How do you feel about the way the MCU has covered mental health?

Good enough as far as mainstream movies go. Wish it went deeper sometimes, but i did enjoy thunderbolts a lot because of it

Like most real life topics, they’ve executed it superficially

Weird to use Cap as the survivor's guilt example and not Frank Castle.

I know it seems like an overlap with Tony stark’s mental health concern but I think Jessica jones has ptsd as well. The alcohol abuse may just be a coping mechanism. She was mentally enslaved and had both her mind and body violated for a long period of time. It is one of the mcu’s best takes on the longterm after affects of psychological violence and victimization.

I disagree with both negative comments so far. I think the MCU has done a surprisingly nuanced as well as emotionally resonant take on these issues. (It could easily have avoided these topics altogether.)

I think Thunderbolts did the best job out of all the MCU movies.

Really good. Especially Thunderbolts

Don't forget Oppressive Disorder, Racial Trauma, and Societal Homophobia... the whole basis for the *I, mutant, was born this way* X-Men line of comics.

I know that the MCU is taking its first first into the mutant world, I hope they do it justice. The mistreatment and moral integrity of the X-Men was one reason they were so iconic.

I wouldn’t put Bob as schizophrenia, I’d put him as PTSD (from his parents), dissociative identity disorder (to an extent), substance abuse, and depression.

I think for the most part they've done a fairly decent job. Its not been completely perfect but they also haven't shied away from it. I think the shows have done it better, but they've had the time to delve into whereas in the movies, you have less time so its not quite as in depth but characters following an emotional arc still exists. (For instance, Yelena's trauma isn't just Natasha's death, but we see in Thunderbolts* she still is dealing with the trauma of being trafficked and forced to be an assassin. I would have liked some of that with Natasha instead of a love interest that went nowhere but oh well.)

I could probably write an whole paper on mental health and the MCU and it would largely be a positive one. Perfect? No, but there have been what I feel are solid attempts.

Jessica Jones does it really well, maybe the best of all of these i think? The first season to be clear, the 2nd season is a major downgrade and I didnt even watch the 3rd season.
Thunderbolts is incredible as well. I think Cap had survivor's guilt maybe a little better done in First Avenger when Bucky falls off the train

they did a great job imo

I would argue that Sentry is actually bipolar disorder. Don’t forget that when he was the Sentry he was just as dangerous as when he was the avoid, going as far as calling himself a god. The Void is the depressive cycle. The Sentry is the manic side.

For the last time, MCU Sentry is not schizophrenic. There was no hearing voices or hallucinating or paranoid delusions. He has manic depression/bipolar disorder.

You got a lot of those wrong.

Stumbles aside, this is something the MCU excels at. We see all of these topics brought to life in the stories and characters we love. Thus, awareness is increased, and individuals can figure out their difficulties and seek out the proper help for them.

Q: who's that in the 'suicidal ideation' panel?

Cinema Therapy diagnosed Wanda with [Maladaptive Daydreaming](https://youtu.be/qLkoagl-wZs). We could also include Bruce Banner's Intermittent Explosive Disorder to the list, I'm pretty sure the OG movie about a psychological disorder in the MCU is The Incredible Hulk.

I especially have to give props to Iron Man 3. I feel like it was pretty ballsy at the time to show their figurehead hero being vulnerable and scarred by what he went through. And it makes a lot of sense on a characterization standpoint for a man as intelligent as Stark to be haunted by all the worst case scenarii his mind could think of.

Sentry was bipolar, not schizophrenic.

I’d argue Jessica is also a case of ptsd. She’s a rape victim.

I didn’t like how it was covered in Thunderbolts, because it felt too general. WandaVision covered it better.

Honestly it sucks

They did DID for Moon Knight better than any movie has ever treated it. It's not fantastic, but it's head and shoulders above any other 2-3 hour movie has done. I've been both impressed and disappointed with how they address PTSD, depending on the movie or show. Not loving Sentry as bipolar, as someone who has quite a few bipolar family members.

Agents of shield did a better job covering mental health. Well would you look at that another instance of Agents of shield did it first and better once again.

Valkyrie's alcoholism in Ragnarok, and Thor's in End Game wasn't done well, and was down for comedic effect. 

I’d add Daredevils faith-based struggles as well, dealing with sin, like murder and violence. That stuff worked really well in the show.

