Hm, and I had Buddha pinned as a shitposting prick.

@Blizz who says you're wrong

is that it is very largely dependent on the person, and also the manner in which they escape. Some might cope well with roleplay, others might not?

because I'm talking about hypothetical people with mental disorders or illnesses that are genuine.

Well then this pretty much sums up the response doesn't it?

If these people in question are hypothetically mentally ill, but we can only judge them on a case by case basis, then really not much more can be said.

@Dynamo Frokane

Again, not really relevant to the people I wanted to discuss

I DID basically address this when I said that autismm and anxiety are to be taken seriously when real, but there is nothing to expand on if its a hypothetical individual with no agreed upon characterisitics apart from 'Mentally Ill RPer'.

I also was responding to some of the other points that were being made in the thread after your original post, you can complain that I didnt spend enough words responding to you directly, but thats the nature of a freeform discussion on a very nuanced topic, the talking points will vary. I'm not sure what you expected but thats how an open thread works.

Hmm, well, yes, I am interested in seeing why there are so many I mean, your argument is that there aren't many. But I think that despite a lot of screamy attention grabbing 'ill' people on RPG, there are a lot more that are genuinely ill that you do not hear about) on RPG, that have a genuine illness.

To be honest, we dont know how many people are mentally ill or not on this site. And without any hard facts or research, it comes down to subjective passive-diagnoses or anecdotal claims.

Yes some people without mental illness will claim to be mentally ill to be edgy.

On the flipside, some people with mental illness will remain undiagnosed or choose not to reveal their illness online.

But knowing these are possibilities doesnt really tell us anything about overall percantage or ratios either way, its conjecture.

As someone formally diagnosed (as in I went to a professional therapist.... earlier this year, actually) with mild depression on the less grand scale, I believe escaping our reality by using RPG is both healthy and unhealthy.

Healthy:

Most situations during the average human's life span are trivial to a certain extent and we come on here to talk to friends and channel our energy through another entity in a fictional world with no exact repercussion of reality. I find this to be healthy because this energy tends to be used towards loved ones instead.

Unhealthy:

However, some situations need to be talked out by a professional person relating to therapy, psychology, psychiatry, or, best xcase scenario, all the above (or in my case, a biblical counselor. Aka, a therapist that uses Christian stuff to help that you talk to for an hour and hopefully get Chik-Fi-La afterwards.) These may even require medicine or even time by yourself for an extended time period to think over everything to the extent of reaching a higher level of understanding. On a less serious note, you can lose sleep which can lead to other more serious things.

@BrokenPromise Hmm, well, yes, I am interested in seeing why there are so many (I mean, your argument is that there aren't many. But I think that despite a lot of screamy attention grabbing 'ill' people on RPG, there are a lot more that are genuinely ill that you do not hear about) on RPG, that have a genuine illness.

That was more or less the point behind my second post here. There is no definitive proof anyone online has a mental illness. There's just a user's claims, or what the doctors who want them to have mental illnesses claim. As a result, the discussion would become something akin to a roman catholic and atheist discussing religion.

I suppose you make a fair point but my prime concern, again, is that it is very largely dependent on the person, and also the manner in which they escape. Some might cope well with roleplay, others might not?

Yea, but i don't really see where that matters?

The real question is: would these people who use roleplay to escape be better or worse on something else? I mean if someone is causing harm to others (driving home to post too fast, killing on behalf of their character/in game god) would they be in a better situation if they obsessed over something else?