Table of Contents
Post 1: Trigger Warning and Intent of Post
Post 2: Guideline (types, causes, symptoms)
Post 3: Good Writing Techniques
Post 4: Recovery and Moving Forward, General Checklist, Conclusion, Acknowledgments

Trigger warning.
This post discusses the portrayal of depression, mental illness, suicidal ideation, self-harm, psychosis, and related difficult subjects in fiction. If you are struggling with these issues, if you deem that any of these can be triggering, or if these themes are of no relevance for you, please feel free to click away. However, if you do wish to portray these subjects authentically and are in the headspace to read this, I hope this thread helps you do so with accuracy and care. This is not an easy subject to explore, which is what makes knowledge about it matter as much as it does.

Intent of this post.
I want to clarify first that angst, trauma, and depression do not automatically make a character deep. They are not factors on a checklist or bingo card that every character must have. Characters can have their own internal conflicts, completely sans the terrible things happening to them. They can be deep.

There is a certain appeal that darker subjects have on some authors. If that is your only reason for delving into a subject like this, I urge you to step back and reevaluate.

However, it is true that the depiction of mental illnesses (which this post will only cover some of) can add realism and stakes when done well. However, when not, they can also perpetuate harmful stereotypes. Not only can this alienate readers, but it also makes writing flat and with less meaning. Good intentions are where you should start, and hopefully, it will end in good writing.

Not everything I say here will be a perfect fit for everyone, but I've tried my best to be as objective as possible, while going beyond just clinical facts into the sphere of writing.

Guideline.
A description of types of illnesses featuring depression, causes of depression, and symptoms of depression. The latter has a guide under each symptom on how to write that particular symptom.
Depression can refer to quite a few things, and comes in different forms. While your character will not necessarily know which form of depression they have, the writer should be aware of it in order to accurately portray the particular condition. It is worth researching these separately to understand which may be most fitting for your character’s situation. Not all of these are categorised under depression, but may feature depression:

• Major Depressive Disorder or Clinical Depression. This is the most discussed form of depression. It is a severe form of depression.
• Persistent Depressive Disorder. This type of depression seems to have no clear end or beginning. It is chronic and long-term, but milder than Major Depressive Disorder. Think of this as a perpetually overcast sky.
• Bipolar Disorder. Note that this is not a depressive disorder, but depression dominates in Type II. This is different from a depressive disorder due to the alternation between (hypo)manic and depressive episodes.
• Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder. This can be fitting for our website's school setting as it cannot be diagnosed past eighteen. Chronic, severe irritability as the default mood, frequent explosive outbursts disproportionate to the trigger, and loss of control.
• Seasonal Affective Disorder. Depression that follows a seasonal pattern, usually autumn/winter onset, spring/summer remission.

Depression of any sort can occur due to a variety of reasons. They are not limited to, but include the following:

• Genetics. Depression can be passed down. This could function within your character's backstory as a plot detail.
• Brain chemistry and inflammation or changes in hormones. This means even a character who seems to be leading a "perfect" life with no disruptions in family and events can still have depression.
• Trauma. Loss and grief. Significant negative life changes or stressful events. This is very common in roleplay settings. There is nothing wrong with this, as long as it is not done with laziness. The bad event is only a catalyst, not a character trait.
• Often a combination of factors. The stress-vulnerability model. A character has a genetic predisposition (vulnerability) and a life event (stress) activates it.

The following symptoms can be experienced in depression, although it is not limited to them. It is also important to note that not everyone will experience everything, and this is not intended to just be a "checklist". Note that most of these are from the diagnostic criteria of Major Depressive Disorder, although some are add-ons for the sake of representation.

