#reposting since the formatting got messed up derp

[spookyblueegg-blog]

Rika and BPD (Or, why you don’t have to like Rika, but shouldn’t just brand her as evil)

Okay, first off, TW for those who have BPD, or who have loved ones with BPD, due to the rather insensitive way in which Cheritz portrayed the disorder.

Now. It’s perfectly understandable if you don’t like Rika. She’s done a lot of really terrible, hurtful things--things that are difficult to forgive. However, I do think it’s both unfair and inaccurate to brand Rika as outright evil, or call her a snake, a bitch, etc, etc, because her behavior is rooted in sickness rather than active malice. And no, don’t worry, I’m not trying to say that her mental illness absolves her of responsibility for her actions. She does need to be held accountable for her wrongdoings, but knowing why she does all of these things makes her much more sympathetic. Hear me out.

With the release of V’s route (hooray for everyone’s favorite teal cinnamon roll), we learn a lot of new information about Rika, and gain quite a bit of new insight into her character. With this new information, it’s become pretty clear that Rika shows textbook signs of Borderline Personality Disorder. The link provides a more detailed overview from the NIMH (which in turn is derived from the DSM-5), but I’ll list the symptoms below for easier access:

(Continued under the cut, since this got pretty long.)

Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment

A pattern of intense and unstable relationships with loved ones, often swinging from extreme closeness and love (idealization) to extreme dislike or anger (devaluation)

These first two are big ones, and are famously summarized by the phrase “I hate you, don’t leave me” that commonly characterizes BPD. And they’re very evident in Rika’s past and present behavior. She has deep-seated fears of abandonment stemming from serious childhood neglect and trauma (e.g., her dad abandoning the family, her mother killing herself, her aunt saying that she regretted adopting her...). Childhood neglect is a common risk factor for BPD, and it’s understandable why. If people have abandoned you from an impressionable young age, it’s easy to imagine that the pattern will continue.

This is (rather infamously) demonstrated in her extremely unhealthy relationship with V, as shown in the picture above. However, Rika isn’t doing this because she’s some awful manipulative bitch, as many seem to think. She’s doing this because she afraid that he’s going to leave her, just as her parents did. And she’s lashing out in response to that fear. While it’s unclear whether she’s referencing her adoptive parents or her biological parents (the former seems more likely, considering how the latter died when she was very young), it ultimately doesn’t matter. All of them abandoned her, and now she feels like another person that she loves is behaving in the same way that they are (e.g., not appreciating her, betraying her, etc). And so she thinks that he’s going to do the same thing that they did, and leave her.

The pattern continues with the MC, in V’s bad ending.

“I hate you, but I love you.” She’s not being contradictory here. She’s just exhibiting the idealization/devaluation pattern here once again. The symptom list goes on and on, with Rika checking off pretty much every single box:

Recurring suicidal behaviors or threats or self-harming behavior

Intense and highly changeable moods

Distorted and unstable self-image or sense of self

Impulsive and often dangerous behaviors

Chronic feelings of emptiness

Inappropriate, intense anger or problems controlling anger

Having stress-related paranoid thoughts

Having severe dissociative symptoms, such as feeling cut off from oneself, or losing touch with reality

All of her seemingly “bitchy” or “evil” behavior isn’t because she’s some terrible person, but rather stem from symptoms of a very severe personality disorder. Now, here’s where things get dicey, because Cheritz decided to take this woman with obvious BPD and then make her the villain of the story. I think it should be fairly obvious that people with BPD don’t normally start brainwashing cults and blinding their fiancees. As someone who has loved ones with BPD, this “violent and unstable” portrayal of BPD upset me, because it’s a tired old negative stereotype. However, as rare as it is, it is true that some people with BPD can become potentially violent when lashing out in fear and desperation. And that’s what Rika does. During dramatic mood swings, people with BPD often report feeling like they’re “losing their minds,” and can seem like two totally different people within the span of a few weeks (e.g., RFA leader Rika vs. cult leader Rika). And, as referenced by the last symptom above, extreme actions due to a loss of touch with reality are also possible (see: Mint Eye. She genuinely believes she’s helping lead these people into some kind of paradise). 

A lot of her other behavior, such as refusing to go in for treatment, also become more understandable within the context of BPD. BPD is infamously difficult to treat, and carries with it a very heavy stigma that would only be worse in Korea, where mental illness is still treated as a taboo subject. However, what people with BPD need is loving but firm support from the people around them to continue treatment. How V reacted, while based in good intentions, was very, very bad for Rika, by essentially enabling her destructive behavior and continuing the cycle again and again.

I have a friend with BPD who once told me that as much as she was sure everyone in the world hated her, she was the one who hated herself the most. I could go on and on, but the crux of the message is this: Rika does very bad things, but she’s suffering too. You don’t have to like her, or forgive her, but I think it’s important to recognize that she’s not evil. It sucks to see such a heavily BPD-coded character reviled in this way, because I’ve personally seen how people with BPD in reality get treated in very similar ways--getting called a “psycho” or a “bitch,” when they’re really just sick and in need of help. We should be better than that, you guys.

TL;DR: just check out the last paragraph, bby. thanks.