Hey so YA writers can we talk? Because there's something I've noticed in a lot of YA contemporary fiction that actually bothers me a bit!! Especially because like, I have a kid who'll be a teenager soon!! And maybe she'll be reading your books!!

Please please for the love of whatever deity you wish stop making mentally ill parents synonymous with abusive parents.

Please stop suggesting that a parent is abusive or otherwise bad as a parent because they are mentally ill

Can mentally ill parents be abusive? Of course!!
Are parents abusive just because they're mentally ill: No!!!!!!

In my home we speak openly about neurodivergency and mental illness. My daughter knows, in age-appropriate ways, about the struggles her father and I face as we deal with mental illness/neurodivergence. She knows mental illness happens to people who are good and bad--

--but it doesn't MAKE people good or bad.

Look I can't tell you how I feel when I read summaries of books that are like "CHARACTER must struggle to overcome their mother/father's OCD/schizophrenia/bipolar/etc."

Oh wait I can, I feel both angry and frustrated and sad

I have OCD and I fight every day to be the best parent I possibly can. I also have PTSD and ADHD and I think those things have, in some ways, helped me be a BETTER parent, especially since my daughter also has ADHD. I can understand her struggles, and relate to them

And I can advocate for her in a way neurotypical parents can't.

But the way so many YA books seem to be structured, having a parent with a mental illness is absolutely synonymous with having an abusive parent and that's, excuse my language, bullshit

Now look I know it can get complex. If you're telling your own story and you did have a mentally ill parent who was abusive, I know how easy it is to conflate those things. I had a parent who suffered from trauma and addiction and abused me and it sucked.

I understand

I don't forgive him just because I know he was suffering but on the other hand, I know his suffering wasn't THE reason he was abusive. I know it was complex and there were so many factors in play that to just connect it to his abuse/addiction would be dangerous simplification

But if you consider yourself an advocate for mental health and you decide to give your character an abusive parent who is abusive because of mental illness lemme tell you a secret: you're perpetuating the stigma against mentally ill people

B/c mentally ill people are in constant danger of having their children taken from them due to their diagnoses. And in a country like the US where it's impossible for a huge amount of ppl to access mental health care, so many parents have to struggle without any help

And what sort of message are you sending to mentally ill teens who may, one day, want to become parents?

Well you're saying: hey don't because you'll be an abusive monster

And of course there's the argument floating out there in the void "well if you're mentally ill you shouldn't be allowed to have children"

hahaha that, my friend, is called eugenics and eugenics? are? bad?

Just--there are ways to write about parental abuse that don't place the blame on a parent's neurodivergence/mental health. There are ways to show empathy and understanding of the struggle mentally ill parents face while presenting family conflict from a teen's POV

But you HAVE to be so careful because if you don't? You're hurting people like me. And my daughter. Both of us who are trying our best to create a home where neurodivergence and mental health are openly discussed and accepted without stigma or fear

And look....the whole "no SANE person would abuse a child!!!" thing is bullshit and I hate it and every time I hear it I want to scream because plenty of ""sane"" people abuse children every single day. Abusing a child is not a symptom of a mental illness

It's a way for neurotypicals to distance themselves from abhorrent behaviors and it's stigmatizing and ableist and needs to stop

Anyway I know I'm just a Twitter rando and my opinion doesn't count for much but I'm also a parent who struggles w/mental health & I'm tired of having that struggle invalidated b/c authors don't know how to construct parent/child conflict without falling back on dangerous tropes

Anyway if you find value in my words, please consider helping me help cats https://twitter.com/ellle_em/status/1309999500992405504?s=20