• Low mood for prolonged periods of time. Low mood becomes a baseline rather than just a single emotion, like a shift in the very air your character breathes. People with depression have compared it to a screen or filter over their life. It can last weeks, months, or even years. Low mood does not necessarily mean your character is crying or in distress all the time. It can present as emptiness, flatness, numbness, or a persistent quiet despair. It is the absence of joy, hope, and anticipation. Even when something good happens, people with depression experiencing low mood may be unable to feel it. Everything is toned down: pleasure, curiosity, connection, even pain. Low mood can affect how your character interprets the world. Neutral events become negative, good news is met with suspicion or indifference, compliments are dismissed. The future becomes something that is not looked forward to. In some (children and those who tend to externalise their emotions), low mood can manifest in irritability. Often, the feature of low mood is not the fact that it is dramatic, but persistent.
• Diminished interest or pleasure in activities once enjoyed. With the clinical term for this being anhedonia, it is one of the most defining and devastating symptoms. It is the loss of the ability to feel pleasure, interest, or reward from things that once mattered. The hobbies that built up your character will become flat, distant, and effortful. Anhedonia can also affect relationships – the character can look at someone they love yet feel nothing at all. Often this is paradoxical because the support and coping mechanism of hobbies can be exactly what the character needs most in the moment. Write about the confusion and disorientation of once loving something yet feeling nothing now. Write about neglecting hobbies, ignoring friends, and letting parts of your identity slip away.
• Change in appetite. Weight loss/gain. Changes in appetite can go in two directions. Some characters lose interest in food entirely: it can become effortful, nauseating, or seem to be of little meaning. Eating can feel either pointless or overwhelming. Others eat compulsively, seeking comfort or stimulation. Write the small, daily details: a meal skipped, an apple oxidising on the bedside table, the third snack for the morning. Write the effects: the gradual loss or gain in weight, showing in the buckling of the belt or trying to wear a pair of jeans.
• Insomnia or hypersomnia. Sleep can be difficult, but it can also be an escape. Insomnia is being awake while exhausted, with a racing mind or a blank one refusing to switch off. It can be waking up at 3 a.m. knowing one cannot go back to bed again. Hypersomnia, on the other hand, can often be a coping mechanism to attempt to shut off the negative thoughts experienced waking. Often, people with hypersomnia can sleep through the entire day yet not feel refreshed at all. Write about the small details: how the world looks when everyone should be asleep, or how it feels being stagnant when the world is moving. That odd liminal feeling in the middle of the night or the middle of noon, still lying in bed. The naps that do nothing. Write about how this affects your character, whether it be grogginess or eye bags.
• Psychomotor agitation or retardation. Psychomotor agitation is restless energy without purpose. Pacing from one room to the other, legs bouncing, fingers tapping, an internal whir of energy that demands release but finds no relief. The character has trouble settling down or sitting still, even if movement accomplishes nothing. Psychomotor retardation, on the other hand, is the opposite, with slowing movements, speech often pausing, and completing simple actions with difficulty. Diagnostically, this is enough to be noticed by others on both sides of the spectrum.
• Fatigue or loss of energy. Beyond quotidian tiredness, the fatigue associated with depression is demanding. It cannot be fixed with a good night's sleep or a strong coffee, but is something that will feel like it has been written into the character's very bones. Every action, even the seemingly simple ones like showering, cooking, or speaking requires more energy than imaginable. Write about the things that do not get done because it feels too tiring, or write about how draining it can be to do the smallest of actions. Write about the consequences this can lead to.
• Feelings of worthlessness or excessive, inappropriate guilt. More than just low self-esteem, this is the deep belief that one is broken, burdensome, or undeserving. The guilt is disproportionate, inappropriate for the action, with small mistakes becoming fundamental failures. You can portray this with characters constantly apologising, wondering if they deserve certain positions, or withdrawing from the lives of other characters. The internal monologue will latch onto any small thing, such as accidentally bumping into someone, a mistake on a test, a moment of irritability, and condemn the character, inflating it into something more than it is. The world and their actions become distorted.
• Diminished ability to think, concentrate, or make decisions. This is often called brain fog, a cognitive symptom of depression that affects memory, focus, and processing speed. Often dismissed as laziness or indecisiveness, when in truth, this happens when the brain refuses to cooperate with them. Thoughts come slowly. There can be a lag between being asked a question and answering it. Your character might pause too long in conversation. They can lose track of what they are saying. Things are more easily forgotten. Even the simplest of decisions can become exhausting, and can feel impossible or heavy. Brain fog can happen in the most mundane, quotidian ways, and can affect the smallest aspects of life. However, when it begins to pile up, and the ability to think is reduced, that can lead to a character's frustration, shame, and overall lack of ability to think clearly.
• Dissociation. Dissociation is a disconnection between thoughts, identity, consciousness, and memory. It exists on a spectrum with the mild end being the common experience of zoning out and the severe end being feeling detached from one's own body, identity, or reality. Usually, it's the mind's way of distancing itself from overwhelming stress or trauma. Please note that the dissociative disorder of Dissociative Identity Disorder is not allowed on site. However, experiencing dissociation does not have to be connected to be a disorder can simply be a symptom of another disorder such as depression.
  
