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Intro
Truly, depression is a common mental illness that you may wish to replicate on the page with your characters. By the end of this blog post, you’ll have a better understanding of what depression is and how to portray it in your next creative writing piece.
What is Depression
So, what is depression?
Depression is characterized as a mental disorder that affects over 15% of the population at some point in their lives. Depression affects how people think and feel, often leading to a lack of motivation or enjoyment in activities that once pleased them.
According to MedCave and their scholarly article, “Depression: a review of its definition,”
“The word depression comes from the Latin “depressio” which means sinking.
The person feels sunk with a weight on their existence. It is a mood disorder that varies from: normal transient low mood in daily life itself, to clinical syndrome, with severe and significant duration and associated signs and symptoms, markedly different from normality.”
Symptoms
Overall, a person with depression should have five or more of these symptoms each day for two weeks to be considered diagnosed with depression.
According to Medical News Today’s article “How does a person receive a depression diagnosis?” the symptoms include:
- a depressed mood
- loss of interest or pleasure in almost all activities
- significant changes in weight
- changes in appetite
- sleep disturbances
- low energy and fatigue
- agitated movements or behaviors, such as fidgeting or rapid talking
- difficulty thinking or concentrating
- a delusional, excessive, or inappropriate sense of guilt
- a sense of worthlessness
- recurrent thoughts of death, including suicidal thinking or ideation
Causes of Depresssion
Just like most disabilities, depression doesn’t discriminate against race or age. Any person, at any stage of their life, can fall into depression and either get out of it or sink deeper. Depression is now an advocated and well-known illness that could affect you or those you love, and therefore is an issue we all should be well-versed in.
To factor in the various reasons an individual could get depressed would make an extensive list. To sum up, depression can be caused by an individual’s environment, genetics, or psychological factors.
“And then something invisible snapped insider her, and that which had come together commenced to fall apart.”
― Looking for Alaska
Types of Depression
Before you begin writing your character who is struggling with depression, do your research!
Ask yourself:
- What specific type of depression does your character have and why?
- What factors led them to this point?
- What symptoms will they be displaying?
- How does their mental disorder help the tension in your story?
There are a plethora of types of depression. According to LifeBulb’s article, “What Is Depression? Types, Symptoms, Causes, and Treatments,” some include
- Major depression
- Persistent depressive disorder
- Bipolar disorder
- Postpartum depression
- Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD)
- Psychotic depression
- Seasonal Affective disorder (SAD)
Major Depression: a mental condition defined by persistent poor mood, negative self-esteem, and lack of enthusiasm or satisfaction in typically pleasurable activities for at least two weeks, although many people experience it for much longer.
Persistent Depressive Disorder: a mental disorder recognized in patients who experience at least two main depressive symptoms for at least two years. Patients can sometimes seem irritable, gloomy, temperamental, or pessimistic.
Bipolar Disorder: a psychiatric condition characterized by significant mood fluctuations that elicit emotional highs (mania or hypomania) and lows (depression).
Postpartum Depression: identified in mothers who have significant depressive symptoms immediately after giving birth. A mix of events, including abrupt changes in hormone levels after childbirth, typically causes PPD.
Episodes of extreme sadness, worry, or weariness are significantly greater and stay far longer than the transient “baby blues,” which are the relatively moderate melancholy and anxiety symptoms many new moms face in the first few days following delivery.
Mothers experiencing PPD may also experience postpartum anger.
Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD): a mental disorder that produces significant irritation, melancholy, or worry in a week or two before the period. Symptoms often disappear two to three days after menstruation begins. Some symptoms include suicidal thoughts, intense anger, mood swings, lack of motivation, feelings of hopelessness, anxiety, crying or panic attacks.
WebMD’s article “Pyschotic Depression” defines this disorder accordingly.
Psychotic depression: a subtype of major depression that occurs when a “severe depressive illness includes some form of psychosis. The psychosis could be hallucinations, delusions, or some other break with reality.”
Seasonal Affective disorder (SAD): a type of depression that’s related to changes in seasons — SAD begins and ends at about the same times every year. For example, once winter starts, a patient won’t begin to improve mentally until spring weather returns.
