I fully understand your concerns regarding my game's potrayal of the sensitive subject that is mental illness.
One of the reasons that I, after 2 whole years of development, am so motivated to finish this game on my own is the way it adresses mental health and the many false, harmful stereotypes surrounding it. That means I am very careful with the sources I trust and the inspirations behind certain characters. In my opinion, I have been very mindful of how my game might shape the players' mental image of the illnesses presented in it, and of the people struggling with them.
From what I've heard from both my testers and the players on itch.io, the characters are potrayed as realistically and respectfully as possible. Of course, some of them were more difficult for me to grasp than others, but so far I've had no negative feedback regarding that aspect of the game. I believe the key to creating mentally ill characters in a respective and positive way is to simply treat them like any other character. We are all people, with real thoughts, feelings and motivations, regardless of our mental health - this is the message I'm trying to send with this game: that people with psychiatric disorders are not antagonists - they're not serial killers, creepy stalkers, or some monsters out of a horror movie. Now, you may be confused as to where the "horror" tag comes from, given that. Suffering a mental illness, especially when not treated, is a very difficult and frightening experience for the sufferer and their loved ones - but I'm sure you know that much, given your story. The true horror of "Absolution" comes from the feelings of loss, loneliness and helplessness experienced by people like you. I think it's a subject that should be explored in any medium, as long as it's done in a truthful manner.
I would also like to mention that I am a life-long sufferer of multiple different mental health problems and I know, just as much as you do, how it feels to be left out and misunderstood. I've heard responses anyhwere from: "Mental illness? You? Ha!" to "But you're not going to kill me, right?". Even if I haven't personally experienced everything potrayed in this game, I feel like I care a lot about what is said and shown in it, because it concerns me as well.
One of my hopes for this game is for it to be able to someday build an open-minded, comfortable community where people can share and discuss their experiences, learn more about what mental illness is like, etc. That's why I am always very fond of people approaching me about the game to talk about how it relates to their experiences. If you have the time and want to contribute, I would love to discuss your criticisms and thoughts on the potrayal of this topic within the demo - it's never too late to tweak a thing or two if I learn something new. You can find me on discord via the game's server.
Now, to answer the points you made
- any mental illness can lead to hospitalization if left untreated and faced with a lot of outside pressure/difficult experiences. OCD and panic disorder (it's the name of the disorder) in this game aren't the most typical cases, but they're both very much possible,
- forgive me for my lack of knowledge on american TV shows, I have never seen Judge Judy and I didn't know there was such a thing until now,
- there is a lot of variety in every disorder, so I wouldn't be that certain of the 99% statistic,
- actually, I would argue with your definition of a psychopath, I don't think most of them are violent by nature like you described,
I look forward to your response once you play the demo. It's been a pleasure.
~ Navypink