  There are different types of dissociation, the two main ones are depersonalisation and derealisation. The former is feeling detached from one's own body, thoughts, or emotions. The character could feel like they are watching themselves from the outside, that their body is not their own, or that their thoughts and actions are outside of their body. The world continues, but the self is dissociated. Derealisation is feeling detached from the external world. The environment may seem foggy, flat, dreamlike, or artificial. The world does not feel real.
  
  Dissociation is often described as feeling like the character is behind glass, underwater, or watching a film of the character's own life. It can also feel as if the world has isolated the character while the rest of the world keeps on moving. The world is muted, distant, and unreal. Your character may have trouble connecting their emotions, memories, or sense of identity. They may go through the motions of life without feeling present. This can be scary, or oddly peaceful.
  
  Dissociation can be triggered by stress, trauma reminders, overwhelming emotions, or sensory overload. Sometimes, it doesn't need a trigger either. It can suddenly shift into detachment that is difficult to explain. For some, it can be a more chronic state rather than a response for a single event.
• Experiencing somatisation. Somatisation is the experience of psychological distress manifesting as physical symptoms. Emotional suffering does not stay in the mind, but also reflects in the body. Physical symptoms can become a way to make distress known. The body reacts to the mind.
  
  Common symptoms can include but are not limited to the following:
  • Unexplained pain: headaches, back pain, joint pain, muscle aches with no physical cause.
  • Gastrointestinal issues: nausea, stomach pain, bloating, constipation, diarrhoea.
  • Neurological sensations: dizziness, tingling, numbness, or a feeling of heaviness in the limbs.
  • Fatigue.
• Experiencing panic attacks. A panic attack is a sudden, intense surge of fear or discomfort that peaks within minutes. The body's fight-or-flight response activates without a proportionate threat.
  