Thunderbolt blew it out of the water with Sentrys various disorders. absolute 10/10

as for the rest it was all fine, nothing insulting or stupid that I can recall, but nothing amazing.

Leo Fitz's arc on season 5 was so good about his mentals.

bruce banner was also suicidal. in either aou or the 1st avengers movie, he said he put a bullet in his mouth and the hulk spit it out. in one of the what if episodes he said he was going to kill himself

Labeling Bucky as CPSTD isn’t even close! His is still PTSD.

From what I can tell of Bucky, his childhood was acceptable. CPTSD takes place during childhood and over extended long periods of time. I suppose since he doesn’t age and was under mind control for decades and then went to Wakanda for the most advanced EMDR therapy ever if *might count in the fictional sense.

But, give Sentry’s childhood, his struggles with addiction, and depression, he’s a better example of CPTSD. He also reverts to “Bob”, arguably an excellent example of an Adult Child pre-recovery.

I'm surprised I haven't seen a mention of Thor in endgame. Because that was really a good representation of posttraumatic stress disorder.

Would Rocket Raccoon also count for anger management and self loathing?

I think Iron man PTSD was the best. The others I generally don't feel are good enough. I understand it's marvel but I personally am open to showcasing how horrible conditions and mindsets can be. I feel current marvel doesn't allow directors to go into a bag enough to pull it out via acting. So it ultimately can feel bland which is what I felt about Sentry especially as a comic reader. I know how horrid his DiD is in the comics.

Meanwhile Spider-Man is just ADHD af 

I don't see Bob as schizophrenic, though he may be that in the comics. In thunderbolts what's happening to him seems a lot more like bipolar manic depression.

The void is just describing depression basically, and Sentry behaves like a manic person.

Tony's PTSD in IM3 definitely resonated with me. I used to have panic attacks and when you don't know what they are, you go through a long list of things in your mind until you're actually diagnosed. And then it's like what??? lol And they also happen at the most random times. Truly a mind f*ck. I appreciated seeing that represented.

Who’s 4 and 7? And is 8 John walker?

YES!!

I wish they did a better job with Thor's depression after Infinity War, and not just "haha let's make him fat and sad".

Hearing the fringe theme tune in my head while reading through these...

What's prolonged about Wanda's grief? From her POV, Vision died a few weeks earlier and then she found a bunch of people desecrating his corpse. It makes sense she'd still be grieving and have a meltdown which created the hex

In Thunderbolts the Void is supposed to represent bipolar disorder.


Schizophrenia was in the comics until Dark Avengers retcon.

Thunderbolts\* being a movie about mental health was super surprising. Goddamn loved that movie so much. What an awesome surprise.

It's missing Yelena dealing with Depression (during the Thunderbolts movie talking about her emptiness inside & how she feels lost).

Barely an inconvenience

Matt Murdock - major depressive disorder with occassional hallucinations
Benjamin Poindexter - borderline personality disorder with psychotic tendencies

Conflicted. Some like Bruce's DID have not been explored well at all, and some like Natasha's trauma in her own movie felt distastefully over-shadowed by comedic elements. But characters, primarily in the tv shows, like Jessica and Wanda were done effectively imo, particularly in the nuanced depictions of how their trauma also impacts others. Though MoM kind of ruined Wanda's a bit for me.

Love it, hope to see more

damn i never realized the suicidal ideation john walker has in thunderbolts

I'm a tulpa and we don't have DID, but have done a fair amount of research on it to help understand our own situation.

Overall, I have mixed feelings on Moon Knight, but mostly like it. It comes off as something written by someone who has done a lot of research into DID to understand the basics, but also is clearly not made by someone with personal experience with plurality themselves.

I really like the overall storyline focusing on uniting Marc and Steven, and avoiding a harmful "evil alter" trope. (End credits hint at an evil alter, but I have faith it won't be as cut and dry as it appears when we see Moon Knight next.) There are typically no "core" alters in DID, with every alter being equally real, so I appreciated it starting out with Steven's perspective. If it had started from Marc's perspective, I imagine it would reinforce Marc as the "real" one, but the show instead builds empathy for Steven in the beginning, with him being the one the audience connects with.

Most DID systems consider Moon Knight a positive representation, and I'd have to agree.

