Does Cersei have PTSD?

[HairGrowsBack]

3 minutes ago, Dragonsmurf said:

What? Sansa was almost raped. Tyrion has a serious ongoing trauma. Jaime got mutilated. Theon is, well, beyond traumitized after the torture and will likely never recover. Why on earth would you say that no characters has PTSD?

Agreed. Pretty much every character has experienced very traumatic events, save for the evil ones, who inflinct said traumatic events on them.

 

2 hours ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

The term isn't even really a term. There is no such thing as a psychopath. But from a very young age Cersei has shown signs of antisocial personality disorder.

Here we agree.

[The Mountain That Flies]

3 hours ago, OIL, BLOOD, Water said:

No. The only character that could remotely get away with a PTSD defense in court would be Arya Stark. Not even Sansa. 

Sandor Clegane begs to disagree.

[Jon's Queen Consort]

I believe that, as others before me had said,  Arya, Sansa, Sandor and my addition Stannis are the characters who obviously suffer from PTSD.

[Étoile du Soir]

Start with what exactly. In a sense, GRRM's representation of Cersei in her inner POV is that she is endlessly discoursing within herself on the niceties of passion and withdrawal, the semiotics of power and gender contingency, the inevitability of age, which marks the passing of time with unrelenting ferocity, in much the same way as that of her demise at the hands of the valonqar. One organizing plot of Feast is Cersei's efforts to corral Margaery within her immediate family, thus suspending her grasp on Tommen before it exerts itself, but Margaery's unwitting capacity to dislodge Cersei's tenuous footing in the present emphasizes the way in which her tonic function, in narrative terms, is specially designated as a variant on Cersei's exclusive concentration on Tyrion. And yet, in so doing, Margaery suddenly assumes command of the page as part of a movement in Cersei's mind towards diluting the abiding aura of another anxiety of her life, her imminent defeat to the YMBQ, which is the underlying reason for Margaery's wholesome repudiation. To prevail in the face of adversity, the latter must be cleared out of the way. 

Many of her chapters are written on the cusp of free indirect discourse so that it is often impossible to adjudicate what is straight narration, what generated out of her inmost concerns. Her actual conduct, particularly in the context of Cersei's relationship with Taena, exemplifies her obsession with the major underpinnings for raw masculinity, as the latter has been expressed, for most of her spousal life, by Robert, whose actions could hardly ever be constrained, lashing at the barriers of his intelligence of his own shortcomings and dubious motives. Their fixed opposition, which remains unaltered for the entire narrative, still invites speculation from the reader. Not only are their contrasting perspectives conducive to readerly involvement, but their very similarities, if they exist at all, encourage us to create a world beyond the text. Far from resolving the puzzle of their marriage (their unseemly union did not serve either participant, in the long run), the connections hereby drawn are encouraged by various remarks in the story:

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Robert wanted smiles and cheers, always, so he went where he found them, to his friends and his whores. Robert wanted to be loved. My brother Tyrion has the same disease.

So Cersei's opinion of Robert later slides into her competing perspective of Tyrion, but these two disappointments meet to produce very different reactions to the true significance of Cersei's sneering at such a sumptuous feeling as love, as nothing to envy one at all. In Tyrion's own words, rather:

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She never forgets a slight, real or imagined. She takes caution for cowardice and dissent for defiance. And she is greedy. Greedy for power, for honour, for love.

It's interesting, she says to Sansa, "love is a poison." Only she never really follows up.  

In truth, not everything can be retrieved. And when Cersei finds herself on the receiving end of Robert's incongruous wrath, the old saws of woman's inconstancy and man's strength of feeling are offered, pressed upon, and revised by the author. His whoring and incessant drinking, her working away behind his back to relieve the realm of his considerable bulk, but biting back just as easily. His lachrymose misconstructions in relation to his affiliation to Lyanna Stark, Cersei's subsequent putting on weight, beaming down Jaime, and so on. Speaking of which, Jaime may have frozen into a male simulacrum of his twin, mirroring and reinforcing his narcissism, forming a mutual regard which is like that of a mirror, not a marriage. (GRRM never gets past the physical stage with these two, Cersei loves the Kingslayer, not the saviour of human souls, acting in the best interests of the citizens of KL by preventing his mad sovereign from igniting the wildfire caches hidden in every crevice. Similarly, Jaime knows nought of Maggy, why would he. The received wisdom is, the re-enactment of a cycle of sheer teenage disaffection.)

