PTSD and Mal. Really?

POSTED BY: Bytemite
UPDATED: Monday, January 27, 2020 20:08
VIEWED: 36442
PAGE 3 of 12

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NEXT PAGE

LESSISMORE

Monday, March 16, 2009 8:34 PM

Yeah, I think so, pretty much. When he is really ticked the years fall away and he is again back to his former self. He was, at the outset of the war, a true believer. By the end all he believes in has been pretty much striped away. He is left with a modified personal code, a very modified family unit, and his survival instinct, until the events of Firefly and Serenity. Written damn well with a "been there and done that" for real feel I find a lot of nuance and depth in his performance. For example, the way he got off is bunk in Serenity when Inara called. That was pitch perfect. All asleep, then, all awake on his feet. Oh, not an actual emergency, ok, I'll be a bit sleepy again. The whole crew (except Simon, and at times, River, are hyper-vigilant, and, time would have cured that)A change in engine pitch and they all know it and the most attuned respond the fastest. Etc. I think when Mal said "Wars over we're all just folks now" he acknowledged that all of them were damaged in their own ways. The least damaged among them were Wash, Simon, and Kaylee. Wash was essentially what was the best in them all. He, ah hem, died for their sins. Kaylee and Simon had the most in common in regard to being less damaged (?) and could heal their hurts and renew themselves in each other. Zoe has been able to compartmentalize her thoughts and put her losses away for private times. Book went through hell somewhere, sometime, and found essential belief once again. This was both his end and his salvation. Jayne has a very young spirit. He is a child in many ways and looks to Book and Mal for real guidance. On their own, they are a mess. Together, they are a formidable crew, an unconventional warfare unit extraordinaire, and a surrogate family. These are things that help deal with PTSD. Friends, Family, Understanding, a flexible approach, and acceptance. Mal accepts who and what he has become because, perhaps, way down deep, he feels he should be the way he was at the start. But, it was all too much, for too long, and the way he now process everything has changed and he may never recover fully. Additionally, however, if he were he would be less effective at what he does a be more vulnerable and open to more emotional damage.

BYTEMITE

Monday, March 16, 2009 9:54 PM

Group and relationship therapies are apparently commonly recommended treatments for PTSD; familiarity, tolerance, and acceptance help lessen current stresses as a patient copes with the old trauma. Seeking out some form of support and building his crew definitely would have been a beneficial activity for him.

Off hand, I'm more than willing to just label Mal's behaviour pattern as PTSD, but I'm still finding it ambiguous if he has PTSD in a technical, medical diagnosis sense.

On wikipedia, it says "PTSD sufferers re-experience the traumatic event or events in some way. As a result, they tend to avoid places, people, or other things that remind them of the event, and are exquisitely sensitive to normal life experiences."

CELLARDOOR

Monday, March 16, 2009 10:23 PM

For a slightly more specialized source, here's the WebMD link:

http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/post-traumatic-stress-disorder

And a key few paragraphs: "Although the disorder must be diagnosed by a mental health professional, symptoms of PTSD are clearly defined. To be diagnosed with PTSD, you must have been in a situation in which you were afraid for your safety or your life, or you must have experienced something that made you feel fear, helplessness, or horror. [I think all those emotions could have played out on Mal's face at Serenity Valley.]

The worse the trauma, the more likely a person will develop PTSD, and the worse the symptoms. The most severely affected are unable to work, have trouble with relationships, and have great difficulty parenting their children.

Research has shown that PTSD changes the biology of the brain. MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and PET (positron emission tomography) scans show changes in the way memories are stored in the brain. PTSD is an environmental shock that changes your brain, and scientists do not know if it is reversible."

It almost sounds like the cause is as important to the diagnosis than the symptoms (the effects themselves, if not more so.

BYTEMITE

Monday, March 16, 2009 10:49 PM

Sounds like sensitization.

Normally the term applies to things like allergies, which cause an immune response that escalates with repeated exposure. Initial contact with the allergen changes the body's physiology, so that thereafter the body always has a certain, sometimes worsening physical response to the stimulus.

Could be PTSD is a chemical sensitization to an unusual quantity of adrenaline or other fear/fight-or-fight response related chemical. The dose makes the poison, you know. Changes the body's physiological reaction to the pathway permanently.

