Lived Experience Forum

[Jasper_123]

Hi all! 

Just wanted to post a fun one:

whose a character whose experience of mental health relates to your own / who do you feel well represented by? 

As a person with BPD I feel we don't often get represented (recently watched 'the twelve' on sbs or netflix which had two BPD characters) 

[tyme]

That's certainly very interesting. I never know about these BPD characters. Did they straight out say they had BPD? @Jasper_123 

Very interesting thread. Although I don't have my own to share, I'd be interested in what others have to say.

[TideisTurning]

Oooh. This is a really cool idea for a thread @Jasper_123! Something that comes to mind for me is the trauma reaction of a character, Jo, from Grey's Anatomy upon being re-confronted by her trauma that, other than being a tad dramatised (because TV) and being due to a different source, felt pretty realistic and resonant for me. It's most notable on episode 9 of season 14, though content/ trigger warning- it's likely to be pretty intense, particularly for those with LE of trauma, abuse and DV, so if that applies for you, please proceed with caution.

@Didier @1978 @MayaBird07 @cherryblossom8 @chibam, curious if any of you have examples you might like to share? 

[LilMapleLeaf]

@Jasper_123 

One of my favourite tv shows ever is Bluey (yes it's a kids show but its so good!) and there is an episode called army which focuses on a Jack Russel called Jack. He has ADHD (which isn't explicitly said but is made very clear). When I first watched this episode I cried so much because of the beautiful representation that was shown through Jack. I find that with media representation of ADHD, they are always just naughty and trouble makers which just makes us with ADHD feel worse about ourselves however with Jack you could see how hard he was trying to be good and how much it frustrated him when he couldn't pay attention or he would forget things. He is just a kid trying to fit in. He also has a beautiful friendship with a red kelpie who values Jack for who he is.

Also special shout out to Chloe Hayden for her autistic representation in Australian media and advocating for using accessibility devices and making them cool.

[chibam]

@Jasper_123  @TideisTurning 

In regards to my ongoing problems, representation in media is a bit of a trainwreck for me. I'll come back to that later.

But in terms of characters who's experiances really resonated with me, one standout example I can think of is Phil Saviano (who was a real person) from the film Spotlight.

Phil was a victim of a pedophile priest; however the film doesn't really delve into this part of his history as it does with several other characters. Instead, Phil is used by the film more to illustrate the struggles and frustrations of trying to raise awareness of the widespread phenomenon of abuse, within an overall community that refuses to believe or acknowledge it.

Early in the film, he sits down with the focal newspaper reporters to talk about the phenomenon of child sex abuse within the Catholic church. Every statement he makes is met with sceptical responses from the reporters. They think he is an unhinged crank, and Phil realizes this. But everything he says is subsequently proven to be true by the reporters.

Thankfully, unlike Phil, I have no personal experiance of sexual abuse. But when I first saw Spotlight, this guy really resonated with me; because the resistance he continually faced in trying to blow the whistle on the abuse phenomenon was strikingly similar to what I was facing at the time whenever I tried to talk about my harmful experiance of therapy.

It's much easier to talk openly and welcomely about this stuff now. But back then, nobody wanted to hear it. Everybody only ever wanted to talk about how wonderful and helpful therapy is for "many people", and if you tried to ever talk about how dammaging it was for you, you were gently given the hint that your critical stance towards therapy was unwanted and unwelcome. I can't even count the number of times I was accused of being a Scientologist, because that was the only concievable reason why I might've had a grievance against therapists.

So yeah, in that regard, I found Phil Saviano to be a really relatable character.

Unfortunately, regarding my more pressing and ongoing struggles, media tends to be much less kind.

My most pressing problem is loneliness, and the media does not seem to portray lonely men sympathetically. Their standout examples of lonely men seem to either be the "creepy stalker"-type weirdo, or the "gun-toting, rage-filled incel"; neither of which reflect me or my conduct even remotely.

A clip from a US TV show came up in my reccommended Youtube feed recently. It was about a lonely "incel" who guns down a bunch of women for "not giving him the time of day". It makes my heart sink, thinking that people watch this and perhaps go on to make assumptions that this is what a lonely man is truly like, under the surface.

[MayaBird07]

Claire Danes in Homeland does pretty well.