#PennedPossibilities 1033 — Would you or have ever considered writing a MC with mental illness? How would or did you approach the subject?

The MC is maybe psychotic, but definitely not a sociopath. After horrible illness and fever, she started seeing a black leopard nobody else sees, then speaking to it and petting it when it helps her deal with life. Later, when a friend's bodyguard was killed, his ghost appears and follows her around. When she speaks with him, he becomes the friend she remembered while alive and starts advising her and helping her figure things out, sometimes nagging her when she disagrees with his difficult truths, sometimes comforting her. Later, a slain alien joins her "spirit" menagerie, adding another uncomfortable agenda she needs to consider. She becomes a shaman, but is never "practicing" her religion per se; she has bigger fish to fry. She considers it a nuisance and appreciates it for a span of years (between novels) when menagerie abandons her and she can live normally.

It's an SF world where shamanism is one of the religions, so when she accidentally revives the talking control system running the generation ship (a rotating asteroid) everybody lives in (including aliens that had invaded centuries ago), she takes it in stride that it considers it her the captain. It's obviously another world spirit! Right?

How did I handle the mental illness implications?

Completely on the level.

While she works problems out with the help of her guardian spirits, they never give her information she could not have gotten by other means or by pure chance.

So... is she crazy mentally ill? A delusional schizophrenic? Or does the supernatural exist? The story challenges the concept of religious belief and, rigorously, does it completely on the level. Inquiring minds would have to read the story and decide for themselves.

The gimmick, should you want to call it that, is in sync with how the series Joan of Arcadia is presented. (Not sure if I wrote the story first or saw the series first). The fabulous highly-recommended cancelled-too-soon series also never clarifies whether the protagonist is crazy or is counseled by a deity—by the stories never giving Joan information she might otherwise guess or glean from living in the moment. The story challenges the audience to question belief, faith, and how mental illness affects people.

EDITED: Added info about whether Joan of Arcadia inspired the story or whether it uses the same gimmick to make the story resonate and make points about faith. And, yes, I am not religious. So faith fascinates me.

[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]

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EDITORIAL: Aurora needs an alternative to shooting people having a mental crisis

“Insisting that people ‘hide their crazy’ or risk being shot dead is ludicrous and unacceptable”

https://sentinelcolorado.com/opinion/editorial-aurora-needs-an-alternative-to-shooting-people-having-a-mental-crisis/

#AuroraCO #COleg #MentalIllness

EDITORIAL: Aurora needs an alternative to shooting people having a mental crisis

“Insisting that people ‘hide their crazy’ or risk being shot dead is ludicrous and unacceptable”

https://sentinelcolorado.com/opinion/editorial-aurora-needs-an-alternative-to-shooting-people-having-a-mental-crisis/

#AuroraCO #COleg #MentalIllness

https://youtu.be/849dmdc-Qf8
Why Medieval Knights Went Completely Insane

#medieval #knights #mentalhealth #ptsd #shellshocked #soldiers #veterans #mentalillness #trauma

Hello everyone,

We cannot thank you all enough for your staggering generosity. We have another month here in the most amazing apartment thanks to everyone. In fact, we overshot our goal for rent which is excellent, because sadly we need to put it towards auto repairs so my partner has reliable transportation to work.

My partner and I went on a dry run taking the bus to his work yesterday. This was an incredibly brave endeavor because there is definitely some of trauma attached to public transit for him buried deep enough that he can't even discuss it, not to mention his debilitating anxiety. I am just incredibly proud of him stepping out of his comfort zone.

Unfortunately this could be problematic. There's a substantial amount of walking for him, and he has severe plantar fasciitis (the podiatrist said my partner had some of the highest arches he'd ever seen). It's bad enough he had to give up a couple of jobs that he really enjoyed because it was simply too painful for him. Because our public transit runs less frequently on the weekends (particularly Sunday, because jesus), we might be looking at renting lyft/uber for him which is not ideal.

Additionally, while it isn't a war zone, it probably isn't the "best" part of town. My partner's aforementioned anxiety is not helped in this regard. I need to get him a little keychain pepper spray canister just in case.

So.. this brings us back to our car. It's a twenty year old sedan that used to be very pretty many years ago, with 167k miles on the odometer. It's got nearly new tires, brakes, a recent transmission flush, and a relatively decent interior.

The mechanic quoted us roughly $1600 to address the issues we're facing and there's no guarantee it will solve everything. It additionally doesn't include OEM front shocks and struts that they strongly advised were in need of replacement, and doesn't even address the throttle position sensor/throttle body quirks I've fought with for ten years.

Basically I have to decide: do I want to try and keep this poor car going? We can't even afford our rent on our own, so a car payment on top of everything would be a non-starter. We don't even have the income needed for one of those buy-here-pay-here-loan-shark used car lots, let alone a traditional bank loan.

On the other hand, I don't want to make decisions based on the "sunk cost fallacy" either. We (and by we I mean our family and friends, of course) have spent a substantial amount of money on this vehicle already. Do we really want to pour more into it? Even if we did all of this *and* the shocks and struts *and* the throttle body, that transmission has 167k miles on it, and had never been flushed (to my knowledge) until less than 20k miles ago. What if that sucker decides to go?

To be fair, a substantial portion of this $1600+ we're looking at are routine maintenance tasks that has been postponed for a decade or more (Why the fuck is a "charcoal canister" $700?? The spark plugs and coils don't even cost that much), which in my eyes doesn't make this car so much a "lemon", as just severely neglected.

I have no idea what to do, but I need to do it quickly. I do *not* trust the local tow companies to give us leeway about the car registration, but I have nowhere to move it until then, if I can even make it anywhere the way it's now running. Our temporary permit expired this weekend which means we can't legally drive it and we're sitting ducks for the tow companies. In my lovely state, you have to go directly to the DMV to request a second temp permit and I don't have time in the next few days to dedicate six! hours to get to our DMV and back by public transit.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

*sigh* I better wrap this up before I become self-deprecating, and because I need to start getting ready for my exciting workday at my illustrious retail job.

If you're willing AND able, please boost and if possible donate. If you can't donate, *do NOT feel guilty* for being in the same boat as us. Your feelings about it are valid but rest assured you needn't feel bad.

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More memes from ten years ago.

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