By DaPaleOne

You might – or might not – be surprised to learn that many members of our ReVo family struggle with illnesses both physical and emotional. Whether you’re among them yourself, or just wondering what effect role-play can have on achieving a healthier headspace, we offer one perspective for you to consider.

ReVolutionary Theory knows that mental/emotional illnesses, in particular, can be very personal, and that not everyone agrees on what treatments and activities are helpful – or even acceptable. While we invite you to open and continue discussion on the forums, we would like to remind you that harassing, attacking, or disaparging other players – or their choices – is never something that’s okay.

There are some who believe in mental illness and some who do not. Either way, it affects our lives very day, in every way. If you have any form of mental illness, you understand that – or if you live with or love someone who has a mental illness, you likely understand it, too. It colors everything we do – including our role play lives.

We all say, “Don’t bring real time into role-play time,” but that’s a load of crap and we all know it. When we turn on our computers, and especially when we go into a chat room and start the process of making a character, we pour a bit of ourselves into that character. In playing in the genres we choose, we release a bit of our inner mobster, biker, murderer, vampire – or whatever else we play. But most people who do not have mental illness do not understand how cathartic it is to role-play. When your brain is going ninety to nothing and you cannot get it to stop, logging in and role-playing can truly be a lifesaver at times – a floatation device in the rough seas of our minds. When our emotions get the better of us, when they rise to a point we have no way to express them, when they take over – sometimes role-play is the only means we have left to expunge those inner demons. It gives us an outlet. It allows us to speak freely to friends that do not judge, that offer advice, who may or may not be going through the same thing; but who, as a general rule, are willing to lend a helping hand by saying, “Sure, let’s play!”.

I told my shrink once that I role-played. She asked me what kind of costumes I wore for this role-play and if there was sex involved! I nearly fell off my chair, because that’s often the first thing that people thing when you say “role-play” to them – but once I explained it, she said she thought it was a great tool for people with any form of mental illness to learm basic socialization skills and have an outlet for emotional backlash. Some people blow things up in video games, while others meditate. We, as a community, role-play. But even in our community, there can still be a fear of saying you have a mental illness. The social stigma does remain, as does the anxiety of worrying about how we will be viewed or whether others will treat us differently. Here in the world of online role-play, I think that becomes much less important than it is in the outside world – although I personally couldn’t care less how the outside world views me. But for others, that is why places like ReVo are so important.

Community, friendship, kinship, and understanding are what make role-playing not only a recreational activity, but a cathartic one as well. People with mental illness use these chatrooms to release emotional baggage – pent up pain, anger, frustration, loneliness, energy, sorrow, and even happiness. We use these sites as a conduit to find our support systems, to branch out and meet people. Some we may never meet outside the rooms, some we chat with on Skype, and some, we finally get the rare honor of meeting one on one.

So when it comes to role-play and mental illness, we can make jokes or play around about it, but in the end, each can be good for the other. Some of the best role-plays I’ve ever done were in the process of handling one of my manic episodes, and I’m sure there are others out there that will agree. There may be some who don’t, too; but, hey, to each their own.

In closing, at the end of the day when you think about that role-play you just had, remember – behind each word, behind those pretty pictures, behind every screen, there is a human being with a world of their own to deal with.