  There are certain symptoms of a panic attack. Your character does not need to experience all of them – usually four or more constitutes an attack.
  • Racing heart, pounding heartbeat, or palpitations
  • Sweating, trembling, or shaking
  • Shortness of breath or a feeling of choking
  • Chest pain or tightness
  • Nausea or abdominal distress
  • Dizziness, lightheadedness, or feeling faint
  • Chills or heat sensations
  • Numbness or tingling, especially in hands or face
  • Fear of losing control or "going crazy"
  • Fear of death
  Panic attacks often arrive without warning. They can happen at any time, whether it is during a stressful moment or in the middle of a calm afternoon. Sometimes, there is no clear or direct trigger. Even when there is a trigger, it might not be evident or obvious to the character. However, when it is triggered, it can include the following:
  • Specific phobias or feared situations. A response to anything the character has a learnt fear response to.
  • Reminders of trauma. A detail associated with a past event.
  • Sensory overstimulation. Bright lights, loud noises, crowded spaces, extreme heat or coldness. The nervous system overloads.
  • Feeling trapped or unable to escape. This can happen in both a metaphorical and literal sense.
  • Physical sensations that mimic panic. This can be shortness of breath from stuffiness, or dizziness from standing up too fast. The body feels a sensation, wrongly interprets it as danger, and spirals into an attack.
  • Illness, hunger, or exhaustion, as well as substances. Low blood sugar, dehydration, lack of sleep, caffeine, or illness can lower the threshold for an attack.
  • Rumination and catastrophising. A small worry spirals, the character will think themselves into an attack through an anxious chain of thoughts.
  • Feeling out of control. Situations where the character cannot predict outcomes, make decisions, or escape.
  • Emotional overwhelm. This can be any emotion, ranging from fear and grief to even, at times, although rarely, immense joy.
  • Some attacks, on the other hand, are just spontaneous.
  Panic attacks can cause characters to experience an array of effects, most commonly being the following:
  • Sensory distortion. Sounds become muffled, distant, or painfully sharp, vision blurs, narrows, or becomes overly bright. Colours seem washed out or unnaturally vivid. The location can feel too hot or too cold. Time feels like it is slowing down or speeding up. A sense of watching oneself from outside (depersonalisation) or the environment feels foggy, flat, or dreamlike (derealisation).
  • Fragmented or racing thoughts. Thoughts scatter and cannot form a coherent sequence. The mind goes blank or repeats a thought too many times. Multiple thoughts clash with each other with no resolution. Often this involves catastrophic thinking such as "I am dying" or "I am losing my mind." Sometimes a character can be so caught up in a panic attack that there is no thinking at all. You can use fragmented or winding language to better portray this.
  • Loss of control. Feeling that the body is acting without permission. Inability to stop shaking, crying, or hyperventilating despite wanting to. Sometimes a character may also react by attempting to release the source of stress, such as by punching something. Urge to escape with no clear destination and feeling trapped in one's own body or mind.
  • Emotional flood. Overwhelming dread without a clear source or intense fears that may seem irrational to the outside observer. Sudden grief, rage, or despair that feels unconnected to anything specific. Most often though, there is a strong sense of helplessness born out of the feeling of being completely at the mercy of one's own body.
  After the attack, portray the aftermath. This can include physical and mental exhaustion, shakiness and weakness, brain fog and emotional numbness. Anxiety can be persistent, and afterwards some will feel headaches or a feeling akin to a hangover.
• Psychosis. Experiencing hallucinations (seeing/hearing/touching/smelling/tasting something that is not real) and delusions (believing something that is not real). For those who have not experienced psychosis, it can be a very difficult topic to write about because of how hard it is to understand. While I still urge you to do additional research and be cautious in writing, I will attempt to give you the best overview I can in this section.
  
  Psychosis is a symptom, not a diagnosis. It describes a state where a person's perception of reality is disrupted. This can occur in schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, severe depression, postpartum psychosis, and other conditions. It can also be triggered by trauma, extreme stress, sleep deprivation, or substance use. Psychosis can be referred to or understood as "going crazy". Understand that there are much more nuances.
  
  The core features of psychosis are two parts: delusions and hallucinations. Both can be very distressing, or in some cases (such as with hypomania or mania in bipolar disorder) seem positive, such as delusions of grandeur. In any case, they can have a serious effect on the person undergoing psychosis. During psychosis, both hallucinations and delusions feel absolutely real to the character, and they should be written as such. To them, they are not metaphors, daydreams, or imaginative flights. If the author is using hallucinations or delusions metaphorically, then that is not psychosis.
  