There is some... weirdness... While it's great to see Marc go back for Steven in the end, it's sort of problematic to show the afterlife just not give paradise to people with DID ***because they have DID.*** Like, apparently every DID system going to the Egyptian afterlife is denied paradise, not because they were bad people, but ***because they have a mental disorder.***

Also, this is a smaller nitpick that pertains more to function... mirrors.

DID systems ***can*** use reflections as a visual aid to help facilitate communication. But it's not something that is going to be necessary or used as a crutch. Studies show most people with DID can "hear" the "voices" of their alters. To be clear, voice hearing isn't necessarily like a full auditory hallucination. It can often sound similar to your own inner monologue, but coming from someone else and acting outside of your control. (This type of voice-hearing, sometimes classified as a pseudo-hallucination, is consistent across different types of plurals.)

When it drifts in to absurdism is when Marc is so reliant on the mirrors that ***he needs to physically break a mirror off a vehicle to keep talking to Steven.*** It's just silly. It's a silly scene in an otherwise good representation of DID. And the silliness is compounded by the fact that it's not supposed to be silly. It's supposed to be a serious scene. But it doesn't work.

Another positive thing that I liked is Steven Grant being based on a fictional character in-universe. In the DID community, alters based on fictional character are often called "fictives." This name didn't originate in DID circles but came from a group of non-disordered plurals called "soulbonders." But due to overlap in communities, it's spread across the DID community while the original soulbonding communities that coined the term have largely died out.

While this might sound strange to those who haven't studied the disorder or other forms of plurality, this is a very real phenomenon in DID. In The Haunted Self, one of the landmark books on DID, it discusses an alter identifying as "Spock" in a system made up entirely of Star Trek fictives.

>*"Elaboration may also be shaped by sociocultural influences, such as EPs that are modeled on television or movie characters. One male patient had an elaborate group of EPs all of whom were based on Star Trek characters. “Mr. Spock” served as the consummate intellectual but emotionally devoid ANP. However, there is absolutely no evidence that dissociative disorders are themselves caused by social role enactment (Gleaves, 1996)."*

(Note: EP refers to an "emotional part," which holds trauma memories. ANP refers to an "apparently normal part," which is active in the day-to-day life, dissociated from those traumatic memories. In Moon Knight, Steven would likely be an ANP at the beginning of the series while Marc is the EP.)

One other thing about fictives is that in DID systems I know of, they usually have their own internal appearance they see themselves as in their heads. So it might be more realistic if Steven Grant was played by a different person when we see him in "mindform." But that would mean less Oscar Isaac acting as Steven Grant, so I see why they didn't go that route.

My final verdict is that, while it's not a perfect representation and some parts are fudged for the sake of drama, it's still a *pretty good* representation and the world would be better for people with DID with more things like Moon Knight and fewer things like Split.

I will say that, as a psychology layman with almost zero psychology education, Bullseye’s depiction of sociopathy and borderline personality were among the most believable I’ve ever seen.

Everyone in Iron Fist was groomed in one way or another.

Thor was so mistreated with his grief. They made it a joke. Rocket even smacked him when he was having a panic attack.

Sentry doesnt have schitzophrenia.

All I'll say is, after watching Thunderbolts, I hadn't felt that seen while watching a film in the last 10 years. It is my comfort viewing. Also my therapy in film form. I love it so much.

One that is often overlooked is Hawkeye. Pretty sure that man has PTSD, Survivors Guilt (his Ronin era when his family was wiped by Thanos, and subsequently Natasha’s sacrifice) and more. We can see him struggling with it during the Hawkeye series

MCU nailed Bucky Barnes with CPTSD. I rewatched that steady walk towards to old Asian man’s door to tell him about his sons death. “The Winter Soldier killed your son… and that was me.” “I didn’t have a choice.” Really drives home how Bucky can separate himself fully from the winter soldier. It also helped me continue my own therapy even when I didn’t think it was helping. Sometimes things take time and that’s ok.

As someone who recently had to go through almost a year of anxiety disorder, I found Tony's depiction to be accurate enough to feel inspiring in my journey to overcome it.

Oscar Isaac one of my favorite performances in the MCU lowkey

the sentry is NOT schizophrenia 😭

I think TFATWS had an opportunity to do a lot for trauma survivors with Bucky’s story. Instead it was mostly treated as a joke, with an awful therapist.