But she bears down on Jaime, too, and means to lay low such prowess as his, (I should have been born male) which is representative of the ideal of manhood. (When he loses his hand, he becomes emasculated in her own eyes, and she cannot abide his stump. Growing up, she would try on his regimental dress for size, or maybe she was the instigator of his emasculation all along, Jaime joined the KG on the initiative of his sister, and thus cast his chances of marrying and producing offsprings he would openly claim as his own to the four winds.) I suspect, however, the greatest shock in the novel is yet to be delivered in the guise of Jaime not deigning to answer Cersei's impassioned plea for help. (Jaime's love for her is a measure of self-worth for Cersei, so what happens after all else is gone, and even that remains no longer...)

Just to break a part of this down simply, for example, Cersei's fears may be taking on further dimensions, too, but her concern with the construct of beauty, terror at thought of her femininity suffering the deep distresses brought on by age, and discontentment of those around her has always been on her mind:

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I was going to be a queen. Why should a queen be afraid of some hideous old woman?

 

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Taena took her hand and stroked it. “This was a hateful woman, old and sick and ugly. You were young and beautiful, full of life and pride. She lived in Lannisport, you said, so she would have known of the dwarf and how he killed your lady mother. This creature dared not strike you, because of who you were, so she sought to wound you with her viper’s tongue.”

(Even Taena knows this, and preys upon her in Cersei's hour of need...)

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Cersei had not had a friend she so enjoyed since Melara Heatherspoon, and Melara had turned out to be a greedy little schemer with ideas above her station.

 

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Melara Hetherspoon was bolder, older, and prettier, in a freckly sort of way.

 

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None had pleased her, and few lasted very long. Little sneaks, the lot of them. Vapid, weepy creatures, always telling tales and trying to worm their way between me and Jaime.

I ask, why would Maggy's prophecy, say, be important, other than to highlight Cersei's own feelings on the subject? Who is the YMB, if not some cleverly-disguised abstract hinting at the idea of a woman beating Cersei at her own game...

[sweetsunray]

5 hours ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

The term isn't even really a term. There is no such thing as a psychopath. But from a very young age Cersei has shown signs of antisocial personality disorder.

Actually it is a term and it has a very clear definition and tests for it. It's not because it's not in the DSM that it's a non existent term used in the field of psychoatry and psychology. The DSM defines ASPD, but it's definition is broader than that of a psychopath. Because of this all psychopaths would be diagnozed as ASPD, but not all people with ASPD would be diagnozed as psychopaths. The intent for not including psychopathy in the DSM is very clear: the DSM is used to promote treatment and therapy. People diagnozed as having ASPD but not diagnozed as being a psychopath may benefit (and the people living with or around them) from therapy and treatment. Meanwhile any self-respecting therapist would agree that psychopathy is so pervasive that it is untreatable. So, the DSM was designed to incorporate a definition of the phenomenon so that it would allow a slight chance of success with ASPD-ers improving their behavior so that the harm they bring to other people is lessened. It's a diagnostic manual for treatment purposes, hence why psychopathy is not defined in it. But again, that does not mean that the term is used and defined by professionals... it is mostly used and accepted as a diagnostic term in the field of criminal investigation and court cases.

ASPD defines mostly behavior aspects, while psychopathy defines behavior + internal aspects. ASPD treatment is aimed at improving an ASPD-ers behavior, without being able to do anything about the internal aspects. If someone is a psychopath with no or very low empathy then the treatment will only serve to improve their mask.

The term that is not used anymore professionally at all is sociopathy. Sociopathy is replaced with the term psychopathy.

[Jon's Queen Consort]

22 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

snip

No. IIRC the tern "psychopath" or "psychopathy" isn't a term nowadays, it used to be but not anymore. This term has been replaced with ASPD. I only talk about the name, I could be terribly wrong but this is what I remember.

[Cas Stark]

The medical lingo changes and has changed, sociopath, psychopath, borderline personality disorder, anti-personality disorder, and so on.

I feel comfortable saying that Cersei Lannister suffers from some type of personality disorder, mental defect, whatever name anyone wants to give it.  Her aberrant behaviors stared at a very young age, including a propensity for violence and paranoia that aren't really linked to any traumatic event.

The stress of her father dying and Joff dying has definitely exacerbated and speeded her mental decline, but I wouldn't call it post traumatic stress. 

