiences mental illness differently. My PTSD doesn't look like your PTSD. My friend's depression doesn't look like my family member's depression. Portrayals and/or content that one person finds harmful or triggering may not bother or affect another. 

To claim that your experience of mental illness is the correct or only experience and that your experience of mental illness ought to be the only one portrayed in media is unbelievably selfish and insensitive to the millions of other people who experience mental illness differently than you.

Truthfully, this is partially a call-out post to myself, because I've claimed that 13 Reasons Why isn't an accurate portrayal of mental illness, because it's not. For me. However, I'm retracting that statement to some degree because I know it resonates with some people, and I don't want to invalidate them. I'm not perfect, and I continue to evolve and grow as an artist, a consumer, and a critic. 

However, next time you're tempted to call a piece of media an 'inaccurate portrayal of mental illness', consider whether it is literally a factually incorrect and harmful portrayal, or whether it just doesn't align with your experiences and therefore you personally can't relate to it. 

Because nine times out of ten, there's someone out there who can relate to it, and they shouldn't be robbed of the experience of being profoundly impacted and deeply understood by storytelling. Nobody should. 

~The WordShaker

How I Review Books | Olivia J

"We read to know we are not alone," -William Nicholson 

Now, this is a strange one, because I feel like, to the moderate reader, rating books is simple: one-through-five stars. However, I review books very differently than other people. I say this because, to me, a 2.5 star book isn't a bad book. Just an average one. 

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First, I think it's important to understand how I read. 

I read - and watch - VERY critically. I try to be both objective and subjective when I read or watch anything. The objective side of me analyzes the writing style, the character development, the story structure, and the overall effectiveness of these elements. The subjective side of me considers how much I like the story, how much I love the characters, and my overall enjoyment of the work. 

Now, these two things do intersect a tad. I tend to enjoy a book more if it's well written and constructed. I certainly have preferences that effect both my subjective and objective reception of a book. 

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Onto how I rate books, specifically. On my blog, it's a little different than how I rate books on Amazon/Goodreads. 

On my blog, I use two different rating scales. The first is my 'Objective Rating'. With my Objective Rating, I evaluate the book on technical levels. Does the writing flow, and does it fit within the story and character context? What events and elements add or detract from furthering the story's plot? How are the characters developed, and why is it effective or not? , et cetera. 

Strangely enough, there is a small gray area that contains books that are objectively good, but that I didn't enjoy. For example, I thought Charlotte from Retribution Rails was a well written character, but I just didn't like her all that much. Looking back, I think Frankenstein is a brilliant exploration of the ethics of science, groundbreaking science fiction, and the state of monstrosity, but I absolutely hated my life every time I had to read it. Books, and elements from stories sit in this small gray area, where the said work is technically good, but it just didn't connect with me personally, so I didn't enjoy it. 

Secondly, the other way that I rate books is on my 'Enjoyment Level'. This one's pretty self explanatory. For this category, I consider my personal preferences, the entertainment value, how engaged and invested I am, and of course, how much I enjoy the overall reading experience. 

Some books (and stories) that I think are objectively not very good, but I still enjoyed them include the tv show Riverdale, and the ACOTAR series by Sarah J. Maas. The ACOTAR series is problematic and cluttered and corny, but the first two books sure did hold my interest and provided more than enough smutty entertainment. 

I rate both of these scales on a zero to ten scale (although I've never rated anything a zero before). This influences my overall out-of-ten score, which I frame as "X out of 10 would recommend." I usually omit how I rate the book on Amazon/Goodreads, since that kind of undercuts my previous three ratings in the first place. 

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In conclusion, when I rate a book 2.5 out of 5 stars, it doesn't mean that I didn't like the book, despite what the rating looks like aesthetically. Truly, it means the book was average. However, I do save 5 star ratings for books that blew me away. 

I hope this helped you better understand how I rate and review books! What's your process for reviewing something? Let me know in the comments of this post or on Instagram @olivia.j.the.wordshaker!

~The WordShaker

How We Learn Better From Bad Stories | Writing Advice

"Being a writer requires intoxication with language," -Jim Harrison

I have a strange hypothesis, that everyone should watch bad or subpar movies, read subpar books, etc. because we can learn about stories so much better that way. 

Now hear me out, because the popular dialogue says otherwise. By consuming good media and identifying why it's good, then our creations will become better, right?

Wrong. 

See, everything we create is tainted with our emotional connection to it, so we can't see it in full clarity. And we can unsuccessfully emulate something we like in our art. 

But if we cut out everything that's bad, everything that we can identify in subpar fiction, then that can vastly improve our writing. 

To prove my point, I recently watched The Space Between Us with my friend, and it was okay. It had its moments of brilliance, and, inevitably, it had its missteps. Spoilers, duh. 

But by watching a movie like this, I was able to look at it critically and better see what it did right and what it did wrong. 

When we read okay books and watch okay fiction, the bad stuff seems to pop out, as does the good stuff. For example, the origins of the relationship between Gardner (Asa Butterfield) and Tulsa (Britt Robertson) are never established, so there is a delay in which the audience connects to their relationship. 

The focus was also a little off. A significant amount of time is spent with the adults in the movie, namely Gardner's father and his mother figure, Kendra, when it should have been focused more on the romance between Tulsa and Gardner. I say this only because this was how the movie was marketed, and it seemed to be the overarching theme of the movie as well. 

But The Space Between Us also does some things well. It's aesthetically beautiful and has some poignant lines. It has a lot of potential in its concept and characters, but it barely scratches the surface with Gardner and Tulsa, who had the beginnings of enthralling and deep characters. 

Seeing the potential in an "okay" story is inspiring to the writer, scriptwriter, filmmaker, storyteller. By seeing what doesn't work and why - and, by default, seeing what does work - allows us to apply it to our own stories. 

So, go watch that 3/5 star rated movie, and read that book you know you probably won't like. It will help you in the long run. 

~The WordShaker

The Importance of Studying 'Your' Genre

"The thing about creativity is, people are going to laugh at it," -Twyla Tharp

In my bookshelf, I have an entire section dedicated to what I call 'my genre', which is along the blurry lines of survival/disaster/personal growth and change/romance. Seriously.  It's full of media, from my favorite movies (127 Hours, Titanic)  favorite TV shows (LOST),  favorite books (The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, The Book Thief), testimonials and true stories, along with reference journals and informational books all concerning my genre.

What makes it 'my genre' is that I enjoy the media in it so much and most of my novel writing falls in this genre. For a friend that I have, she loves the fantasy genre, and she pursues and consumes all the media she can about the sub-genres of fantasy.

However, what makes studying your genre so important is that you can know what works and what doesn't.  You can learn from the masters - or, at least, the people who are out there and producing publishable work. If you seek the media in your genre with a learning heart and a critical eye, you can then apply this to your work and see the flaws and strengths.

Enjoy watching movies and reading books, my writers!

~The WordShaker