ARE WE GETTING IT

Laura:

That fiction must allow space for representation of every aspect of the human experience is unarguable. To effectively prohibit writers to tap their own interests in the application of their unique narrative skill would be a incredible misstep – as well as a misunderstanding of what true representation requires. However, it is our job as readers to ask questions about the kind of representation that we are promoting through our purchases and our words. To take, for example, Mark Haddon’s work as a sign that the literary portrayals of mental illness are where they should be is to miss the publishing world’s failure to centralise authors with a first-hand experience of psychological disorders. Yet, there remains a pervasive and very obvious fear of the deviance from social norms that mental illness represents. Where we have become more comfortable discussing the behind-closed-doors symptoms of depression or anxiety (particularly where that anxiety looks like stress, in its most socially-acceptable form), illnesses such as bipolar and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) – as well as symptoms that include self harm, mania etc – receive little attention. In many respects, our willingness to look at the more ‘acceptable’ forms of mental illness simply serves to reinforce the taboos elsewhere. We can pat ourselves on the back for a job well done, engaging in some self-congratulation for our ability to face the confusing world of someone with depression. In the same way, fictional portrayals of mental illness – told by those on the outside – allow us to comfortably assume that society is heading in the right direction, that representation is where it should be. The fact is that hearing about mental illness from someone who has suffered it remains a terrifying prospect to many of us. Populating fiction with voices that speak to the despair that drives suicide attempts or the details of psychosis is to entertain the limits of the mind’s capacity to cope with the experience of being human. It is horrifying. Yet, for many of us, it is also very real.