Research For the Script

     This past week, I unfortunately didn't get as much done as I wanted to, including finishing the script. While part of the issue was lack of proper scheduling and time management admits a terribly busy week, the other half of the issue was figuring out how to create characters, particularly the green and yellow characters who are meant to depict how people who are dealing with survivors guilt or someone who is horribly afraid of dying. I want to be able to portray these specific characters as carefully as possible since they are characters that are more rooted in actual conditions and I want to make sure they are represented accurately and respectfully.

Yellow 

 

 Yellow as a character is someone who is meant to represent people with hypochondria ( also known as illness anxiety disorder) and death anxiety. Hypochondriasis, according to sciencedirect.com is the excessive fear of serious illness. People with the disorder often experience high levels of anxiety and believe that medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) are caused by serious illness. Death anxiety, is the conscious/unconscious fear of dying due to being aware that death can occur at any moment. While the associated between the two is not studied profoundly, those who experience death anxiety tend to be more prone to anxiety disorders, and it is believed that death anxiety is likely an underlying/ contributing factor to some who have Hypochondriasis. When in tandem, Hypochondriasis and death anxiety manifest through the person believing their MUS are because of issues like organ failure, and bodily damage that could lead to death. 

    As I mentioned before, Yellow is meant to be a representation of how someone may act when they have these disorders and come face to face with death itself. Instead of what I and originally intended for  the character and having them be addicted to pills, Yellow will be a person who physically looks exhausted, due to lack of sleep from hype fixating on every sensation in their body and fearing that it means their body is failing them. When the character of Death finally gets to Yellow, they are checking their temperature, and panic when they realize they have a low grade fever (even though they have a jacket on to keep the cold out) and have run out of Acetaminophen. Once they realize death is present, they panic for they believe their worst fear is coming true and that they were right about all of their MUS being caused by something more severe. 

Green

    The green character is meant to be a representation of someone with survivor's guilt after having gotten in a car accident where the person they were with unfortunately passed away. 

According to the National Library of Medicine, survivor's guilt is a response when someone survives a traumatic event, while others do not. People who experience survivor's guilt may experience symptoms like flashbacks or nightmares of the events, irritability/anger, trouble moving past the event, and having constant thoughts about what happened and that they didn't do enough to prevent the event from happening. A lot of the symptoms are similar to that of those with PTSD. 

    Within Stare, the green character will be a representation of someone with survivor's guilt. As they mourn the loss of their loved one, they can't help but blame themselves, and wonder what they could have done to prevent their death. When they notice Death, they demand to know why it wasn't them that died instead of their friend, giving a "why not me?" moment. 

Sources

https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/hypochondria

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022399918306202

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10590163/#:~:text=Survivor's%20guilt%20is%20the%20response,anxiety%20disorders%2C%20and%20complicated%20grief.

https://centerstone.org/our-resources/health-wellness/understanding-survivors-guilt/