Hey, this is a great ask and I am so sorry for not replying earlier. I am responding like this because I actually broke the character limit since I'm dumb -_-
I've written a lot of posts about this on reddit, and many people came up to me and asked me something similar. Your line of thinking is good.
Regarding Dazai:
So, the thing is - to properly diagnose any personality disorder, you need to talk to that very person to understand their inner mechanisms.
There are certain behavioral traits we can observe from the outside and make some guesses based on that: for example, Dazai's broadly dented empathy and why that's often found in people with ASPD.
However, for many other personality disorders it is very difficult to conclude much without the person saying
~I feel x because of y. I do c because of b.
Why? Personality disorders are internal structures that cause a person's behavior to be challenging to either them or others. To understand these mental processes is much more demanding than seeing a person just feels sad or anxious, to explain it simplistic terms.
The key behind many disorders is to know WHY a person is doing what they're doing. This one thing changes whether a person has x,z,y,t,n or whatever condition.
An example: BPD and CPTSD are often mistaken for one another. Same as with BPD, CPTSD, Autism and ADD in women, but BPD and CPTSD tend to have the largest "overgap", you can even have both at the same time. That's because many of the outside observable symptoms are the same.
An example: unstable relationships are a symptom of ALL of the above, but BPD is sort of...an outdated PD according to many specialists due to the fact that it was used as an "everything" disorder, where people with socially unconventional emotions were dumped. That's why you'll find two people with BPD that are almost nothing alike.
However, even if we hold to classic diagnostic criteria, let me show how the same symptom can be a product of entirely different circumstances.
For example:
Someone with BPD will have unstable relationships due to an extreme fear of abandonment.
Someone with Autism may have unstable relationships due to differences in communication styles
Someone with ADHD will have unstable relationships due to various circumstances: emotional regulation, executive functioning etc.
So really, the outward result may be the same, but the cause is different.
However, now, typically the main reason someone could have BPD is either due to extreme splitting, favorite person behavior, numbness and/or abandonment issues.
Dazai 100% has "favorite person" syndrome going on with Oda - the way he idealized Odasaku and then devalues everyone around him in comparison is pretty clinical - doesn't mean their relationship isn't lovely, but it's certainly something a therapist would take note of.
It's no shocker Dazai has unstable relationships, but we don't 100% know why he does what he does.
That's the whole thing Asagiri said - the character is meant to be like a donnut, where you don't really know what's in the middle - so it's extremely difficult to say which PD fits him for sure, probably even more difficult than the average neurodivergent character.
In my opinion, several interpretations of Dazai are simultaneously valid due to the fact that you could assume multiple personal struggles within him, and come to a reasonable conclusion.
Does Dazai have abandonment issues? He says he always loses everything he wants, is EXTREMELY bitter over Ango, and definitely shows some levels of "splitting", especially in how he treats Oda vs Ango, Akutagawa vs Atsushi etc etc.
I'm pretty confident he has PTSD, and everything that comes with that. He certainly has a personality disorder too, due to the fact that a lot of his difficulties stem from his personality, and not just brain chemistry.
Kunikida says that most of his emotions "seem" like an act, which raises a lot of questions to what is even happening on the inside. Asagiri said Dazai is really only himself in front of people like Oda and Fyodor. That version of Dazai is...much less cheerful than with everyone else.
I don't personally think Dazai is autistic since he has a good hang on social cues and overall communication. Mamoru Miyano said PM Dazai was still learning to communicate with others back in his Dark Era days, but it wasn't that he couldn't do it - he was just not interested in learning it.
I feel like Asagiri gave Dazai this "unrealistic" trait of being primarily isolated because he's extraordinarily intelligent (which is not how geniuses tend to feel irl, most of the time) but I always feel like there is something more to it.
There is definitely some /disconnect/ between Dazai and "normal" people, where he doesn't fully seem to understand certain things, he falls short there. As someone who has CPTSD diagnosed, I get the impression he maybe has a similar thing going on as many of us:
A extremely traumatic experience disrupted a lot of normal emotional and cognitive processes, and now he's both extremely hypervigilant and unable to snap out of that "shellshocked" state. He needs to "perform" conventionality, and being a normal person.
In one wan chapter, he "made a joke" that you start doing one bad thing after another, and suddenly you feel nothing at all. That's the trademark numbness in both CPTSD and BPD.
There was this TDIPUD moment where he talks about how a personality is just a bunch of unstable premises that survive to uphold the basic instincts of the human mind - but how it's easily destroyed for that reason. This is a scene where he tortures the guy, and I was like "wow, I really get it". Severe trauma can just destroy the very structure of your personality, because extreme pain just numbs everything within you. "You" as a person can't survive.
BPD is also related to an unstable sense of self - which could be connected to the former paragraph. Sometimes lowered empathy is also a byproduct of BPD, in fact, the thing is that both BPD and CPTSD come from trauma 99% of the time. They're shockingly similar disorders.
So, does Dazai have BPD? No idea. He could also be schizoid to some extent, which is funny, because Franz Kafka had this disorder, the author that inspired Asagiri's nickname.
For now, I'd just leave at he has CPTSD for sure
Most of these disorders are very broad descriptors, and it's difficult to label most humans in a way that will genuinely encompass what their experiences are. Most of the time, these diagnostics are used to match a person with the best treatment available, or to explain what they're going through - so I don't think there is a perfect diagnosis for Dazai aside from PTSD, but he's definitely extremely neurodivergent.
Thanks for reading <3
areudirty
theartofmadeline
vaporwave
gummygunk
origamiaround
tangentwithtanner
prguitarman
dededos
