The Mental Illness Exchange- Get a mental illness for your character here!

Hmm... Not really sure. I've been reading the Casebook for the DSM-IV for my own literary needs, but can't think, offhand, of anything that fits yours.

I have a character who has problems with becoming overly obsessive with women (one source told me that this kind of obsession is NOT the sort as in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). He is a portrait artist, but can't seem to get over his last love, who left him to marry for money. It's affecting his work (if he's in a mood, he can't paint anyone else), and his relations with others (he has cursed her to her own insanity -- either schizophrenia or Multiple Personality Disorder). Later in the story, he is going to think another woman he meets (his ex-lover's step-daughter, who is only a few years younger than she is) is her, even though they look nothing alike. He transfers his obsession to her (and the story ends with their marriage).

The Mirror Crack'd: Literary Dark Fantasy? Symbolism, Archetypal Plots, and Insanity, oh my! And, psst... what's with all the dwarves?

I have a character who one day up and left his life (job, apartment, etc) and checked himself into a mental hospital. Clinical depression, or is there a "better" diagnosis?

A "classic" presentation of agoraphobia is a very specific fear of objects outside the home which then develops into a general fear of leaving the house.

For example, your MC (maybe she could be named "Mary Catherine" and go by "MC", good Catholic girls do that) may live in a place with lots of water, say an island on a river, and then develop a crippling fear of bridges. That would restrict her territory a good bit but still not make her a hermit (especially if this island were big enough to have the things one needs, such as grocery stores).

I also saw, over in another forum (LitFic?) that our woman MC is also a drug user. (By the way, I like your character sketches and plot outline -- make me want to read more.) She may be attempting to "self-medicate" her way out of her agoraphobia. Many phobics take drugs in an attempt to "damp down" the crippling fears associated with the phobia. Of course, alcohol is the most common way to do this, but I've seen other drugs used as well.

Monotreme
2007 NaNovel: Strangely Carved Forms

I had a colleague who was a brilliant medical school teacher, smart as a whip, great biomedical researcher. She was also seriously bipolar.

The middle of one day, I found her in her office in a blubbering mess. She asked me to take her to the behavioral health unit of the local hospital (a more modern term than "mental hospital"). We went to the desk, she signed the forms, and then they started explaining the rules to her. When they got to the pay phone rules (1 call per day), she freaked and wanted to leave. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do, but the nurse and I shared a quick glance at each other, and I said, "no, I'm sorry, I brought you here but I have to go. I'll come visit."

If that's the kind of scenario you're envisioning, then I'm thinking bipolar illness rather than clinical depression.

Monotreme
2007 NaNovel: Strangely Carved Forms

Oh, clinical depression can get you into that sort of situation (being checked into hospital). Trust me ;-) Especially if it goes on for a long time and suicidal ideation is involved.

One possibility for the symptoms you mention (about the reclusive woman who may be Asperger, or agoraphobic) is ADHD -- without the H. Of course, my take on ADHD (as one who has been diagnosed as such) is that it's mostly a particular brain wiring that is a normal variation, but out of kilter with the way modern society runs.

Anyway, women often are minus the hyperactive, but instead can be day-dreamy and in their own little world. They often don't learn all the social skills they need as an adult because their mind was elsewhere during their formative age. Writing/art/etc fit in with your character, because that's something we can hyperfocus on or just generally lose ourselves in.

Undiagnosed ADHD can lead to "self-medication" for the symptoms. Caffeine and cigarettes are the most common for trying to stay awake and to keep focused on whatever you find difficult to do on (someone else's) demand -- work deadlines, tax forms, etc. An extreme is cocaine, which apparently REALLY helps an Adder focus. Ritalin is similar chemically, but much less, i.e. not anywhere near as dangerous or addictive. Any "addictiveness" comes from a fondness for being focused and not having people harrass you as much because they think you're rude or sloppy or lazy.

And that would also explain your character's shyness. Adders take a lot of flack, especially growing up, for having difficulty with things that come more naturally to other people. After a while, it can make one want to retreat. For instance, I lead a pretty solitary life for an extrovert -- and had to overcome a lot of shyness in my younger days. Then for a few years in my frisky, perky thirties, after having found my spiritual home in Northern California, I was the hyperfocused social butterfly. Now pushing 50, and living in Paris (actually a nice, Extroverted city) I find myself being drawn back to the introverted activities of my teen and early adult years -- but in a different way. The retreat part is gone because, although I am definitely an eccentric personality, I have learned over the years how to get along with other people in the sense of not being terrified of them or even holding my own by not feeling that everyone else must be right because I'm the scr*wed up, disordered one.

