Writing Personality Disorders and Phobia's into your characters - By Sean Michael Paquet

Ok, folks another touchy subject. I always get the most interesting questions out on Twitter, and one person asked how to write about a character's personality disorder or phobia.

Ok, so first of all, you have to understand that phobias are based on fear. For instance, my main character in "A Game of Gods" is severely Claustrophobic. So am I for that matter. The feeling of being trapped in tightly enclosed spaces scares the absolute shit out of me. For my main character Jon Raynecksson, the fear is so overwhelming that it takes on a tangible meaning. So if you choose for your character to have a phobia, then write about the fear. What emotions will a phobia cause a character to feel? How will it affect their thought process? Is it something they have a handle on and can cope with, or is it so overwhelming for them that they have physical responses such as anxiety/panic attacks.
Now personality disorders are a bit different. From my own experience and tons of research, I have found that most personality disorders are based on traumatic events. That can be a one-time event or from prolonged exposure to trauma. The trauma can be physical, mental, emotional, or a combination of the three. For example, in A Game of Gods, there is a giant named Rafi. He was a soldier who was exposed to some pretty nasty situations in his past. As a result, he has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It is a disorder that he has learned to cope with by self-imposed isolation from society. It is also something that he learns to come to terms with as he realizes he is not alone. There are times when his PTSD defines his character in the story. At other times he seems quite capable. For anyone who has this Disorder (like me), this will sound familiar. It's not a continuous feeling, but rather something that is triggered by memories, sights, smells, sounds, or even specific people. In my second book (Work in Progress) The Jarl's Shadow, the main character shows obvious signs of something between Borderline Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Her character tends to display an extreme lack of empathy. She is also dead set on trying always to please her father, who often seems aloof and even indifferent that she is trying her best to be recognized. As such, she does whatever her father asks of her regardless of how dark and sinister the task might seem to other people.
What I am trying to get at is that Personality Disorders can be written for the character as thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and emotions (or lack thereof).
I find that the use of Personality Disorders works very well for writing about evil characters and anti-heroes. In essence, they are so damaged emotionally or mentally that their Disorder in fact, does define them. Rarely in my writing are characters evil just because they are evil. Something made them that way. I guess for me; it's about how I look at real people. Real people are not born evil. Something very traumatic happened at some time in their life to warp their sense of perception and reality. Case in point would be characters like Iron-Man, Batman, The Joker, etc. Such characters suffer from some form of Dis-associative Personality Disorder. In essence, they are defined by their trauma.
So, if you are going to write about trauma-based disorders or phobia as part of your character development, you had better do some research just like anything else. I can guarantee if you write about a Disorder, or a phobia and call it by name and you are inaccurate in its portrayal, you are going to get called out by the reader.