Discussion Why do stories (fictional or otherwise) about mental illness always have to have a hopeful spin?

[symphony]

This pisses me off. Imagine the average opinion article by someone who has been mentally ill and suicidal. They're gonna paint things optimistically. Their life has been shit, but they're growing! They're still around! It's hopeful! You can do it too!! The same in just about any mainstream fictional story. Or imagine a mentally ill character. It seems the framing is always, "they're depressed, but (insert positive spin silver lining)". Or "they're psychotic, but (insert positive spin silver lining)".

Once in group therapy I was in, we did an exercise where we watched a couple clips depicting mental illness in movies (which is stupid as fuck for actual therapy) to discuss, and I brought this up. Like hey, why does there have to be this positive spin silver lining bullshit? Why can' it just be "they're mentally ill, they're suicidal, the end?" Why do we have to force these stories to be hopeful? That got shut down hard, everyone's response was pretty much "but there is always a silver lining!!! It is hopeful!!!!!!" Like, give me a break.

Wondering what you all have to say.

 

[I want to end it]

This is true in most media and especially all mainstream media. Things have to be spun in a positive way to give people hope. Society relies on the masses to remain happy and keep producing for those at the top.

 

[rationaltake]

Yep. That's how it goes. There's almost always a little side story about how the mentally ill person suddenly starts behaving erratically or goes off the rails. It turns out they haven't been taking their meds so they get persuaded to dose themselves up again and hey presto! all is rainbows and unicorns again. Like the solution to mental illness is medication. And the mentally ill are only acceptable if they're drugged into submission by an all-knowing psychiatrist. Makes me annoyed!!

Theres a popular book about a suicidal person finding hope and in real life the author committed suicide after writing the book. I hope that in the future, suicidal people write books where the characters actually do end up committing suicide.

That says it all! Somebody should write a book about this author and their book...

 

[Fadeawaaaay]

David Foster Wallace has a couple stories and I don't think they have happy endings

 

[XIII]

Everybody wants a happy ending, right?

 

[Scythe]

My take on this is that there's three main reasons that people write stories related to mental illness. One, they themselves suffer from it and this is their way of self-expression.Two, they are trying to show normal people what it's like to live in a world of agony. Three they are writing for pure attention. In the first scenario, the author might be writing hope into their stories because they want to be saved. In the second and third scenario, the author usually writes hope into the story so the targeted audience, (people without mental illness) are more likely to read/enjoy it. There are also some people with mental illness that like stories with hope in it because they want to be saved.

If you want to read a book where there's no redemption just suffering give 'No Longer Human' a try, I like that book.

 

[qwaspel]

yeah i've found that there are very few stories about mental illness that arent like this

 

[Hollowillow]

This pisses me off. Imagine the average opinion article by someone who has been mentally ill and suicidal. They're gonna paint things optimistically. Their life has been shit, but they're growing! They're still around! It's hopeful! You can do it too!! The same in just about any mainstream fictional story. Or imagine a mentally ill character. It seems the framing is always, "they're depressed, but (insert positive spin silver lining)". Or "they're psychotic, but (insert positive spin silver lining)".

Once in group therapy I was in, we did an exercise where we watched a couple clips depicting mental illness in movies (which is stupid as fuck for actual therapy) to discuss, and I brought this up. Like hey, why does there have to be this positive spin silver lining bullshit? Why can' it just be "they're mentally ill, they're suicidal, the end?" Why do we have to force these stories to be hopeful? That got shut down hard, everyone's response was pretty much "but there is always a silver lining!!! It is hopeful!!!!!!" Like, give me a break.

Wondering what you all have to say.

Maybe because if people kill themselves after watching the 1rst movie, they can't make money on a sequel.

They made a realistic movie about the joker... It really freaked me out.

 

[foreverfalling]

In terms of general media, I've always wondered why all endings have to be happily ever after. Don't these people get sick and bored of the same ending? It's so unrealistic. I would have so much preferred seeing some movies with a dark ending. In high school I'd imagine making a movie with a bad ending, and how ground breaking that would be. Now I understand no one except me and some of you would watch it.

 

[Euthanza]

I never trust therapy, I think it's just waste of time and money to find me another distraction which I could find my self. What I need as help is to access Nembutal, that's all.

 

[[HNO]]

joker(2019)
himizu
ben X
videodrome
vanilla sky
fight club
rainman
elephant(2003)
a short film about killing
i stand alone
last life in the universe
sling blade
noose(1958)

 

[ManicPanic2018]

I would strongly recommend the video game Disco Elysium for a take that's a bit different. There's no real takes of "It gets better", no "You will make a difference in this world". It's a very bleak story and world where you play a suicidal walking disaster of a man who's pretty much given up already (The game starts with you waking up from getting so black out drunk trying to run away from your problems that you've forgotten your own name).

I could talk for hours about it, it's probably my favourite video game of all time. Covers themes of suicide, self hatred, being powerless in an uncaring world that will simply carry on without you. It's not all completely hopeless, it will definitely make you think a bit. I've never really found anything else similar since I played it and thoroughly recommend it.

 

[FuneralCry]

Maybe it's because people don't want to accept the fact that not everything improves for everyone and that sometimes life is not worth living, they would rather deny reality.
I think that a lot of media is created to appeal to a wider audience and after all our society is so pro life so the creator of the story would rather make it hopeful to make the story more popular and so it doesn't get censored. It would be negative for the society who needs workers if there was lots of media around that suggests that life can actually get so horrible and there is no chance of things improving as this may convince people that death can be a better option.