So over on WoW Ladies @ LJ, there was a post there was a post about how someone tried to join a guild and they were asked “Any history of mental illness?”
*cue record screech sound effect*
I was abso-fucking-lutely LIVID at this point, but I read through the remainder of the post and decided to comment with the following:
First off, you cannot have both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia at once. You could have a merging of symptoms called schizoaffective disorder but you cannot be both bipolar or schizophrenic (as quoted from my psychiatrist, once I asked after someone I know was bragging online they were both).
Secondly, I think that guild needs to go do something I’m probably not allowed to say here. It’s pure shite to have someone be judged based upon whether or not they have a mental disorder. I blog openly about my mental health and my eating disorder (oh, look, I also even talk about how I game drama-free! with mental illness!) and you know what? NONE OF THAT causes me to “cause trouble” within my guild.
I’m currently semi-unmedicated because treatment of symptoms is difficult for me: most SSRI’s and other anti-depressants that would treat parasuicial behavior and my severe depression cause me to become extremely manic, paranoid and anxious. At present time, I’m only being treated for a circadian rhythm disorder (reveral of sleep cycle) as well as hypomania with seroquel (and a very high dose at that), as well as klonopin as needed for extremely crippling anxiety attacks. But lets look at my mental disorder and how it affects me in game and how it DOESN’T affect me or my guild, in game:
-anxiety makes it difficult to perform a role I’m not used to (aka, tanking) so tanking DS the other week caused some anxiety but I was coaxed through it by some lovely guild members
-depressive episodes can make me not want to do anything, let a lone raid, but since my GL suffers the same ailments I do, we talk through it together and are very open with our guild mates about what bothers us so that we can adjust roles as needed (sometimes, depression causes a lack of focus and instead of tanking/healing, we’d be better off DPSing and letting someone else take charge of those roles – we’ve enough alts that it’s okay)
-being mentally ill has NEVER caused ANY drama in ANY of the guilds I have been in – and people who are quick to pick on mentally ill are fucking shite and should go DIAF, as far as I’m concerned.
I don’t deny there are some people that might not have such a hold on their mental illnesses nor adequate treatment like we do, but those are few and far between and should NEVER be premise to alienate another who wishes to join an activity/group/guild just because of bad experiences before.
Look at it this way: burned by an awful ex, do we stop dating? No, we carry on and try again. Just because you’ve dealt with someone who is mentally ill and isn’t treating it properly does NOT mean all of us are like that.
Sorry for the TL;DR but I’m sick and tired of the stigma attached to mental illness and that person whose guild you wanted to join, just rubbed me the wrong way.
