Ok so I'm a ways off from actually writing this story (I want to finish Hound and Fox first) and I have vague outlines of characters for the other stages of grief. (Bartering is going to be a fun one to write I think) There's one however, that I'm on the fence on how to go about depicting it. This character is literally the physical embodiment of the depression stage of grief, he also represents 'death' as one of the four horsemen. He is a character who is often mistaken as the wrong gender, which to make it worse he stopped aging at some point. (and to make things worse, he's fairly Androgynous) I was thinking that on the surface he could be a Genki (High energy and extremely positive) with tinges of self loathing and other things. I want to be cautious with this though, since I know depression is a very serious thing. I don't want to accidentally offend what I know is a fairly large number of people. (or at least, larger than most people think) I sort of want to go with the 'suffer the way I have' route, since technically he is death (literally) but I'm not sure how far to take it and still be realistic.
Have you ever been depressed, or known anyone who was? That would be the best starting point. As much as possible you want to be able to write from personal knowledge, and then supplement/buttress that with research and advice from others. What do you mean that he is death? They're all different stages of the movement toward death, right? And keep in mind, it isn't only death. These stages mark the way toward acceptance of anything we really don't want to face but is inevitable, assuming we have the time to go through them. Most of us have gone through them at various points, like maybe when you really wanted that pet orangutan and it took your parents a year to convince you why it would be a really bad idea until you finally understood (accepted). So you should be able to find it somewhere in your life if you dig deep enough. You've personally dealt with every one of these specters already, and so has everyone you know, so you've experienced it from inside and out.
In the case of Depression I mean they are literally death (as in the grim reaper) not like symbolically. Functionally with my story the lead villain Acceptance assigns them the duties of the reaper. Bartering is literally a merchant who deals with souls for example, he represents famine (one of the four horsemen) The theme of the story is Grief and how various people deal with it, and giving folks what they need to overcome it. And in my defense the only time I hear about the five stages of grief is in reference to death. So I don't know a whole lot about it beyond that knowledge.
I want to be cautious with this though, since I know depression is a very serious thing. I don't want to accidentally offend what I know is a fairly large number of people. (or at least, larger than most people think) No matter what you write or how carefully you phrase it, someone, somewhere is going to be offended. The only time I recall being truly offended by a remark about depression was when someone said, "Depression is just feeling sorry for yourself." But being a generous sort of person, I rallied and thought, "Poor girl, she can't help being a clueless twit and a blight upon the face of the earth." I'm compassionate like that.