  Delusions are fixed, false beliefs held despite contrary evidence. Common themes include:
  • Persecution. Your character believes someone or something is after them. They may take elaborate precautions, withdraw from others, or confront people they believe are involved.
  • Grandiosity. Your character believes they have special abilities, a unique mission, or an extraordinary identity.
  • Reference. Your character believes that neutral things are specifically about or directed at them. This can be a news broadcast, a stranger's laugh. They may act out on it, but in any case, it can be exhausting and isolating.
  • Control. Your character believes their mind or body is not fully their own. Common delusions include thoughts being planted or movements being dictated.
  • Somatic Delusions. Your character believes something is physically wrong with them despite medical evidence to the contrary. One common one is the belief that organs are rotting.
  Hallucinations are sensory experiences that are not real. Sometimes psychosis includes a combination of these senses. They can affect any sense:
  • Auditory. This is the most common type. Voices can be male, female, familiar, unfamiliar, single or multiple. They may comment on the character, give commands, have arguments, and more. Sometimes one can also hear footsteps, knocking, screaming, or an array of other sounds.
  • Visual. Visual hallucinations can be fully formed figures or indistinct shapes. Some people in psychosis see distortions of real things; others see things that do not exist at all.
  • Tactile. Tactile hallucinations involve physical sensations that have no external cause. The feeling of bugs crawling on skin is common, but characters can also feel being touched, pushed, heat, wetness, or tingling.
  • Olfactory. Smells are usually unpleasant: rotting, burning, chemicals, gas, smoke, or decay. This may lead characters to believe there is a fire or their bodies are rotting.
  • Gustatory. Taste hallucinations are less common. The taste is usually unpleasant: metallic, bitter, rotting, chemical.
  Hallucinations and delusions are often closely tied together in psychosis.
  
  Insight experienced during psychosis exists on a spectrum. This is the status of knowing whether or not the experience is real. Good insight means the character recognises their hallucinations or delusions as symptoms. Partial insight means they know something is wrong but can't fully separate reality from the experience. Poor or absent insight means the character fully believes their experiences are real.
• Self-harm. This can be more than just physical harm. Do not describe methods with explicit detail. This not only goes against site rating, but if someone is in an already dangerous headspace, this can add to their risk. The reader does not need to know how it is done; all they need to know is what it felt like.
  
  Self harm is an unhealthy coping mechanism to depression. It is often a way to manage overwhelming emotions, to feel something when numb, or to express internal pain externally. Rarely do people actually commit self harm for the sake of attention; rather, often it is hidden with long sleeves and excuses. Self-harm is the deliberate infliction of injury or pain on oneself, usually without suicidal intent. Before writing self harm, conduct thorough research, make sure you are in a safe place yourself, and be respectful of your readers and partners.
  
  Self harm can take place in a variety of ways. While physical self harm is most commonly depicted, it is not the only kind. Those who practice self harm usually engage in more than one, and some are more subtle than others. Portrayal of a variety, as long as it is fitting to your character, can encourage realism.
  
  • Cutting, burning, scratching, hitting, and biting. These are the most recognisable forms, often done in places covered by clothing. Arms are the most common.
  • Picking at skin or wounds, also known as dermatillomania. This is not always a form of self harm but can be under the circumstances of mental distress.
  • Hair pulling, also known as trichotillomania. This is not always a form of self harm but can be under the circumstances of mental distress.
  • Hitting objects, such as punching walls or furniture. This can be dismissed as "anger issues", but has the same function of hurting the person practising self-harm.
  • Often, self harm is not physical or direct. This can include denying oneself food or sleep, putting oneself in dangerous situations, refusing medication or help, reckless spending, isolating when one needs support, and deliberately sabotaging relationships. They serve the same purpose as the other forms of self harm, which is to express or manage pain through self-inflicted damage.
  Understand the purposes self harm serves. As stated above, self harming is a coping mechanism. While your character may not understand why they self-harm, the writer should have a clearer idea to drive the plot in different directions such as arcs and changes. Its functions can include:
  • Emotional regulation by turning internal pain into something external, visible, and manageable.
  • To feel something countering the numbness, dissociation, or emptiness of depression with physical sensation.
  • To express self-hatred or guilt through punishment.
  • To exert control over one's body when every other experience feels uncontrollable.
  • To communicate distress the character cannot put into words.
  • The use of pain to pull oneself out of a dissociative state or a spiral of overwhelming emotion.
• Recurrent thoughts of death, suicidal ideation, or a suicide attempt. Do not describe methods with explicit detail. This not only goes against site rating, but if someone is in an already dangerous headspace, this can add to their risk. The reader does not need to know how it is done; all they need to know is what it felt like.
  