[Maxxine]

Idk for sure its PTSD. But I think it's obvious that whatever issues she had became worse after watching Joffrey die. Regardless of what you say about Cersei she does love her kids especially Joffrey and watching him die had an effect. Im also not sure she was is a sociopath the way some people are saying. I think it's more of a narcissism issue. I'll admit I'm not a psychiatrist so I'm not an expert. But from my limited understanding of the terms that's my opinion.

[DasallmaechtigeJ]

Aside from her walk, she has not witnessed anything traumatic. Her marriage to Robert cannot be the stresser, as far as we know he didn't abuse her (or at least not systematically). He mostly flat-out ignored her and she didn't mind much, aside from irregular oral sex they did not have much contact. There are far worse husbands in Westeros. The death of her mother also cannot be the stresser, countless other people in her surroundings lost their mother during childbirth. It is nothing unusual in the world she lives in.

Cersei has always been mad, she tortured and proxy-killed Tyrion and countless others from an early age for no apparant reason. Well, Tyrion "killed" her mother, but that doesn't erade that she abused countless others. She has always been a bad person and she will die a bad person.

[Witch]

We will never know how Cersei was before Joffrey's death but I do think she was different. The death of her most beloved child and Margaery's arrival at court did fuel her paranoia. She did seem more composed and calculating before AFFC.

[sweetsunray]

1 hour ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

No. IIRC the tern "psychopath" or "psychopathy" isn't a term nowadays, it used to be but not anymore. This term has been replaced with ASPD. I only talk about the name, I could be terribly wrong but this is what I remember.

It is not a DSM manual term, but it is still a term used in diagnostics in criminal law and proceedings, and thus still has legal consequences. Hare's PCL-R test is not used to diagnoze ASPD, but psychopathy, and the definition of ASPD and psychopathy as diagnozed by the PCL-R differ significantly, because ASPD leaves out a lot. The sole term not in use for either therapy or legal diagnosis is sociopathy. Since the PCL-R test is used in criminal proceedings, a test developed by Hare (who argues ASPD is an imprecise definition because it leaves out personality traits and focuses mostly on behavior only) and using Hare's definition of psychopathy, the diagnosis is that of psychopathy. Of course, the DSM proponents argue that ASPD = psychopathy as originally defined by Cleckley in the 40s, but their definition is not the same as that of Hare and the PCL-R test, nor is the PCL-R used as a diagnosis test for ASPD. The term psychopathy is not endorsed by the DSM, but it is endorsed by criminology. So, no, as long as the definition of the two differ, the diagnostic tests differ and as long as the psychopathy definition and test is used in official settings then you cannot say it's just "an outdated term".

[Cas Stark]

We know she and her twin brother were sexually experimenting while their mother was still alive, that she pushed Melara down a well, that she abused her brother Tyrion, that she fucked her brother the day she married Robert, that she has no friends at all save her brother, that she aids and abets Joffs cruelty, that she was unhinged enough by GOT to tip her hand that she was Stark's enemy over a trivial incident, when she had Lady killed, that her father sends Tyrion to take over as Hand because she and Joff are totally incompetent.

I never get the idea that there was a huge change between books 1-3 and Feast.  She was always short sighted and impulsive, but she didn't have any significant power until her father dies....and once she has that power, her lack of judgement is magnified, it was always there.

[dsug]

2 hours ago, DasallmaechtigeJ said:

Aside from her walk, she has not witnessed anything traumatic. Her marriage to Robert cannot be the stresser, as far as we know he didn't abuse her (or at least not systematically). He mostly flat-out ignored her and she didn't mind much, aside from irregular oral sex they did not have much contact. There are far worse husbands in Westeros. The death of her mother also cannot be the stresser, countless other people in her surroundings lost their mother during childbirth. It is nothing unusual in the world she lives in.

Cersei has always been mad, she tortured and proxy-killed Tyrion and countless others from an early age for no apparant reason. Well, Tyrion "killed" her mother, but that doesn't erade that she abused countless others. She has always been a bad person and she will die a bad person.

Do the words "Purple Wedding" ring a bell? Her 13 year old son died in a puddle of blood and wine in her arms. Something like that changes people, no matter how crazy they are. 

 

[DasallmaechtigeJ]

1 hour ago, dsug said:

Do the words "Purple Wedding" ring a bell? Her 13 year old son died in a puddle of blood and wine in her arms. Something like that changes people, no matter how crazy they are. 

