What I really appreciate about the Milk duology is that it's the only piece of media I've ever seen attempting to depict the cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia while still humanising the main character.
I do not have schizophrenia, so I can't speak from experience of whether the disorganised thought shown in-game is accurate, per se. But what I find striking is the fact that Milk-chan is obviously trying so, so hard to keep it together. Her speech is often tangential, even when her thoughts are easier to follow, but even when she's tangential, she's obviously trying to follow them to a certain conclusion. The tangents aren't made out to be funny, nor to be creepy or off-putting. They're just a symptom of her psychosis.
Moreover, she struggles with other cognitive symptoms. Reading now causes her fatigue, because focus takes so much more effort than before. Her memory is jumbled and gappy. Her thoughts will just block. Decisions are hard.
And, to add to all that, although her emotions might seem disorganised to outside viewers, they're always reactions to things she's experiencing, real or not. If she suddenly becomes sad, it's in response to genuine upset. If she gets angry, it's because the world, as she perceives it, really is that terrifying. If she's overjoyed, it's because she's achieved something, however small, and she's right to feel damn proud of herself. Even though her feelings seem extreme without explanation, she's not shown to be unstable or senseless. Rather, she's reacting to her reality, as refracted through illness.
Milk-chan is so so so human and likeable. She has disorganised thought and hebephrenic tendencies, and she is still not demonised for these, nor distanced in any way from the player by her symptoms. Her illness doesn't make her act without reason, even when she struggles to stay in reality. And I don't think I've ever seen schizophrenia humanised this way in media ever before. I wish the bar weren't this low, but I'm still glad that this depiction exists.
