Writing About Topics Like Depression Child Abuse Cancer Without Any Personal Experience

How did you heal from childhood emotional neglect/abuse?

My mother left my father when I was 3. My mother was on social welfare. She is bipolar and had intestine cancer. I went to a foster home when I was younger because she had a psychosis and couldn’t take care of me and my sisters. I didn’t really know my dad. I suffered from sexual abuse. My life has been tremendously difficult.I have healed through many psychotherapy and therapy I have received. I also started writing when I was in the mental hospital in 2012. Writing is self-exploration. It’s a way to dig deep inside yourself to bring unresolved issues into your awareness. You need to make the transfer between your unconscious to your conscious.You need to be aware that your thoughts become who you are. If you constantly self-depreciate, you’ll end up in depression. Also, know that emotional trauma lived during childhood can impact you negatively in adulthood through epigenetics. The best way to counterattack these natural tendencies is to reverse the process.Epigenetics is the way chemical modifications impact the structure of DNA. Chemical compounds can affect the way the molecule of DNA folds into space. By having a different 3D structure, its nucleic acids are more or less copied into RNA that will result in a protein. You can change the expression of your genes by thinking differently. Instead of translating genes that impact your outcome negatively, you can develop new neurons through neurogenesis that will make synapses that will shoot more serotonin, noradrenaline, and dopamine on its axons. Neurogenesis can be made through exercise. Your brain is neuroplastic. You will also release endorphins that help to cope with pain.Be exposed to the thoughts of famous philosophers, sociologists, and psychologists. Open the doors of your perceptions to new ideas. Read about quantum mechanics and its impact on the way the world is constructed. Be an artist and find new ways of reinventing the material that you are exposed to. You have an opportunity in front of you. You don’t choose what happens to you, but you choose what you are going to do about it. Transform these hardships into possibilities of being better.

I want to write a depressed character but I do not suffer from depression. How do I write them realistically and in a non offensive way?

Firstly, if you’re writing a book, good luck! Writing is a hard task.Okay, to the actual topic. Here’s a list:DON’T:Make it seem as if depression is a strange disorder. Many people have it!Make them dark and brooding. Some people, if not most, don’t make their depression known.(connected to the above) Have the character make their depression well-known. Most of us keep it to ourselves and our close ones.Have them depressed all the time. Sometimes, depression can come and go.Always connect depression to self-harm and suicide. They are definitely related, but not all who are depressed self-harm/are suicidal.DO:If you are adding things like self-harm, suicide or abuse, add some kind of warning at the start of the story to warn those who might find this topic sensitive. For example just say “Trigger warning: This story includes…” It may spoil the story, but that’s better than having a person breaking down because of your story.If this character is the main character, make sure that as you write the story, their thoughts are shown to the reader. People who are depressed tend to overthink things, but never speak those thoughts out.QUICK TIPS:It is okay to make this character seem somewhat loud and obnoxious! Sometimes depressed people are the ones you would never expect. There are many people out there who use anger as a way to let their feelings out.Making this character a villain is okay! It’s kind of like really weird equality - if someone without depression can be a villain, why can’t someone with depression be one?You could add some kind of note at the end of the story that announces the symptoms of depression, and telling those with personal issues to seek help. (although, if you are adding this, make sure to say you’re not a doctor! It’s not an accurate diagnosis.)Hope I helped!

You don’t want any help with your depression, you don’t want medication, you just don’t care and trust your psychiatrist or any psychiatrist, how do you deal with this?

Let’s change it to brain cancer: You don’t want any chemo, you don’t want any radiation therapy, no diagnostic cat scans or MRI’s, you don’t want to listen to the finest oncologists and surgeons who have dealt with cases like yours for the past twenty years. Gee, how do you deal with that?I spent one straight month in bed and the next six months partnering with a psychiatrist, after having fired two as well as a new age moron whom I should have put out of HIS misery.The third guy was very expensive, and worth it. We would try a medication or combination of meds, and I would go back to him, agitated as hell after a week, and tell him THIS IS NOT WORKING!!!! And we’d try something else, and that was the way of things until we finally got it right. I still pay attention to my moods and I see him once a month, but thsat was every bit a life and death situation as my brain cancer scenario above. I finally got a diagnosis of bipolar II, which keeps me up at night , writing these silly opinions .Think of one big hole in your story; you obviously can’t mistrust all Psychiatrists, you don’t know them all well enough to mistrust them all. your job is talk to everyone whose ever been to a psychiatrist and glean from them who is the best and go see him or her, and learn to trust someone in the process.If I am writing to a third party, I wish you the best. There’s a way out for your loved one, but nobody in the entire world can make that first decision for him/her.Good luck……..