  Suicide, almost always, is what unbearable pain accumulates towards. Most suicidal people do not truly wish to die; they wish for the pain to stop. Death, often, is a last resort. This is a topic that carries the most need for responsibility. Done poorly, it can cause real harm to readers and fellow writers. Done honestly, it can create space for recognition, empathy, and truth. Before writing suicide or suicidal ideation, conduct thorough research, make sure you are in a safe place yourself, and be respectful of your readers and partners.
  
  Suicidal ideation is a spectrum. Think of it as being on an x and y axis. The x axis ranges from actively suicidal to passively suicidal. Active suicidal ideation is the desire to die: thinking about methods, making a plan, take preparatory steps (reaching out to people, writing wills, giving away objects). Passive suicidal ideation is the desire not to live: not wanting to wake up the next morning, fantasising about disappearing, thinking the world would be better without them. Both are equally real. The y axis ranges from a spike in pain to a dull, continuous ideation. For the former, suicide can come suddenly. It can come at a time of great emotional distress. This is the sudden thought of death. On the other end is suicide being a small, hanging thought always in the back of your character's mind. A small mistake can cause the thought to spring up prominently, because it is always present. They have to fight against it with every breath. Suicide attempts can occur in two ways. This also refers to thinking about suicide attempts. Some are planned out, some are impulsive. For most, it is almost never on either of these extreme ends of the spectrum, but somewhere in between.
  
  Do not turn a suicidal person and their ideation into a melodrama. Suicide is rarely dramatic. Usually, there is a lot of ambivalence as well. On the one hand, the character wants the pain to end; on the other, they are desperately searching for something that can empower them to stay. Illustrate this conflict without being ostentatious about it. Write about the contradiction, and write about the small stubbornness that tries to ask them to stay, even if they do not know why.
  
  If you must arrive at a point where ideation becomes action, take care not to put any readers at risk. Focus instead on the internal state, the strange calm or the sheer desperation. Write the aftermath. The character may wake up in a hospital, confused and disoriented. They may feel shame, relief, anger, regret, numbness, or all of these in the same hour. But the hospital is also not the end of the story. Write the recovery afterwards. They may face the same dark thoughts again and have to choose, again and again, to stay. Understand that not every person with depression, or every person under any circumstance can arrive at this point. However, at the same time, understand that it can also happen to anyone, and as long as it is both fitting for your character and your narrative, you may do it with caution and sensitivity.
  
  If you are writing a character struggling with suicidal ideation, consider also portraying their choices to stay and what motivates it. This process is slow, difficult, and unglamorous. It can be waking up their dorm mate at 3 a.m. It can be reaching for a coping mechanism even when all they want is to leave. The decision to wait another hour, another day is a small, stubborn act of remaining alive. Give them a reason for all the times they did not commit.
  
  Above all, do not romanticise. Suicide is not poetic, beautiful, or noble.

Good writing techniques.
Some good techniques and tips that will not only strengthen your representation, but your prose.

