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the-babbering-dabber · 10 days ago

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Ok so I psychoanalyzed Ace

Major depression, generalized anxiety, likely survivor's guilt, moderate to high suicidality, PTSD, (I believe) a form of bipolar, eating disorder is probable, effects of disorganized childhood attachment, and narcolepsy

putting extensive deep diving below cut bc its long

CW Mention and go into disorders listed above as well as Ace's inner thoughts, so take care of yourselves, loves 🩷

Ace collapses his worth into his role of a caretaker and older brother to his “bungling kid brother,” Luffy. While he has his own goals, aspirations, and justifications behind his action, Luffy is on his mind often–he asks folks all over if they’ve seen him, showing them his wanted poster and asking them to tell Luffy he’s looking for him. When interacting with Luffy’s crew–and despite being obviously close to Luffy–Ace keeps his distance, refusing provisions, physically distancing himself from the group during travel and rest, keeps quiet unless absolutely necessary, he speaks with Luffy, or he thanks (and apologizes to) them for taking care of his brother. While they call him ‘Big Brother,’ he’s cautious to intrude or take up space.

He respects Luffy’s autonomy, letting him fight his own battles, face the consequences of his antics, and interact with the world around him however he so chooses–only stepping in when necessary, directly provoked/addressed, or it concerns him. Ace is proud of his brother and the family he created around him yet is hesitant to mingle with that part of Luffy’s world. He clearly loves his brother and knows him well, anticipating his behavior before it happens or completely understanding him from a glance at a smile.

While they share a bottomless appetite, an affinity for sentimental hats, and an impulsive perceived cluelessness (actual genius?), Ace is a far cry from his brother in terms of manners and temperament. Luffy wears his emotions on his face, hiding nothing. Ace, however, dons a social mask, projecting a false self onto those around him. The world sees a heroic, fearless, invulnerable pirate. Ace, himself, has incredibly low self-esteem, believing himself a “demon child, son of the devil” deserving death just for being born, constantly needing to earn love and permission to take up space. Some of his first and last words to Luffy expressed shock and disbelief that he was loved, and and wanted alive’ filled with gratefulness and thankfulness of being deemed worthy of love.

His relationship with himself and his father (whom he never met) is a messy combination of love and hate & idealization and anger. While he also seeks the One Piece (his father’s legacy) and adopts a life of a top, famed pirate, he despises the man (and himself) for his monstrous nature (of being free). He even takes his mother’s maiden name, leaving behind anything tying him to his father.

Ace not only focuses on interpersonal relationships with his brother, father, and adoptive father, he defines himself by it. Every ideal he holds of himself is characterized by his feelings and images associated with important people in his life. Ace himself is full of fear, envy, anger and guilt, often projecting an apathetic, bored, or smug & confident expression and manner when there’s insecurity, self-hatred, and perhaps envy over his brother’s freedom.

In terms of his childhood, it's characterized by abuse, neglect, and certainly instability marked by fear, distress, distrust, and confusion. Typical of adult children of disorganized attachment theory, Ace does portray the textbook example: anxiety, fear of abandonment or upsetting those close, self hatred, erratic or impulsive behavior, emotional dysregulation. Evidenced by the start of Ace and Luffy’s brotherhood and his acceptance into Whitebeard’s crew, Ace craves intimacy and love, yet rejects it out of fear; putting up walls to avoid vulnerability. Throughout the Alabasta Arc, Ace either keeps his distance from the groups or is exceptionally close to Luffy—another key feature of disorganized attachment. He either distances himself from the group–including Luffy–or runs right up to him, arm wrestles, or provides for and protecting Luffy and co., etc. Ace mostly avoids others, sitting on the side, walking at the end of the group multiple steps apart, or not partaking in discussion, etc. Despite Ace clearly wanting to spend time with Luffy (e.g. asking literally anyone if they’ve seen this random man, telling people to tell said random man he’ll be in town XYZ for X number of days in probably…every town he’s left; the poster child of ‘look at my little brother, isn’t he great’, giving him the vivi card, etc) he doesn’t actually interact much with him when around others. In fact, the only thing he consistently talks with the Straw Hats about is Luffy. He thanks them for looking after his bungling kid brother, apologizes for his “ineptness [and]...trouble”, and requests they continue to take care of him. Despite Ace can be seen smiling at Luffy’s actions quite often, the very image of a proud big brother. Perhaps he just considers himself luck to be allowed in his presence, so why push it?

This boy, man does he have major depression and risk factors of moderate to high suicidality. He often has an apathetic or bored expression or tone, lack of affect (emotionality), binge eating (alternatively, just a large appetite), low self-esteem, anger, suicidal thoughts, low effort in staying alive (i.e. not caring if you die: “It doesn’t matter if I live long, what only matters is that I live today.”), poor hygiene possibly (some folks have taken to calling him greasy), guilt, pessimism, emptiness, worthlessness, insomnia or hypersomnia.

