User:Tamzin/Guidance for editors with mental illnesses

This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

Wikipedia would grind to a halt in hours if every editor with a mental illness^[1] went on strike. The discussion of mental health would be very different if everyone realized that.

Many editors—most, if I had to guess—struggle with some sort of mental illness. Most of us edit without issue—although sometimes with considerable amounts of effort required to keep things that way. From conditions like depression, ADHD, and anxiety to ones like schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder: You name it, there's probably a good number of editors in good standing who have it. Yet, despite that, when mental health is discussed, many editors quickly default to a position of rotely saying "Wikipedia is not therapy," as if that answers anything, often with the implication that editors with mental illnesses should just quit.^[2]

Mental health on Wikipedia is a far more complex topic for any one essay to cover, but here are my three guiding principles for editors with mental illnesses:

1. Don't let Wikipedia hurt your mental health. If on-wiki triggers are causing off-wiki problems, either change your editing style to avoid them, or take a break from editing until you're up for it.
2. Don't let your mental illness hurt other Wikipedians (or other people in general). This applies to being incivil to people when you're not well, but also covers indirect effects. For instance, threats of self-harm or suicide can have a strong negative effect on people, even if they're just passersby.
3. Don't let your mental illness hurt Wikipedia. Ultimately, we're all here to build an encyclopedia, and if your edits are going against that goal, it's your duty as a Wikipedian to disengage until you can edit constructively again.

Instead:

• Find things off-wiki that ground you, so you're not too reliant on Wikipedia for stability.
• Find things on-wiki that calm you rather than agitate you. Sometimes this may mean that you have to avoid areas of the encyclopedia that you're fond of but that cause you stress.
• Be aware of your limitations. Maybe there are things you have to participate in only in moderation, or things you have to do a different way from others.
• Set "bright lines", trigger situations that will make you modify, reduce, or temporarily halt your editing. These can be things like "If I find myself drinking because of Wikipedia things" or "If Wikipedia causes me a panic attack".
• If you make a mistake on-wiki due to impaired judgment, come up with a plan to avoid it happening again.

And when it comes to interacting with editors who are mentally ill:

• If someone is threatening to hurt themselves, follow the steps at WP:EMERGENCY and do not talk to them. You can never be sure you'll help rather than hurt. It sucks, but sometimes we just have to step back.
• While you shouldn't try to be anyone's therapist, if you're friendly with a Wikipedian, try to be a supportive peer to them. This might include a friendly suggestion that they step away from the keyboard at certain times.
• When you say things, consider how they might come across to a user who is depressed, who is prone to panic attacks, etc.
• If you have a mental illness, and another editor shares that they have the same or similar illness in a manner that indicates openness to discussion, you may both have something to gain from such a conversation.
• And for the love of G-d, don't go around saying "Wikipedia is not therapy" as if it adds anything to a conversation.^[2]

No one is under any obligation to disclose a mental illness, although there may be some cases that it's strategically a good call, for instance to explain why you are slow to respond to messages, or are forgetful, etc. However, even outside of those cases, I do think people should consider being open about their conditions, as an act of solidarity. Many Wikipedians only see mental illnesses come up in unblock requests. Being aware that, "That person with 10 FAs is bipolar", "That functionary has borderline personality disorder", and so on can do a lot to counter these unfair stereotypes. You don't have to put it on your userpage or anything. I don't. But even acknowledging it in conversation counts for a lot.

In terms of holders of higher permissions with mental illnesses, in addition to myself (an admin with dissociative identity disorder and bipolar-like symptoms^[3]), I am aware of, based on on-wiki self-identification:^[4] a functionary/ex-arb with borderline personality disorder; a functionary with bipolar disorder; an admin with a psychotic condition; an admin with a schizophrenia-spectrum condition; and too many admins to count with some combination of autism, ADHD, anxiety, and depression. The unifying thing, when I've talked to other admins in this group, is that we know how to manage our symptoms, and we know when to step away.

