So after discussing with some people on my RP's Discord, we talked about mental health for a bit and I was reminded of something I was going to write a little topic about to see what everyone else thought. This is about mental health - in the most broad scale of the word. 

Over the years that I've spent here I've noticed a recurring trend that there are a large variety of people on here - who mostly share one trait, that trait being that there are a lot of people here with varying degrees of mental illnesses. They often do fall on varying ends of the spectrum of seriousness, to the point of having me wonder if they're really illnesses or not. Regardless, I think it is quite interesting to see how many of us struggle with illness.

Let's get something out of the way first; I myself struggle with mental illness too (genetics fucked me up) but I don't really feel like making a public statement about it because I don't think it really matters too much. But if you wanna come at me for being insensitive about it, please, take a fucking hike and just don't reply, or send me a PM to rant about how much of a cunt I am. Thanks. I know that these issues are serious, I'm not having a fucking laugh, I'm just saying it's pretty interesting to see this development.

As of yet, a lot of my RPG friends struggle with varying degrees of mental illness - the most common one being depression as far as I've been able to tell, and this seems to hold true with most of RPG. Furthermore, a lot of people on here also seem to suffer from anxiety in some way or form, and a lot of people show anti social tendencies (makes sense, therefore, that we choose to be social on an online platform, where nobody can see us, no?). I have spoken to people on this website that are autistic (in, again, the wide sense of that word, as in 'scores somewhere on the autistic spectrum') or have ADHD, ADD, whatever you might name. OCD seems prevalent but [i]I'm not really sure how much of that is real and how much of it is in jest.[/i]

Now the theory, which isn't really a theory, is that we use RPG as a form of escapism. While that doesn't hold true for me personally, I can see why it would for a lot of people. Although many of us consider writing as a hobby, we have to admit that any hobby is, in truth, escapism. But I think roleplaying takes it a step further. Where as some might consider soccer a form of escapism for someone who, say, doesn't have a healthy life in their own home, consider that while they play soccer they are still themselves. This goes for a large variety of 'escapist' hobbies. But the one past-time where you [i]do not[/i] play as yourself is roleplaying. It's called roleplaying for a reason after all. So perhaps you could consider a 'escapism' that goes even further than regular escapes. 

This has lead me to wonder if this is healthy at all? While I can imagine that some might say an escape from 'reality' is normal and to an extent that is true but I also wonder if escaping reality is really all that healthy. Sure, everyone enjoys escaping reality every now and then, but when you struggle with real life issues, I have to wonder if it's healthy to escape from them at any chance, and avoid them like that? It seems/sounds unhealthy.

Anyway, I was also kind of curious as to how realistic my view is that we have a large amount of mental illness on this website. I don't want to hear about peoples personal stories, because honestly, those tend to sound like people being crybabies. But, feel free to let me know if you think mental illness is present on this forum, and if so, how present precisely? Do you think that people on this website are aware of their illness? And do you feel the escapism roleplaying offers is healthy, unhealthy or perhaps both?