• Research: Always do your research, even if it is a lived experience. Use trusted, medical sources. But also understand sentimental ones. Sometimes combining this with something from lived experience, whether from your own, people you know, or books written by people who have lived through such things, is useful.
• Characterisation: Create a character, not a diagnosis. A diagnosis is a condition. A diagnosis is not a person. Before you start using a label on your character, understand who they are without it. What makes them laugh? Cry? What are their hobbies? What annoys them? What are their contradictions? Remember, never define your character by the label of "depression". Anyone with such a condition is so much more than just that. If you remove the condition and are left with nothing, that is not a character.
• Avoid tropes and understand reasons: Understand mental illnesses for their depth. They are not quirky or cool. Do not use a mental illness as a way to "balance out" a "perfect" character. Think about why you want to write your character with a condition. If it is because it feels aesthetic, fun, or cool, then those are not valid reasons. Depression, or any mental illness, is not "spice" to add to a character. They are real, serious conditions, and will have serious impacts on your character. Using tropes is not just inaccurate representation, it can make your writing flat.
• Descriptions: Learn how to use indirect characterisation. Indirect characterisation is writing about the effects rather than the action itself. It tells the reader much more about the character through small happenings and reactions. For example, rather than describe suicidal thoughts directly, which can be triggering for some and at times even goes against site rating, you can show their reaction to something that can make them think of suicide. When seeing a knife, for instance, you can write them flinching away on instinct for fear of using it on themselves. Show, don't tell may seem cliche, but using descriptions over labelling can elevate your writing immensely.
• Daily Life: Write the mundanity, not just the crises. Breakdowns are meaningful spikes in the plotlines, but the quotidian nature of each day can be just as meaningful. Often, depression is less cinematic. It can be unwashed clothes, meals skipped or eating too much, cursing too much or not as much as they would, hobbies abandoned, hours lost staring into space with brain fog, forgetting to feed the cat. It can be in the tiny details. Write about daily life and how depression affects it.
• Literary Devices & Poetic Prose: Use literary devices and poetic description to more accurately capture illness, rather than to romanticise or to glorify. Metaphor, imagery, and any other literary devices are tools. Used well, they can communicate a subjective experience that clinical language cannot reach. The danger is using these tools to make suffering beautiful. Ask yourself whether this image is making the experience more real, or more pretty? Is the experience of mental illness/suffering portrayed in an intentionally exaggerated manner for readers' gratification?
• Writing Style: Bend your pacing and style to what is fitting for their condition, state, status, and nature. The way you write should reflect what you're writing about. This can enhance your writing significantly by creating a way for the reader to better understand your character. For example, a depressive episode often calls for slower pacing and lines that drag on. If a character is irritated, on the other hand, lines could be quick and impatient. Let the form do some of the work.
• Arcs: Don't write depression as linear. Depression does not move in a straight line from onset to crisis to recovery. Depression is not just overcoming one obstacle or climbing one mountain but being faced by a series of valleys and peaks. Writing a description as linear can strip away meaning for an arc and leave your writing flat.
• Coping Mechanisms: Give your character coping mechanisms. Coping mechanisms are only natural responses to the dark realities people with depression face. These mechanisms can be healthy ones (such as reading, writing, listening to music), but often, they can be unhealthy as well. While descriptions of these should be in moderation to stay within site rating, this can include things like alcohol usage or potion dependence.
• Honest Portrayals: Your writing is meant to be honest, not just dark. It is easy to overly focus on darkness. The more darkness you have does not automatically make your character deeper or edgier. Life is an amalgamation of a lot of things, and sometimes within the depression you will find flickers of joy, laughter at the most irrelevant things, and little absurdities you've never thought of. Sometimes, it is also the contrast that can hit hard and leave an impact.
• Reader Considerations: Respect the reader's intelligence. Trust your reader's understanding. It is not necessary to over-explain what your character is feeling, you do not need to spell out the moral of the story. Show the experience with truthfulness and the reader will do the rest. The best portrayals leave space for the reader to interpret and feel alongside the experiences of your character. Write with empathy, and your readers will carry empathy while reading too.

Recovery and moving forward.
This is always the hardest part, isn't it? To live through, to work towards, and to write.

• Treatment. In the real world, the most common treatments for depression include therapeutic methods such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), medications such as Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), Serotonin-Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors (SNRIs), or alternative methods such as Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). Beyond these scientific words, in our fantasy setting, several adjustments need to be made.
  
  Talk therapy is available, but due to the boarding nature of our school, may be difficult to access. Outpatient treatment with talk therapy will likely only be conducted over breaks. Alternative methods are also likely difficult to write while at school, especially since Electroconvulsive Therapy uses electricity, which is not fitting with our fantasy setting. This may cause characters with depression to turn to medication more primarily. For magical folk, this medication will likely look like Potions.
  
