Sorry it took me so long! But behold: the Disventure Campers that I headcanon has having BPD
Source: I have BPD
My Autism Headcanons
(explanations below)
Again I must clarify: I have BPD and a lot of the things I’m talking about here are things I experience, I’m not smearing these characters at all when I talk abt the behaviors they have! Having BPD/any personality disorder doesn’t make you a bad person, it’s all about how you manage your symptoms and treat others :)
Since BPD isn’t as talked about as, say, autism, I’m gonna start this by sharing some of the main symptoms/signs since that’ll help me make my points:
Intense fear of abandonment
Stress-induced paranoia/dissociation
Extreme and fast-changing mood swings/unstable emotional control
Fits of irrational anger/impulsivity that lead to extreme regret and guilt
Struggles with trust and relationships
Hannah
Much like how Jade is my ‘if I had to pick one DC character to have canon autism I’d pick Jade’, Hannah would be my canon BPD pick
Though her trauma from losing her mom definitely contributes to this, Hannah takes ‘losing’ her friends in Disventure Camp EXTREMELY personally, as if they’re literally being separated forever and not just going to a motel for like a few weeks — her mind can’t emotionally separate the two concepts, it’s one extreme or the other
Of all the contestants in all the seasons, Hannah probably has the worst time emotionally (probably tied with Jake which, I’ll Get To Him). It’s in part to her not really signing up to be in the game and thus not prepping herself mentally for it, but every strategy, every game move, every friend eliminated, Hannah takes it hard, more so than most other characters in the entire series (except the other ones on this list lmao)
Then there’s the later part of Hannah’s arc where she’s doubling down into being a “villain” in the game, it reads as someone so burnt out from the intensity BPD that she’s clinging to a bad coping strategy to try and keep her head above the water
Notable example my partner (also has BPD) brought up: when Zaid is emotional over Ivy's vote out, Hannah is empathetic and says she understands why he's hurt. But when Zaid then votes Benji out, she has a very antagonistic/bitter relationship with Zaid because of that. It could be an example of “splitting” where people view others in their lives in black and white, good and bad terms
There are probably (definitely) even more specific instances I could point to, but to keep this from getting super long, Hannah reads to me as ‘girl with BPD who’s gotten really good at managing her symptoms and not letting her emotions get the better of her but she can’t help it when put in high stress situations’ because that’s definitely relatable to me :’)
Fiore
I won’t even lie to y’all this one is purely self indulgent, because I was a highly emotional reactive undiagnosed child with BPD once and I see a lot of myself in Fiore but also she’s my favorite character-
Gets very happy to very angry in a split second, there’s no transition period. This can be normal for kids, but she definitely reaches an intensity that a normal kid doesn’t reach
She reads as a kid who’s already been labeled as a villain by her parents/caretakers/everyone who’s ever looked at her, so she just lets the BPD symptoms loose because it feels good in the moment to act on those impulsive revenge fantasies. No one cared enough to teach her how to not act on her impulses.
Fiore has extreme trust issues, which can stem from a variety of things but I can claim BPD is a likely source. She straight up admits to Alec when she betrays him that she was worried she was caring about him too much. Like that’s crazy. They make me crazy-
I think her lashing out at Will is a really good example. It did her no benefit to stop her ruse and yell at him, their team lost the challenge anyway, there was no logic to it, she was just full of (more or less) irrational anger and HAD to act on it
It’s rare for it to develop in kids especially at her age but given her circumstances it’s not impossible-
Aiden
I thought I’d have a much harder time justifying myself but Season 5 is making this argument easy for me-
Next to Hannah, Aiden would be my top choice for canon BPD haver
Aiden is, in a word, Manic. He feels every emotion freely with no lid or mask, he swings between moods at a moments notice, and very seldom is he just ‘a little miffed’ at someone — he’s either neutral, or VERY ANGRY with them, no in between
Season 2 (especially the remake but even the OG) is a pretty good roadmap of this: he gets VERY mad at James over the Karol thing, which was a shitty thing to do but for Aiden it reads as a huge breach of trust that affects his ability to trust James for the rest of the season. When James betrays him with the TikTok/sponsorship stuff, Aiden takes it VERY hard, which is fair, but he takes it to an extreme by claiming he’s going to ‘win this money and never talk to ANY of these people again!!’. But when James saves him and Aiden is ready to forgive him, he suddenly swings hard to the other extreme and kisses James and GIVES James the WIN. Like that’s an INSANE pendulum of emotional response
All Stars Aiden also has these moments, though arguably not as intense, but whatever he and Jake have is definitely BPD on BPD violence (and I will Get To Jake)
Season 5 only proves my point. He’s bitter against Ally for voting him out, even knowing that she knew he’d only be swapped. He’s angry at Tom and Gabby for not being bitter towards Natalia, someone Aiden does NOT know and who he must assume didn’t vote him out for any personal reasons. I can feel a BPD emotional eruption on the horizon and I for one can not wait <3
I said this on the autism post but it bares repeating. BPD Aiden/Autistic James is real and I'll die on that hill
Kristal
Extreme emotional mood swings, check. Irrational anger, check. Relationship struggles both familial and otherwise, check check check.
Kristal’s treatment of Oliver in S2 is a big example. Despite her literally asking Oliver to keep her in line with the challenges, she gets irrationally angry at him for doing exactly that. When he leaves, the anger’s gone and she’s hit with the guilt. When he returns, she overcompensates and overworks herself to the point of exhaustion to make up for it. Girl has no emotional control whatsoever.
She’s also very hot-and-cold with the contestants. She’ll freak out on them one moment, shrink in on herself and regret her outburst the next. NO emotional control.
All Stars shows us a much healthier Kristal, better at managing her emotions because she’s begun to trust the found family around her, and trusts them to be there for her when her anger may fly out of control. She then steps away from the show because she realizes that it's not healthy for her. Queen!
Idk I miss Kristal and I think she’s neat and her having BPD would be neat
Jake
Do I even have to say anything-
“Eli I thought you didn’t like Jake, but you have BPD, do you really want to share this with him?” It’s not about what I want. I have eyes that see and ears that hear.
Ok but jokes aside – Jake is probably the most textbook ‘person with BPD who’s never been able to safely seek help so his symptoms fly out of control’ example you can get. He has pretty severe trust issues, which you can pin on his being cheated on, but also he projects that onto Tom to the level of him… being mad at Tom for… not sharing that he’s a spy?? That’s irrational trust issues babey, the BPD special
And talk about impulsive. Getting into a relationship with a man on a TV show knowing your family is homophobic? That’s a classic BPD emotions first impulsivity
Must I even talk about All Stars to prove my case? James and Ally are just two victims of Hurricane Jake Hamilton. The trust issues, the flying off the handle emotionally, the impulsive anger that makes him lash out at people he genuinely cares about, like him snapping at Connor
I bring all this up not as an insult to Jake, truthfully a lot of these symptoms he exhibits are ones I’ve also dealt with, that’s why I’m locking him in as a BPD haver
if you read this far thank you so much!! I'm curious to any and all thoughts :)