Symptoms of Depression
Ultimately, many factors cause various forms of depression. There are symptoms of depression you can look out for and recreate within your own characters.
If you’re writing a character who is younger, some signs could be:
- Intense worrying or anxiety
- Not wanting to socialize or join social activities
- Lack of enjoyment in things that once gave them pleasure
- Lack of motivation to try (at home, in school, etc.)
An older character experiencing signs of depression would look more like:
- Having low self-esteem
- Negative mental voice, suicidal thoughts
- Quick emotional outbursts
- Extremely sleepy
- Abusing drugs
- Gaining weight
- Suicidal attempts (self-harm, scarring)
- Physical body declining in some way (losing hair, dry skin, acne, pale, etc.)
- digestive issues
- Insomnia
- Decreased libido
- Pessimetic view on life
Depression in Fictional Characters
Throughout fiction, there have been many examples of characters experiencing depression led by various upheaval events in their lives.
Below, you can check out some famous works known for their dark underlying mental health themes.
Find more Book lists here:
Novels:
- The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
- A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
- Persuasion by Jane Austen
- The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
- A Secret History by Donna Tartt
- Beautiful World, Where Are You? by Sally Rooney
- A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
- To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
- Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
- Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
- Hamlet by Shakespeare (Play)
- Normal People by Sally Rooney (Read blog post below for full review!)
Writing a Depressed Character
When you start creating your own characters who are struggling with depression, don’t stereotype. Normally, when you think of depression symptoms, you’ll picture similar personality traits to Eeyore from Winnie-The-Pooh: tired, slow, and sad.
However, depression is shown differently based on the individual. Perhaps your character is struggling with their self-confidence, and their relationship to food is becoming unhealthy. Maybe your character doesn’t have many friends and chooses to take many long naps each day.
Factors
Firstly, what is causing your character’s depression? How has the past brought them to such a low mental state? To make an authentic mental disorder come alive on the page, focus heavily on behavior, especially if the story isn’t written in first person.
Remember, not only environmental factors can cause depression, but psychological ones too. Has your character been traumatized or bullied? What makes them feel unworthy? Will they eventually get better?
Symptoms
When describing your character who is struggling with depression, show-don’t-tell. You could simply tell the reader, like in this example, with simple informative language.
Example 1:
“Smith felt like he could die then, standing near the bridge’s edge. It was all a big nothing and no one would miss him. At least, the pain would end.”
However, simple writing can lose the weight of this disorder to your reader, especially if they themselves can’t relate. Display the person’s behavior more. Show how quickly their mood switches when talking to someone. Instead of stating they are sad- show it.
Example 2:
“His relfection sent a chill through him, standing above the clear mirror of freshwater. He found his head leaning slightly lower, itching to get a better view. His hands released their grip slightly, and the noises of urbanization all blurred into a hum around him, leaving his heartbeat tapping quietly in his ears. A little closer. A little closer.”
After reading through, you can see in example two much less informative language. Instead, the prose is more poetic and descriptive, helping the reader picture the character and be in the moment with them.
Check out the blog post below to learn how to show-don’t-tell in your writing!
Treatments
As your character gets progressively better or worse, ask yourself, how does their mental disorder help your story? Does it help portray the atmosphere/world your story is set in? Does it propel your character into new situations and add tension to your emotional arc?
All that being said, is your character going to get better? If they do, will that help satisfy the plot? Treatment can look different for your characters.
- Perhaps they will finally get medicated
- They reach out to friends or family for support
- A large stress has been removed from their lives
- They speak up
- Perhaps, they change their routine (get outside more, eat healthy, sleep regularly, etc.)
However, if your character doesn’t get better, how does that affect the stakes of your story or your overarching themes? When writers choose to have characters commit suicide, it drastically changes the story’s tone.
If you wish to kill off your character, you need to ensure your ending is still well thought out and the story is satisfied in some way.
Conclusion
To conclude, mental disorders are real, and many individuals are greatly affected by them today. If you or a loved one needs help, reach out!
When writing characters that struggle with depression, make sure you do your research to create an authentic representation on the page. Writing about mental or physical disorders/disabilities spreads awareness to others, so create accurately!
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