  Keep in mind that while there are many ways to treat depression, there are no cures to it, both in the magical and the real world.
• Hospitalisation. Hospitalisation is another way depression can be treated. While it is not a miracle worker, and it would be unrealistic for a character to walk out of the hospital with their sorrows completely gone, there are a few reasons that make them effective. In essence, what happens inside a psychiatric ward is: group therapy, one on one therapy, discussions with a psychiatrist, blood tests, medication changes, and a break from quotidian life.
  
  Group therapy and one on one therapy can often support, as well as resting from the demands of school or work. The hospital also provides a safe place for any character who is currently a danger to themselves. However, most of the impacts would be on finding a more suitable combination of medication. This is done through talking with a psychiatrist as well as physical checks.
  
  Admission to inpatient hospitalisation can be on the basis of voluntary and involuntary. For both, even if being there is a choice, it can be an incredibly scary experience. However, one can also discover a lot of humanity, perhaps surprisingly. In truth, it is not too much different from other hospitals, and while everything can seem intimidating at first, with gradual adaptation, they could find friendly patients and helpful doctors, even some meaningful activities.
  
  Hospitalisation usually lasts one month.
• How to actually write the recovery itself? Write it messy, write it complicated, and write it real. Recovery, as with any aspect of depression, is not linear. Your character can have a great month followed by a terrible week or vice versa. Sometimes recovery is small and hard to notice. A returned owl, an improving grade, etc. Sometimes "better" is ambiguous. It is a baseline, but it is bound to be different from their life prior to depression.
  
  Rather than announcing the recovery (my character is getting better), show it. How do their moods change? But beyond that, what about their small habits? What about the subtleties or contradictions most don't realise? Not every thread has to be themed around their recovery or depression; rather, write the details in to make it more realistic.
  
  Some nuances come in when relapse is to be considered. A bad day can trigger panic, causing a character to question whether it has happened again and whether they are slipping back into their depression. For some, however, depression is a cage, but also one they have made themselves comfortable in. No one wants to be depressed, but when it is everything they seem to know, it can be almost scary to heal. Depression is a devil, but a known devil. This, while difficult, can be extremely insightful when written well, and portrays that depression and healing from it are not a straight, direct line.
  
  The ending is a victory, but keep in mind it is also not a "happy ever after".

General checklist
Do you understand the content you will explore? Are you certain you want to write this, and are you certain you are ready to write this?
Have you defined and understood your core motivation for writing this? Are you aware of what kind of story you are telling?
Are you depicting your character, as well as their illness? Is your character your character, even without their illness?
Are you writing honestly? Or are you aestheticising, dramatising, glorifying, or exaggerating their suffering?
Have you communicated comfort levels with your thread partners, and do you understand your own comfort level? Know where to draw boundaries.
Have you added trigger warnings where appropriate? This is not required by site rules, but is good courtesy.

Final thoughts.
Remember you are describing a human being who is sick. They are not terrible people, they are not monsters, and they are not broken. They can feel like that for purposes of the narrative and representation of the illness, but you must be aware that they are not. If you ever start to feel uncomfortable or triggered while writing about these subjects, know that your mental health and well-being come first. Thank you for reading. If you have any questions, my DMs and owls are always open, or feel free to reply to this thread. If you would like anyone to consult for accuracy, I can't promise I will be perfect, but I will answer them to the best of my ability. Remember, questions are appreciated! I would rather have you ask first and represent it better rather than stumble in accuracy.

Acknowledgments.
These people have helped me write this guide in some way, whether by inspiring me, offering to read it over, or giving their thoughts and advice.
Erast Yan, Astra Norrick, Esme Hestridge, Verity Engels, Meiyu Xiang, Charlotte Winfield, Lyanna Oak, Rosaline Everhart.