Hypomania or mania are characterized by a variety of symptoms, here are some Ace displays: extreme confidence, grandiosity, irritability, decreased focus or attention, poor judgment, impulsivity, risk-taking, and overactivity and decreased/irregular sleep). Ace’s behavior, to me, makes me wonder if he has a form of bipolar disorder–irregular periods of depression and hypo/mania (hypomania is a less intense form of mania). Stress and instability in childhood–along with child adversity–are common contributing etiological factors to BP 1 and/or 2. In my unprofessional yet degreed opinion, it’s likely he has a form of bipolar.

Now, something to consider is PTSD or complex PTSD (i.e. multiple traumas)–it’s important to note that not everyone who experiences trauma develops PTSD–in fact, oftentimes PTSD does not develop besides an acute period of symptoms. However, many do, especially if they experience trauma during their childhood. Experience to an actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence paired with recurrent intrusive symptoms of memories & thoughts, nightmares, flashbacks, and cue reactivity, avoidance, distress & demoralizations, and heightened reactivity is the official diagnostic model for PTSD. Anxiety and depression, paired with hyperreactivity (If we get funky, we can include observation haki in this), protectiveness when Luffy and co are in danger/putting himself on the line, as well as persistent thoughts of self-disdain drilled into him by others since early childhood doesn’t paint a pretty picture. While children are incredibly resilient, repeated threat, abuse (verbal and physical), neglect, unstable childhood, and even low SES (i.e. homeless jungle orphan), it’s likely he has also developed PTSD. It goes without saying (although I'm saying it), folks with trauma are often high in neuroticism. meaning, he's struggles with emotional instability and regulation and behavioral regulation, experiencing negative emotions (i.e. anxiety, worry, fear, anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, pessimism, guilt, depressed mood, and loneliness) in high and intense degrees.

Another marker of trauma presents itself at Marineford. Folks with PTSD have an over active sympathetic system (i.e. adrenaline, stress, fight or flight). Ace’s body goes into fight mode, protecting his brothers, others, and lastly himself. He may be overattentive and over-response to threats (e.g. overreacting to simple threats with…say…a massive fist of fire). When, however, a large and serious threat presents itself—like if you’re facing execution–the body is biologically unable to react, having been worn down by repeated reactions of the sympathetic nervous system without appropriate stimuli. This may partly explain why he wanted Luffy to leave him there, backed up by self-deprecation and suicidality, Ace was not able to imagine a reality where he wanted to or could physically or mentally survive. There's most likely some survivor's guilt as well with believing Sabo to be dead. That can fuck you up big time, adding to feelings of worthlessness, despair, and anxiety over protecting Luffy and knowing he's alive.

Now, touching on Ace’s narcolepsy, there is a possibility of hallucinations. While, to my knowledge, there isn’t any substance to this symptom, sensory hallucinations are common–often mistaken for nightmares–one may feel as if someone’s touching you, you could hear sounds or words (perhaps something like ‘devil child’, ‘monster’s spawn,’ in his case) or—more rarely–seeing people near you or lying in your bed. Narcolepsy, as with many chronic conditions, has the sneaky side effect of increasing mental health issues, including depression, anxiety (of which he’s been noted to exhibit signs of), bipolar disorder (which is something I theorize he may have), and feelings especially of shame, isolation and worthlessness.

So to oversimplify and summarize:

Ace both Internalizes and Externalizes in terms of coping, experience, and response, mostly internalizing.

Ace presents with symptoms of major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety, bipolar, and traits of PTSD. Circumstances of his childhood and the relationship with his identity contributed to externalizing, antagonist, antisocial behavior (i.e. impulsivity, boredom proneness, aggression at times, alienation of self, rebelliousness, and risk taking. His excessive politeness, manners, and apologies on Luffy’s behalf are possibly externalizing traits as well. Ace’s likely diagnosis of narcolepsy exacerbates feelings of guilt, shame, worthlessness, and isolation, working off of disorganized childhood attachment, depression, anxiety, suicidality, and manic periods. It’s possible that he may have a sort of eating disorder as well, he binges eating (which one could attribute to likeness with Luffy) while exhibiting control and content in other situations.

also, unrelated but not, i hc that sabo totally experiences psychosis. gotta have thought disorder and high neuroticism. like, there's gotta be some kind of hallucinatory experience and neuro damage from the explosion. maybe i'll do him next. my only original works 💀

Ace draws his worth and ‘permission’ to exist from how helpful he can be and how little he takes up space. He likely craves relationships but has trust issues and fear of rejection and hate. While it’s unlikely based on presentations in media, Ace could possibly experience hallucinations of likely the auditory sort–attributed to narcolepsy and PTSD.

Now it is worth drawing attention to comorbidity (i.e. multiple disorders existing bc of shared symptoms and bidirectional intensification). many disorders mimic others. for example, autism and bipolar may be mimicked by c/PTSD. presence of psychosis may concurrently run with PTSD or possibly manic episodes, not meaning however, that there's a schizophrenic spectrum disorder present. basically, diagnostics don't mean much in the grand scheme of things. what we look at in some forms of clinical psych is symptomology and main issues (e.g. distress, intense self hatred, anxiety and guilt, etc) rather than well defined buckets of labels.

tagging @moikey-croikey bc they wanted this and I was already doing like half of it for a class. i just added diagnostic criteria. sorry for the extra day wait mate, exam kicked my ass

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