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Borderline Personality Disorder & Alex
Okay, this whole post is OOC, and a lot of Meta knowledge about Alex.
To start with, a bit of a disclaimer: I'm intimately familiar with this personality disorder. Mine does not manifest in the exact same ways, and I've been in therapy for a very long time to break down my disfunctional thought patterns. I have yet to have anyone say anything to me about my portrayal of this particular mental illness, but on other platforms there are those who like to say if you don't have it then you can't write it. Gonna head that off at the pass, cause...well, it's kinda mean?
Symptoms: (I'm listing all of them for completeness, but bolding the ones that impact Alex specifically) - Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment
- A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by extremes between idealization and devaluation (also known as "splitting")
- Identity disturbance: Markedly or persistently unstable self-image or sense of self
- Impulsive behavior in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating)
- Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-harming behavior
- Emotional instability in reaction to day-to-day events (e.g., intense episodic sadness, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)
- Chronic feelings of emptiness
- Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)
- Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms
Borderline Personality Disorder, or BPD, usually comes along with massive amounts of /drama/, because there's a lot of dichotomous thinking (black/white, all good or all bad) as well as fits of idealization and devaluation. It's a very cyclic personality disorder. It's treatable with therapy, establishing a sort of 'breathing room' between external stimuli and reaction. It's a lot of mindfulness, really. Retraining the brain's habits a bit.
Alex didn't get therapy.
Her main coping mechanism was to only care about her brother. That's it in her eyes. Mainly because he's the only 'equal' she has. The only person that truly knows what cold hell they lived through. The most stable relationship that she has ever had. Everyone else is utterly worthless and expendable, while he is family and can practically do no wrong--unless it's to her, which she finds /wildly hurtful and tends to make her lash out/. What this looks like in some instances of BPD is usually called 'favorite person', usually the person that is currently being idealized. Putting someone on a pedastle well above anyone else. BPD suffers usually go through phases where their favorite person can shift between the white and black sides of their thought processes--which is what happens if Albert does something to hurt her.
On the topic of hurt: Hurt can be lies, aggression/violence, but mostly non-planned abandonment, such as when he 'died' in Raccoon. Depending on how the SL is played, if Albert never told her that he wasn't dead? Their relationship later on would be very different. This is a part I leave up to any Albert's who may want to write with her to figure out.
Since she doesn't care about anyone else, she seems nearly sociopathic, which she's only a few steps away from at any rate. However, it's in essence that the only place she has positive feelings is in relation to her brother and herself. You don't feel any emotion when stepping on an ant--and the only other not ant in her world is Albert. Of the two, she is the more passive one, allowing him to lead if they are working together, but don't mistake that for weakness. Alex is probably the more likely to kill someone than her brother, as she doesn't tolerate insult to either of them. He's far better at blending in than she is. Alex is content to help her brother along with his plans, than start her own. Especially if set in the era of Raccoon.
When she was younger, if you've read the other blog posts, you've probably noticed that she's far more volatile in the past. The difference in her behavior comes from distance and time. At 16 they were seaparated, then when we really pick back up with the Wesker's they're in their late 30's, so over half their life they've been apart.
Alex has bouts of depersonalization, where she doesn't feel quite real, or that she doesn't fit in the world. She can't empathize with all the small problems of the people around her that she feels quite alien and empty a lot of the time. As if her insides have little Umbrella Logos stamped on them and she wholly belongs to the organization that created her. (I have her learning at a young age that she was property, though she doesn't confrim this as objective fact until much much later in life.)
Her tolerance for failure is low, and her tolerance for actively going against her wishes is non-existant. She considers herself quite fair, she does explain the rules to those who work under her, she lays down her expectations, and will answer any questions anyone has about them. Once the rules are clear, she follows them, to the letter. Her punishments can be quite severe, as she sees any purposeful rule breaking as almost a betrayal. Though, if truth be told, she does enjoy punishing people...especially when she's already angry. It's very cathartic for her. Sadism is her catharsis.
Really I can go on and on, but I'll stop there. Grats if you've read this far!
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