The Dark Knight of Gotham City; Batman is my favourite superhero of all time. Unlike the alien whom we call ‘superman’ or the science lab experiment ‘Captain America’, Batman was a total human being with an unquenchable thirst for justice. Hell, he didn’t even have the ‘brains’ like ironman, he just had the money to use someone else’s. But behind the ‘bat with gymnasium membership’ costume and the ‘I am Batman’ voice, does batman aka Bruce Wayne suffer from a mental disorder. The whole of Gotham city accused the joker of having Anti-Social Personality Disorder. Whereas the person they should have been looking into was their dark knight- the psycho case we deserve but not what we need.
Quite frankly, the only batman I know of, is from the Christopher Nolan trilogy. Just with glances of the previous batmans in the silver screen, I can say that if I do dare to diagnose their mental disorders, this article would be a 200-page research study. So, I’ll just stick with the Christian Bale portrayal.
If you have ever been to a basic psychology course, you would see that the primary diagnosis of batman is ‘PTSD’ or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Before getting into the goofy origin story of Batman, let me go through the diagnosis criteria of PTSD according to DSM-V:
- The person should have been exposed to death, threatened death, actual or threatened serious injury, or actual or threatened sexual violence.
- Experiences negative symptoms related to the trauma for at least three months after the incident.
- These symptoms include:
o Re-experiencing trauma
o Cognitive symptoms
o Avoidance
o Hyperactivity
So, let us go through the origin story of the hero, in a bat suit with a cape. And yes, if you haven’t seen any of the Batman portrayals, Spoiler Alert. The origin story of the dark knight is pretty neat. The only son of a respected businessman, the heir to a shitload of money, afraid of bats like any other 10-year old kid and super sensitive, everything was going smooth and sweet. That is until some amateur thief with a loaded gun, shot down his parent while he watched. This here is the trauma discussed in the criteria. Bruce watched his parents die. Still, he could do nothing. The police sirens, the crime scene hustle, media attention, all add to the severity of the trauma.
But just the trauma isn’t enough to diagnose PTSD. It is completely normal for a kid to feel lonely and depressed after losing his parents. But this edges into the disorder territory if the symptoms prolong for a long period making the victim incapable of a normal healthy life. The batman comics give us a pretty good picture of the incidents that followed. Bruce gets thrown out of school, goes around beating up people he thinks are bad, gets away from people who care about him, and so on; classic signs of PTSD. He also shows uncontrollable anger and guilt. If you are a batman fan, you know how this plays out. It takes a while for Bruce to realize that he doesn’t want to shower down his anger like a supervillain. Rather he decides to face his fears wearing something that he himself is afraid of- a bat-suit. With the help of his loyal butler and a handful of people he trusts, he roams around Gotham city like a guardian angel.
But does that mean his symptoms have disappeared? Oh no, it just presented itself in better style. With each new super-villains, Bruce re-experiences the trauma of losing someone. He never could force himself to get close to anyone else without his cover. He always had the anger brewing inside which he blew out with ‘acceptable violence’. And he never stopped fighting, even when there was no one in the receiving end.
So, to answer the question, ‘does batman have PTSD?’, yes, he does.
You can refer Travis Langley’s ‘Batman and psychology’ for a longer read on the psychology of the dark knight.
If you have recently been through a trauma and are currently considering buying a bat-suit from the nearest store to fight crime, please do consult a psychologist ASAP…
