Ranjit's Quick and Dirty Guide to Mental Disorders

[RANJIT;;]

Something that RLTW allows on her site that makes her strangely unique is the use of mental disorders on her characters. There are many disorders that RLTW's members bring into play here and play quite skillfully but in my time here, I've noticed that there are some that are not played as they need to be. While I make no claim to be an expert in any of this, I am a psychology major a semester away from graduating and I do have some idea of what I'm talking about. Below is a quick and simple guide of the most popular and most incorrectly-played mental disorders. If you are interested in a disorder not on this least, please send me a PM and I will do some research for you to get the information.

Schizophrenia
What is it? Schizophrenia is a chronic and very severe mental disorder that affects the brain, making it difficult to tell the difference between real and not real, to think clearly, to have normal emotional responses, and to act normally in any given situation.
Signs and Symptoms
----Positive Signs (psychotic behaviors not seen in healthy individuals)

• hallucinations - sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and sensations that are not actually there. often voices are included. these voices do not control the body of the person affected. other such hallucinations are seeing people or objects that no one else sees as well as feeling touches no one else feels. hallucinations can involve all five senses.
• delusions - not to be mistaken with illusions, delusions are false beliefs that make no sense to the culture of the person affected and do not change. they are often illogical and confusing to others if explained and often not explained well by the person affected. paranoid delusions occur often, as to delusions of grandeur.
• thought disorders - dysfunctional ways of thinking. often causes the affected to speak in nonsensical or garbled sentences. another form is thought blocking, wherein the affected simply ceases to speak in mid-sentence.
• movement disorders - agitated body movements such as twitching or jerking or catatonia, wherein the affected person becomes completely still.

----Negative Signs (disruptions to normal emotions and behaviors)

• flat affect - emotionless face and voice
• lack of pleasure in life
• failure to begin and maintain activity
• little to no social interaction

----Cognitive Symptoms

• difficulty retaining and using information
• trouble focusing
• problems with working memory (short term memory)

Affect on Percentage Because of the severity of this disorder, your mental percentage should drop no less than 50% down from 100 if your equine is affected with this disorder (for example, if schizophrenia is all the equine has, the mental health should be no less than 50%)
_{all information taken from here}

Dissociative Identity Disorder

What is it? Previously known as Multiple personality disorder, DID is an identity disorder wherein one or more separate personalities control the behavior of the affected person at different times. The different identities are called alters. There can be as many as 100 but ten is usually the average amount present. Most people (aka: most of the horses on RLTW) do not know they have the disorder until diagnosed. Those affected often complain of lack of memories and strange gaps of time leaving them. Most of the time, the alters are not aware of one another and cannot talk amongst themselves within the mind of the affected person.
Signs and Symptoms

• depression
• suicidal tendencies
• anxiety and panic attacks
• substance abuse
• confusion
• memory problems
• delusions
• headaches
• flashbacks
• eating disorders
• personality change
• selective loss of memory
• disorientation

Affect on Percentage because of the severity of this mental disorder and dependent on the number of voices, your percentage should be no less than 40% down from 100. (for example, if it was all the equine had, it would be at 60%.)
_{all information taken from here}

currently incomplete. this is actually a lot of work, yo. PLEASE DO NOT POST ANYTHING ON THIS THREAD