In the book world we tend to think of stories as a force for good. We imagine cosy bookshops and hot chocolate on rainy days. But they aren’t always.
I remember vividly learning that not all human cultures stigmatise mental illness. That means we aren’t born with images in our brains of knife-wielding madmen, crazy women in the attic and monsters raving wild on the moors. These ideas are learned through the stories we tell ourselves; stories that drive TV show plotlines, underpin pop song break-up tales and alliterate newspaper headlines.
I remember another moment; finally turning off ITV’s Downton Abbey in disgust at yet another character arc predicated on the unstable female stereotype. Many of these tired character tropes reached new heights in the Victorian era, an era equally obsessed and terrified by the pace of industrialisation and scientific discovery. In the popular gothic novels of the period, writers leaned into these tropes both to entertain and to try to make sense of what it meant to be human.
What’s the problem with spine-tingling tales of ghostly women in white that thrill and titillate? Or horrifying yarns of desperate monsters that shock and revolt? The problem is that mental health difficulties are common, and though societal attitudes to diagnoses such as anxiety and depression have improved, stigmatising views of illnesses like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder remain stubbornly stuck in the Victorian times.