Responding to one of my besties + various anons/not anons about Faith's mental health - under the cut, for obvious reasons.
Alright, I've kind of tried to stay out of this debate over the years and kindly ignore the constant questions and theories tossed my way because people are generally well-meaning. The only reason I've decided to address it, is because I feel like diagnosing any bad behavior as 'mental illness' is actually harmful, and I kinda want to just sort of nip this in the bud. It's a departure from my norm, so bare with me.
Faith may well have mental illness, most of us do, but the two I keep getting chatted at about are Bipolar Disorder and Paranoid Personality Disorder. I'm going to be quick and not get into long, outdrawn antics, here.
Bipolar - Faith doesn't display mood swings. Seriously, she doesn't. She's flirty, bubbly and chatty when she's trying to impress new people or get her way, and when she's not, she's fairly stable in her Faith-ness. She doesn't lack energy or want/ability to get out and do things, she doesn't lack focus, doesn't lack drive and her memory seems pretty stellar. I feel like this fan-diagnosis comes from people who might be suffering from Bipolar and looking for someone to identify with, and I totally get that. However, Faith has fully murdered people, and I don't think it's fair to say that any of that has anything to do with a real disorder that people suffer from in real life.
PPD - Faith has a damn good reason to not trust people, it's not actual paranoia, in any medical sense. She's not only dealing with monsters, constantly, with human faces when she wasn't gifted the ability to tell human from demon, but the humans she's known have bent over backwards to screw her over. This one kinda gets on my nerves, because how is she supposed to trust people after what she's been through? Even Buffy's paranoid, that's how Slayers are and how they should be, but Faith's also had a heck of a shitty life on top of it. So, no.
She does suffer from incredibly low self-esteem, feelings of inadequacy, depression and that sort of thing. Her symptoms seem to stem from real events, situations and a response to how she's generally treated. I'm in no way saying she's mentally well or what someone might call 'normal'.
Mostly, I'm just addressing this because one of my dear friends was the last to ask me about PPD tonight, and I realized how much I get asked about this. Ultimately, I didn't create Faith, and I don't know for certain --- and this isn't meant to invalidate anyone's theories, especially if it helps them, in some way. I just figured, heck, it's time I threw my hat in the ring. Hope this clarifies!
