As for the person diagnosed with these disorders, their behavior and personality can range from good and bad. In the movie Mommie Dearest, by Christina Crawford, we were shown the life of a woman suffering from many psychological disorders herself. The movie was written by the woman's daughter, who did not personally have any diagnosed disorders, but felt the wrath of each of her mother's. Four specific disorders that was shown throughout the movie were borderline personality disorder, OCPD, bipolar disorder, and histrionic personality disorder.
The first disorder shown through the behavior of Joan Crawford was borderline personality disorder. BPD is a serious mental disorder marked by a pattern of ongoing instability in moods, behavior, self-image, and functioning. Those who suffer with borderline disorder tend to let the smallest of things get to them, and as each small bit of anger builds up they lash out at everything and anything in front of them. A person with BPD may experience intense episodes of anger, depression, and anxiety that can last hours up to days. In Mommie Dearest Joan Crawford revealed many occurrences of borderline disorder, two distinct examples of this behavior were when Mrs. Crawford was declined for receiving an adopted child, …show more content…
Joan Crawford. Bipolar disorder, or formerly called manic depression, is a mental health condition that causes acute mood swings such as emotional highs and lows. Examples of emotional highs are mania and hypomania, whereas lows are things down the line of depression. Further symptoms into the emotional highs and lows of bipolar disorder include increased activity, being abnormally upbeat, experiencing racing thoughts, poor decision making, depressed mood, insomnia, etc. Specifically in the movie, a couple examples of bipolar disorder were when Joan and Christina were swimming, and at the moment when Mrs. Crawford found Tina in her room, playing with her belongings. Perfect as ever, and wishing everyone was jealous of her, Joan always put forth the effort to come out first in everything and anything she did. One evening, Christina was minding her own business and swimming while her mother was sitting poolside watching. The thought of her mother and her racing popped into Tina’s head as she asked the question to her mother. Joan responded confidently as she quickly hopped into the pool and prepared herself for another chance to easily come out on top. Upset as she listened to her bragging mother, Christina refused to follow the instructions she was given when the race was over, which lead to an outburst of anger. Christina cried as she was