 

It does ring a bell but it is of no importance for what we are analyzing here. She showed the exact same behavior before the PW occured, which means that she must have been a sociopath even before. As I have pointed out, she has shown those symptomps since her earliest childhood, meaning that her behavior does not result from PTSD. Granted, the PW may have worsened her condition, but it is by no means the cause.

[OIL, BLOOD, Water]

10 hours ago, Dragonsmurf said:

What? Sansa was almost raped. Tyrion has a serious ongoing trauma. Jaime got mutilated. Theon is, well, beyond traumitized after the torture and will likely never recover. Why on earth would you say that no characters has PTSD?

Do you know what PTSD actually is? And Sansa being "almost raped" is not enough for PTSD. There's nothing in Sansa's ADWD chapters or Season 5 of the show to indicate that she has PTSD. Sansa obviously has an eating disorder though, if you insist on giving her some psychological issue and Anorexia Nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any psychological disorder - it kills more people than PTSD does. 

I was sexually assaulted IRL on at least 2 occasions (once in public and once in private) and I don't have PTSD. Someone also shot at me with a gun (ex-soldier with PTSD) and I don't have PTSD. Not everyone who gets raped or faces adversity gets PTSD.  

The only realistic candidate for PTSD in ASOIF is Arya Stark, with Theon as a close second. 
It may be correct to label Theon as PTSD, or more likely Dissociative Identity Disorder. 

------

 

Do the words "Purple Wedding" ring a bell? Her 13 year old son died in a puddle of blood and wine in her arms. Something like that changes people, no matter how crazy they are. 

 

Changing People =/= PTSD. 

PTSD is a very specific psychological diagnosis. You can't just say "Character X had trauma. They have PTSD." 

Some of you spend too much time on Tumblr and are truly minimizing psychological disorders. It's like when people wash their hands frequently and they say "omg I must have OCD or something." 

[Beautiful Bloody Sword]

5 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

We know she and her twin brother were sexually experimenting while their mother was still alive, that she pushed Melara down a well, that she abused her brother Tyrion, that she fucked her brother the day she married Robert, that she has no friends at all save her brother, that she aids and abets Joffs cruelty, that she was unhinged enough by GOT to tip her hand that she was Stark's enemy over a trivial incident, when she had Lady killed, that her father sends Tyrion to take over as Hand because she and Joff are totally incompetent.

I never get the idea that there was a huge change between books 1-3 and Feast.  She was always short sighted and impulsive, but she didn't have any significant power until her father dies....and once she has that power, her lack of judgement is magnified, it was always there.

Thank you.

[dsug]

48 minutes ago, OIL, BLOOD, Water said:

Do you know what PTSD actually is? And Sansa being "almost raped" is not enough for PTSD. There's nothing in Sansa's ADWD chapters or Season 5 of the show to indicate that she has PTSD. Sansa obviously has an eating disorder though, if you insist on giving her some psychological issue and Anorexia Nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any psychological disorder - it kills more people than PTSD does. 

I was sexually assaulted IRL on at least 2 occasions (once in public and once in private) and I don't have PTSD. Someone also shot at me with a gun (ex-soldier with PTSD) and I don't have PTSD. Not everyone who gets raped or faces adversity gets PTSD.  

The only realistic candidate for PTSD in ASOIF is Arya Stark, with Theon as a close second. 
It may be correct to label Theon as PTSD, or more likely Dissociative Identity Disorder. 

------

 

Changing People =/= PTSD. 

PTSD is a very specific psychological diagnosis. You can't just say "Character X had trauma. They have PTSD." 

Some of you spend too much time on Tumblr and are truly minimizing psychological disorders. It's like when people wash their hands frequently and they say "omg I must have OCD or something." 

First of all, Tumblr is the bane of my existence so please don't group me with those people LMFAO. 

And I just wanna say that I'm not intending to make light of anything or use anything lightly. This stemmed from us talking about Macbeth in school, and the statement that some people think Macbeth had PTSD. I've always thought Cersei was the Macbeth archetype of ASIOAF, so I googled it's symptoms and compared. In my opinion, a lot of the symptoms I found seemed to really work (paranoia, drinking, etc) so I thought it may be possible. I made a thread sharing my thoughts and asked people if they thought it was possible. And here we are lol. 

Im not trying to do some earth shattering character analysis or some shit. I thought it was a cool possibility I personally hadn't heard considered yet. 

[Wolf's Bane]

23 hours ago, dsug said:

Could Cersei Lannister have post traumatic stress disorder? Some of the most major symptoms are paranoia, isolation, irritability, substance abuse, flashbacks, nightmares, and hypervigilance. Cersei literally has all of these.