Oh, and other possibly useful, literary symptoms: self-medicating with alcohol; problems with depression and/or generalized anxiety (brain seems to need anxious worrying over SOMETHING to at least feel focused); and other "problems" that don't occur in all Adders, but do in a higher percentage than the rest of the population: dyslexia, Aspergers, obsessive-compulsive disorder, extreme creativity and even high intelligence (one article notes that virtually anyone with an IQ over 160 will also have many of the signs of ADHD.

Hope that helps provide a bit of inspiration!

If you're going for your character forgetting about his previous life, you could put him in a dissociative fugue state. But I don't think that's what you're going for. It's a type of amnesia where a person temporarily forgets about their current life, experiences some sort of geographical change, and lives a completely different life for an amount of time (from a few hours to several years). Then, the person "snaps out of it" and forgets completely what they've done in their fugue state. Pretty cool, but I don't know if that's what you were trying to say...

Have you considered post traumatic stress disorder? The reclusiveness could be avoidance. Drugs are often used to deaden the pain. Social awkwardness could be part of trust issues. And the source of the trauma could give you a few thousand words...as a bonus.

Have you looked at the personality disorders? You character could fit into several of them.

For mental illnesses, I generally use are things like:
a Histrionic personality disorder, dependent personality disorder, paranoid, Narcissistic or Avoidant.

I'm extremely happy with the one I've got.

07 Nano: Cafe X: 38,962

My female main character has certain quirks about her that could perhaps be construed as a mental illness or imbalance. Such as, she has the uncontrollable urge to cry when she's unsure or put into a situation where she is scared and doesn't know what to do next. This is the girl who I also have taken the color from her eyes, so she can only see in black and white (although I may change this to only seeing a single color, like blue, and all the rest would render as black/white/gray). She was born this way, and has had to live in a bland world all her life. Oh, and her personality drastically changes when she hasn't slept.

Yeah, she's going to be a lot of fun, this one.

So I've just introduced a new character.

He's smart, fun to write, but then . . . I realized he had some problems. A lot of problems.

For instance, it's a bad idea for him to go anywhere on a Saturday unless it's odd-numbered by an out-of-date calendar. He jumped in front of a train for the sheer hell of it. Walking anywhere is bad luck.

So what's his problem, anyway?

Senioritis -- Four men in a coffeeshop. They write a novel.
Echo Flux -- Peasant girl saves the world with SCIENCE!
(That was NaNo 07. Screnzy?)
Ballroom Blitz -- The kind of highly-meta play that gets written by a student in Tech Theatre.

One main character of mine has paranoid schizophrenia. Another has bi-polar disorder.

~*In. The. Business. Of. Misery.*~

My MC is completely anti-social, he doesn't care about friends or something at all. He has one "friend", but the friend doesn't consider MC a friend.
He is scared of crowds, when there are two much people in one place he gets a weird feeling and runs for it, than can't stand any company for a while.
He thinks the wind and the sea talk to him. Well, not really talk, but he can sort of feel their thoughts... Animals too sometimes, and plants on rare occasions.
He is a ship designer, and he can test designs in his head and see them in front of him, see if they work. (got that one from Nikola Tesla, real excisting person)

I guess he has some form of autism, schizophrenia, and whatever it is they call fear of crowds. somthing-phobia. Im not trying to make him fit to illnesses, so there are probably things he has that don't fit the illness and things that fit the illness that he doesn't have, but I don't really care about that. He's just a really messed up person.

Nano '06: No title (won)
Nano '07: Sweet dreams - about a kid that needs to save his dream from being trapped in a dreamcatcher...

^^ This is coming from reading 25-year-old college textbooks, but he sounds like he's either schizoid or schizotypal - both are like mild schizophrenia, I think, but schizotypal come with some of the delusions (like having the elements talk to him.)

I have a couple characters in separate worlds that aren't all there - I think one of them is schizophrenic, but he's also severely addicted to hallucinogenic drugs, so that probably explains a lot of it. >.<

the Bible.

the Koran.

the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

praise this book for giving us hope, lest we dwell in ignorance and darkness. let no one doubt, for in it dwells truth. holy holy! truly the American Psychiatric Association knoweth all.