Mental Illness in Stories

So, a lot of fanfics, books, movies, and even shows, add mental illness into their storylines. Sometimes, you'll see real gems that display things absolutely beautifully, and there are many others that do great jobs in this respect, even when they aren't gems.

And I want to start by saying that there are literally hundreds if not thousands of ways to display any one mental illness, so, if you've done the research (or have personal know-how from other means) then generally speaking, there is almost no wrong way to display them.

But there is a very disturbing trend in books, movies, shows, and fanfics. And that's having a very serious story and rather than using something naturally funny as the comic relief they choose to use someone with a mental illness as the comic relief.

Now, I'm the first to admit, when watching Shrek 3 and Sleeping Beauty suddenly falls asleep because she has narcolepsy, I find it hilarious. So, if a story is a comedy in nature and they choose to use a mental illness or anything in that kind of form, that's fine. But when the entire story is serious except the way they choose to display that one person with mental illness, it no longer is, instead it's degrading and disrespectful.

Now I'm not writing this to point fingers, so I'm not going to say specific stories, but there are a lot out there (and I don't just mean fanfiction, it happens in everything).

So please, if you choose to write about illnesses like Narcolepsy, Tourettes, OCD, etc that you show them in the correct light, because Tourettes is far more than just a swearing disease, anxiety disorders are not just an excuse to avoid things but can actually be truly debilitating, and so on.