Slop’s BLOPS Mental Health Headcanons
I wish I had a better title for this but this is straight to the point I guess hohoho. Not going over every character here but I’m going to do a good handful with some short character analysis to justify these lol. I hope to discuss these in more length in the future and after I replay BO6 I might do another one of these!
*Note: Pretty much every character in Call of Duty history would be more than likely diagnosed with PTSD, which is why I won’t be bringing it up here. Also this is all… strictly headcanon… and I’m not really trying to say that the intention of the writers were for them to have these disorders or that they’re coded in that way. It’s just my brain thoughts that I’m sharing for fun!
I’ve seen it suggested a few times that Adler might be a narcissist. I’m pretty fond of this hc, but I’ve always interpreted him as having ASPD instead. The two ARE frequently comorbid, but I think Adler distinctly lacks the fragile sense of self associated with NPD. But maybe im just not Adlerpilled enough yet
We have no information about Adler’s youth, and we never get to see him in environments in which his Job isn’t focal. Therein everything I say here is TOTALLY anecdotal since ASPD is widely accepted to only be diagnosable if a person shows traits in their youth.
That being said, I can so vividly imagine Adler being boxed in as a ‘delinquent’ in his youth. Conduct Disorder wasn’t a recognized thing ‘till Adler was already a grown man, but if it HAD been, he’d definitely have that on his papers. My vision is that he had a major mean streak, and got sent off to a boarding school or some sort of corrective facility. And I think after that point he would’ve learned ‘masking’ behaviors— he wouldn’t have stopped having criminal or violent urges, or cease any patterns of manipulative behaviors, but he’d have learned what people did or did not consider socially acceptable and go from there. I don’t think he’d ever be formally diagnosed ever both because of his ability to lie and also largely because I don’t think it would be so easy to recognize his behavior as “psychopathic” back in the day, what with him being charming and levelheaded.
See: the whole Bell situation. Everything about that was totally screwed up, we all agree. And, don’t get me wrong, I really do like the interpretation that Adler felt some emotional connection, and ultimately much regret, in regards to Bell. I really do like this!! But what I saw from this was Adler portraying a peculiar lack of empathy. He’s a CIA agent: it’s to be expected that he does some nasty things. We see people in COD do nasty things out of ‘necessity’ all the time. In this way, Adler isn’t an outlier. But I think it’s not just his lack of concern towards Bell that makes his lack of empathy odd, but his disconcern for allll of his peers throughout the entirety of Cold War.
His entire relationship w Sims is one of my key points for that ^. They were in Vietnam together. Sims seems to care for Adler. But Adler is callous and frankly just not very nice to Sims 😭. He genuinely doesn’t seem to understand Sims’s concerns or his discomfort and isn’t interested in understanding in the first place. Adler allowing Mason to exist in the same space as Bell also just comes off as so disconnected lol.
Disclaimer that this isn’t a ‘people with ASPD are evil’ post or a ‘Russell Adler is evil post’. Adler is a flawed individual but he is not evil !! And im not saying he has ASPD because I think people with ASPD are evil !! I will do anything to have have this misinterpreted…
Frank Woods reads so badly as Bipolar to me I’m sorry I can’t help it. Specifically BD-I although post Panama I believe his disorder would’ve translated into BD-NOS (his depressive episodes would conflate in severity while his mania episodes would be fewer and far between but significantly more severe with distinct psychotic symptoms). I’m also a Woods BED believer but I have zero proof for that you’ve just gotta believe me.
Woods was homeless throughout basically the entirety of his youth as far we’re aware, being a runaway. BD is observed FREQUENTLY in homeless individuals due to the reckless behaviors influenced by this disorder. Woods’s situation is a bit different as, we know explicitly that he left home to escape an abusive environment, not that he was kicked out of housing or anything like that. But it feels important to note, as the instability and vulnerability of homelessness is noted to severely exasperate symptoms . Mental disorders can sprout up in people as a cause OF becoming unhomed and I think this + the abuse + expected genetic vulnerability would be what sprouted it in Woods. His own dada might’ve had it but I can’t project too much lest we be here all day
It’s hard to fully say with things like these because, again, we don’t see him outside of the Job environment very often— and given how high stress his career is, his behaviors can look exaggerated. But I mean… come on
The whole thing with Josefina… I’ve seen it theorized that he was high on crack during that scene but tbh for the longest time it’s read as manic to me and I can’t get it out of my head. He almost kills EVERYONE because of his urgency to get rid of Menendez and he ended up offing a defenseless disabled woman as a result of him just being so deeply unable to get out of his own head. Old Man Woods freaking out over the prisoner swap, as much as that is PTSD, his freak out and specifically his anger towards Hudson reminds me pretty distinctly of the way a person with Bipolar might approach their personal traumas. Anger and grudge!!