As noted above, I have dissociative identity disorder and bipolar-like symptoms.^[3] Here are the approaches I take to remain an editor in good standing and keep the admin mop:

• If I find an on-wiki situation worsening my mental health in any way—usually leading to a spike in anxiety—I walk away from it, even if it's something I want to participate in. In rare cases where that's not an option, because I have some obligation to participate (principally WP:ADMINACCT), I see it through concisely and then step away afterward until things renormalize.
• I identify the parts of my editing where I can't cut myself much slack. DID makes it hard for me to keep track of time. If someone's posting on my usertalk with an idea for an article, it's not the end of the world if I only reply a month later when I remember the post. If someone's posting with a concern about an admin action, however, I force that to the top of my mind, and make myself respond as quickly as possible. If I'm not in a state where I can do that, I shouldn't be taking admin actions.
• Because of how DID works, I tend to forget unpleasant things, but I try to force myself to remember (or force part of me to remind other parts of) past conflicts I've gotten into, so I don't wrongly think that I've never interacted with someone before, when we in fact got into an argument once. Although I let myself forget almost everyone who opposed my RfA.
• For reasons of anxiety and temperament, I rarely stick around in contentious discussions for more than a day or two. Occasionally I find something where it's really worth it, but usually it just raises my anxiety levels too much or makes me too angry. Instead, I find it's a good rhetorical challenge to make a !vote that will prompt others to argue for it even in one's own absence. I've swung at least two high-profile RfCs with this fire-and-forget approach.
• To ground myself, I go for walks with my polycule. I play boardgames with my polycule or other friends. I take long phonecalls with friends or family. I work on other hobbies. I dolphin-watch. All of these things remind me of my main priorities in life—above all else, being the head of household for a happy little family. ( Kinehore.) Wikipedia is what I do when I'm not doing that, not the other way around.
• Writing content, especially in the initial drafting stage, is very calming. I like getting an article at least halfway to GA quality before publishing it. I really get to get lost in the prose and the references. (N.B.: Keep in mind principle #3—the article does have to be beneficial by the community's standards, not just the author's!) I also like working at RfD: The stakes are pretty low, but many cases create tough puzzles for which it's satisfying to come up with a creative solution.
• If I don't feel that I can edit in a way that makes Wikipedia better, following applicable policies, guidelines, and community norms, then I don't edit. At times, this has meant going literal years without editing. More recently, on three occasions, something on Wikipedia has caused me to hit one of my "bright lines", although two were the most minor of those lines. For the major one, I greatly reduced editing for about three weeks until I was sure I was okay. For the other two I essentially put myself on "probation" and focused heavily on low-stress article-writing. I don't second-guess myself. If part of me thinks I shouldn't be editing in part or whole, I don't, even if that means dropping things abruptly.
• I run into the problem sometimes that different Tamzinim^[5] have different competence levels for different tasks. Usually it's easy enough to avoid pitfalls, because while, for instance, 5^[6] isn't great at closing long user-conduct matters, xe also doesn't have much interest in doing so. On one occasion, however, I did wind up in a situation where for a few days the Tamzin in control of the body did not know how to do any sort of admin work. I logged out of my admin account and left a note for colleagues saying to treat me, essentially, as a retired admin till the situation was resolved.
  That lasted a few days, and in that time I still did content work on an alt, but if someday, for whatever reason, I don't feel fit to edit for so long that I lose the bit, so be it. Better no admin than an incompetent admin.
• I cannot point to any mistake I've made on-wiki that was primarily a result of mental illness. Of course, it's impossible to separate mental illness from the self, especially with DID (where there is no "normal" state). But within the realm of my condition, there is normal symptoms, and abnormal symptoms, and even when I've done something I later regretted for reasons that pertained to plurality (most notably, C^[6] staying up 30 hours during our RfA and arguing with opposes), I don't blame DID; that's me, that's how I react—my reactions just happened to be colored through the lens of identity, not just mood like they would be for the average person. An abnormal symptom would be something that led me to act in a grossly inappropriate way, and that hasn't happened, at least not since I returned to editing in late 2020. That's a track record written in blood, though. A lot of earlier mistakes on-wiki, and even more of them in real life. Hopefully following the advice in this essay can provide some people with an easier path to, at a minimum, only making the normal kinds of fuck-up.