Portraying Mental Illnessses with Accuracy and Sensitivity

Hello all, I've been working on an original novel and, in the novel, there is a couple characters that aren't exactly neurotypical. I've put much research into the disorders they have, and I plan on putting in more (keep in mind, I'm neurotypical myself) I just wanted to get some feedback on these and perhaps if you've been affected by any of these or have experience with people with these, your responce will be especially appreciated. (Note: all of these characters live in a setting with limited knowledge of medicine/mental health, so obviously medication is EXTREMELY limited and explicit mention of what the character is affected by will be limited to Ambiguous Disorder)

• Character #1 is a female empath. She was born with exceptionally strong empathy abilities, but unfortunately it often to take in information from the world around her (something kinda like a sensory disorder) this works out for her mostly as a Disability Superpower, so it's more of a mild case
• Character #2 used to be a soldier in the war (many characters in this have PTSD to some degree, there's a war going on, nearly everyone is affected) he left combat several years ago, but still has symptoms of PTSD. Sometimes he has really horrible nightmares, when he gets surpised by sudden noises, sometimes he has to deliberately keep himself from striking another person, he'll share short anecdotes about people he met while he was a soldier, but is very touchy about it. Other than that, he's a pretty nice, compasionate guy who sometimes likes to keep to himself.
• Character #4 is somewhere on the ADD/ADHD spectrum. He is very intelligent and has extensive knowledge of various languages. He is quite extroverted, occasionally flighty. Unfortunately, he's not particuarly good at organinization and ocassionally becomes absent minded and forgets what he is doing. He has an assitant who assists him with organizing notes and keeping on track. I'm planning on killing him off, but his death is completely unrelated to his mental state.
• Character #5 is a villian, although he is more of a Cry for the Devil kind of villian rather than a Complete Monster. He has Borderline personality disorder and was son of the original Big Bad and took his place once he died. He was abused as a child by his father, who basically raised him to be a child soldier. There will be references to his past self harming He isn't particuarly happy with his place as the Big Bad. Occasionally he will become listless and depressed for days and his thoughts on people will cycle between Complete Monster and Living Emotional Crutch. Very few of the other villians take his suicidal urges seriously. His illness/past is not used as a get out of jail free card for his actions. He still allows the murder, slavery and injustice his father allowed during his own reign. He ends up killing himself to escape capture by the heroes.

edited 30th Oct '12 8:44:34 AM by TheMuse

I bring up the deaths because I want to avoid the mental illness equivalent of Bury Your Gays

Bump

Wait more than a day for people to read all this and come up with a reasonable answer.

Well, considering I don't have the actual work to go on, you seem fine.

Particularly since you've done research on it.

This.

Also, remember that for at least 1 and 4, this will be the way they've always experienced the world. They may be aware that it's unusual compared to other people, but for them, it's normal. It's about as hard for a neuro-atypical person to understand/imagine how a neurotypical person experiences things as it is for a neurotypical person to understand how a neuro-atypical person experiences the world.

Thanks, I appreciate it

Does anyone see any problems with #5? Because I haven't seen really any mainstream uses of Borderline Personality Disorder in media, and I don't want to create an excessively negative use of it. Then there's the whole Self-Harm thing, should I just imply it or just not bring much attention to it?

edited 4th Nov '12 7:48:22 AM by TheMuse

It looks like you're doing your research and trying to do things right, so you're probably on the right track. In fact, I think #5 sounds like a really interesting character. If you're really concerned, you might want to try to get opinions from people who have experiences with these disorders. People with first-hand experience might have something more helpful to offer.

I have a character(s) who is an example of the Sharing the Body trope. His (dead in the womb) twin brother controls one of his arms, and essentially timeshares the rest of the body with him. How much do I need to worry about/distance this portrayal from that of a mental illness or disorder. (I was thinking along the lines of Identity Dissociation Disorders, for example.)