Also the binge eating hc comes from his time in the crate. Idk. I feel like after being left without food for so long it would only be natural for him to develop. Biological rebound that never quite went away because now he’s always a bit scared (subconsciously) that he might have to go without food. And maybe that’s why he’s so damn beefy in Cold War…
Mason has some of the most to work with in canon by far, but I also think he’s really quite difficult in some areas to get a handle on because of his brainwashing. Like namely, Mason shares a lot of traits with Borderline individuals, but I definitely don’t think that he *is* borderline, since these behaviors were crafted via his Vorkuta and he more than likely didn’t behave that way beforehand. In canon, one formal diagnosis given to Mason that we get to read about is Dissociative Identity Disorder (Mason actually avoids the ‘evil alter’ stereotype with his Reznov identity. Shic), however, I think the more accurate diagnosis for him ought to have been OSDD, which I believe would exist in comorbidity with Major Depressive Disorder and EDNOS.
Dissociative Identity Disorder, as we understand it today, can only be developed during a person’s youth, when the situation they find themselves living in his unlivable, before the person already has any real established identity (thus the formation of several different identities). If we wanna say that Mason has DID his whole life and it just became more obvious post Vorkuta, then that is an awesome headcanon and I love it. But from our understanding and the analysis done by Mason’s psychiatrist, Mason’s dissociative symptoms only began post Vorkuta.
Mason absolutely definitely has a dissociative disorder though !! He was written that way and there are a lot of scenes in BLOPS 1 in which it seems like he’s being depicting dissociating (also in Cold War he just seems. Gone.). Thus my perception of Mason having OSDD via Identity Disturbance due to Prolonged and Intensive Coercive Persuasion. OSDD is actually viewed in a lot of brainwashing (primarily cult) victims because of this and…YEAHH we know what happened to Mr. Mason. The subtypes of OSDD aren’t really used in actual medical situations but this is referred to sometimes as OSDD-2.
If you’re wondering: no I don’t think Mason would be a “system”, at least not what the current viewpoint of a system is on the internet rn, but he does technically have at least one distinct “identity” and thus is plural…
My EDNOS headcanon comes from his time in captivity much like Woods. A lot of the food they were giving people up in Vorkuta was not… particularly edible. There would also be times where they just wouldn’t be fed which was probably especially true for Mason. I think he’d have a level of contamination anxiety surrounding food and sometimes just feel anxious about eating if that makes any sense?? This usually falls under a symptom of contamination OCD but I don’t think he’d have that anxiety about anything else other than food.
The Major Depressive Disorder was based off of. Well. Read his emails to his therapists.
I have a lot of ideas about David Mason. Tapping my chin. I’ll probably go more into detail abt this later but we see and know more about his childhood more than most any other character it’s a lot easier to establish bits and pieces about his psychology. I think right now my biggest headcanons are that he suffers from Quiet BPD (not really how it traditionally presents in men ), comorbid with MDD (just like his dada). I’m also going to specify on his PTSD here just because I think it’s especially important with him: I think he would’ve received a diagnosis at a very young age after everything that happened in Panama, and I think sorcificallyyy he’d be dealing with C-PTSD.
On the BPD I think it’s really really important to look at the overall instability of David’s youth. His mother passed when he was incredibly young, and his father opted to ‘go to the army’ instead of provide for David during this time of uncertainty and grief. It’s assumed Jenny Hudson was taking care of David full time at this point, and eventually Alex returned and took him away from her, pedaling him back to Alaska. And Alexxxx…well. Yeah. Wasn’t exactly providing the best child care in the world. Then, of course, traumatic event in Panama, and I imagine there was probably some weird custody stuff going on after he was orphaned. This is like, key environment and history for BPD to develop in a person. I imagine he’d also have the genetic predisposition that’s believed to be present in most Borderlines.
David just seems to internalize a lot of things and have a lot of self anger to me. He also seems to struggle with his impulses— definitely not to the same level as Woods, but more like how things were with his biological father, with him being willing to take some extreme risks not present in other individuals, even with the circumstances of his Job. I think he also sort of struggles with his attachment to others
Major Depressive Disorder is frequently comorbid with BPD AND C-PTSD, so it just makes sense to me. Also genetic vulnerabilities making a return. David is tired.
I don’t have much to say about this one but I’m a Hudson OCPD believer. Obsessive Compulsive PERSONALITY DISORDER !! The distinction is important I swear. I like the idea of Adler and Hudson both having personality disorders, just from different clusters, it’s a bit funny to me I think.
I think out of all the Black Ops characters Hudson tends to be the most self aware. I think he understands his own psychology to a degree and tries to keep himself in check when he can. But of course he is still very much a flawed individual with issues very many issues
What first introduced this idea to my head was the break up letter he receives from an ex partner in BO1. She really heavily laments the way he prioritizes his work and speaks very strongly on his rigidness and how she doesn’t feel as if she’ll ever be his first choice. Being a workaholic doesn’t automatically mean you have a personality disorder, obviously, but I think Hudson’s dedication, his initial lack of comprising, and his need for control over certain situations is at least somewhat telling.
Through his relationship will Jenny, it can be inferred that he worked on some of the behaviors complained about by his mystery woman, but he still appears to be working just as much up until he’s killed in Panama, arguably due to his own prexisting fixations. So. Keeping it in patterns.
Also two things Inhave no evidence for…(yet)…I like audhd Weaver and NPD Park. Ok? Ok. IM SORRY ILL STOP YAPPING NOW I WROTE MORE THAN I THOUGHT I WOULD
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