Shes paranoid that everyone is coming to hurt her and her children. She isolates herself from Jaime and Kevan, alienating the only people that actually have a shred of affection for her. She's irritable all the time, throwing fits in the Small Council. She's literally drunk like 80% of the time. She suffers flashbacks and nightmares to her encounter with Maggy. She's obsessed with Tommen's safety. 

I know a lot of people just slap the word "sociopath" on her and call it a day, but I think this could be an interesting possibility. While it does not excuse her atrocious actions, it could explain them. 

The question some might have is "what triggered it." Unlike sociopathy, people AREN'T born with PTSD. Something has to traumatize them, hence the post/traumatic. I'd say it was the death of Joffrey, and then Tyrion's escape and murder of Tywin. Though Cersei's always been a rotten woman, I think these events could have easily traumatized her to the point of PTSD. I mean, she's literally got like all the symptoms. 

Thoughts?

Anyone in her position should be paranoid.  She heard the prophecy.  She knows her life, Jaime, and the children's are always in danger if their relationship became known.  Cersei suffers from obsession.  Like how some people are worrying all the time about something they wish not to happen that it dominates their life. 

[sweetsunray]

It's correct that PTSD develops only in a small percentage of people who have been exposed to a traumatizing event. And nearly everyone experiences or witnesses something traumatic at least once in their life. The risk for developing it is either by massive scale trauma (like the Tsnuami in Thailand or 9/11), or having to survive for a prolonged period in a life threatening situation (this may be a mental and emotional threat as well, not just physical safety). Hence combattants and long term abuse survivors may develop a varying degree of PTSD symptoms, because in order to survive the prolonged trauma exposure, the person could not afford to address their fears and emotions during the events. Once the person is actually back into a safe enough situation, the psyche will attempt to deal with the trauma of the past through triggered flashbacks, nightmares, vivid memories to finally tackle the sidelined but non-resolved emotions. The biggest issue is that the person has no control over these flashbacks, memories and nightmares occurring and can be very disruptive in functioning. 

Also PTSD does not necessarily take extreme forms of years and years, nor has to be violent. A few memory-like nightmares, some triggered flashabck episodes where witnesses present may think of it as nothing more than an odd emotional anxious response to a small disruption, and ahypervigilance where nothing escapes the one with PTSD without paranoia could be regarded as PTSD. MIld cases like that may resolve themselves anywhere between a month or half a year.

I would say that the reoccurring nightmares Sansa has in relation to her long term abuse could qualify for a mild form of PTSD. Theon may suffer from it, but he's barely made it to a safe envirinment yet. So, we cannot say yet. Arya arguably may show signs of it: for example when she's at Sharna's inn and Lem has to grab her and ends up having his nose broken as she panics, convinced it's happening all over again. Though we do not see her having a flashback in her mind memory-wise then, she is triggered by flashback emotions.

[Dragonsmurf]

5 hours ago, OIL, BLOOD, Water said:

Do you know what PTSD actually is? And Sansa being "almost raped" is not enough for PTSD. There's nothing in Sansa's ADWD chapters or Season 5 of the show to indicate that she has PTSD. Sansa obviously has an eating disorder though, if you insist on giving her some psychological issue and Anorexia Nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any psychological disorder - it kills more people than PTSD does. 

I was sexually assaulted IRL on at least 2 occasions (once in public and once in private) and I don't have PTSD. Someone also shot at me with a gun (ex-soldier with PTSD) and I don't have PTSD. Not everyone who gets raped or faces adversity gets PTSD.  

The only realistic candidate for PTSD in ASOIF is Arya Stark, with Theon as a close second. 
It may be correct to label Theon as PTSD, or more likely Dissociative Identity Disorder. 

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Changing People =/= PTSD. 

PTSD is a very specific psychological diagnosis. You can't just say "Character X had trauma. They have PTSD." 

Some of you spend too much time on Tumblr and are truly minimizing psychological disorders. It's like when people wash their hands frequently and they say "omg I must have OCD or something." 

Yes, I know what PTSD is and attempted raped can be enough to trigger it. But as you said, not everyone who goes through a trauma gets PTSD. I don't know if Sansa has PTSD or not, but she would definitly satisy the trauma criteria. I think Jaime shows off more PTSD traits though.
I think Tyrion can suffer from complex traumatization, due to the multiple traumas during his childhood.