RALLEM

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 2:48 AM

It has been mentioned that the Original Malcolm Reynolds was a darker brooding character and the network insisted that Mal be made a more likeable person, so I wonder if the original would have been more convincing even though I am told by a psychiatrist fan of the series that the series was a masterful display of PTSD.

http://www.swyzzlestyx.com/index.html

ANOTHERSKY

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 3:51 AM

Jayne: when I said "happy killing machine", I was a little on the caffeine, pardon. What I meant by that apparently flippant phrase is that when Mal kills, it's from a totally different motive than when Jayne kills. Jayne kills for reasons, whether he's happy about it or not. Mal, according to his nature, tries to resolve without killing first. But push his buttons in a particular way and we skip that step real fast---go on emotional fast-forward. And while Jayne certainly sees his killing as simultaneously a.) part of his job and b.) kind of a problem, Mal gives the impression that he is deeply disturbed about it, though he wouldn't and can't take it back.

In other words, deep down Jayne has accepted(or possibly never questioned) the inevitability of killing people in his job, and in those very specific circumstances, Mal has not.
Not in the mechanics of the thing(that's obvious), it's a very fine difference: like so many other things he's accepted the *possibility* of killing people, and has killed people. It's the *certainty* that eludes him.

Feel free to contest. :D

Whoever said that Jayne is a young soul and several of the others are old souls, I think hit it dead on(pun unintended) for the quality they emanate.

I'll get around to posting that Mal list sometime this week.

"I think we lost our fuzzy dice back there."
"Going for a ride."

Another Sky

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 3:59 AM

Ah, yes, then I do agree with that. The motivations and emotions between even Mal/Zoe survival killing and Jayne survival killing are two very different sorts of mentalities, no contest here. And Jayne has a simplicity that's almost childlike that somehow makes him in a spiritual sense seem not as guilty.

I wonder. If Joss Whedon HAD gotten Fox to let Mal be darker all through the series, would THAT have been a Hollywoodized version of PTSD? People with Mal's sort of PTSD can't always be gloom and glower, can they? Maybe it's more realistic that he has multiple layers and sides to his personality.

ANOTHERSKY

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 6:01 AM

Oh, yeah, definitely about the different sides. It's what makes Mal's character.

Sometimes during the series and the movie I hurt because he's smiling, but it's the smile that shows he knows he's not happy. He just wants to truly laugh for a minute without the anchor around his neck--obviously the humor's in him, and it's just wrong. Again, that same quick intensity for humor seems to oddly be part of the fuel for explosive anger...whatever that means. Examples again elude me, and I am procrastinating doing real work by fantasizing about the character motivations of a show that was canceled...oh lets see HOW many years ago? Yes, this is the most complicated show I've ever come across.

Jayne: My acquaintance adores him. Asked why: "He's just so crude and stupid and mercenary...and he can't help himself." I got a good laugh on that one.

Do you think there's a difference between Mal's "PTSD" and Zoe's?

"I think we lost our fuzzy dice back there."
"Going for a ride."

Another Sky

RALLEM

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 9:45 AM

I don’t think Zoe is suffering from PTSD, and that she was able to reconcile any losses she may have experienced during the war. Wasn’t it posted above somewhere that Zoe said all she ever lost was the war?

I think Jayne is anything but stupid. Sure he is crude and mercenary, and he acts stupid at times, but through out the series Jayne did hints of his true intelligence, I think. I believe Jayne is using his act as a sort of tool to disarm any possible adversaries by leading them to believe he is stupid, slow witted, or to under estimate his abilities. I think a hint to this is in “Out of Gas,” when Jayne tells Mal he was smart enough to find them, and Mal responds by looking at Jayne shocked and replying that he was.

http://www.swyzzlestyx.com/index.html

AGENTROUKA

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 11:12 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rallem:
I don’t think Zoe is suffering from PTSD, and that she was able to reconcile any losses she may have experienced during the war. Wasn’t it posted above somewhere that Zoe said all she ever lost was the war?

Well.. unlike Mal, Zoe is probably really in denial about her PTSD.

In no way is she completely fine. She seems fairly unable to truly open up to Wash. She has completely unnecessary conflicts with im, like in War Stories, denial of th reality around her (Babies on Serenity? Hello?), the same compulsive apple cutting that Mal does. her entire life revolves around the job she had in the war. Mal made his own path, Zoe just follows him.

I don't blamne her, but she is definitely damaged.

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NEXT PAGE