anyone else up thinking abt bruce as a teen feeling genuinely paralyzed with rage and anger at anyone and everyone around him , lashing out because he is surrounded by people he believes do not care about him or anyone else outside of their rich inner circle. and also he would have extremely violent intrusive thoughts about harming + killing those around him and then afterwards feeling completely nauseous and sick with himself believing that he is evil at heart for this and that he is as bad as a murderer for even having these thoughts. or just meeeee hmmmm. on another topic this is why bruce wayne has ocd
Bruce Wayne has OCD, it makes so much sense and explains a bunch of irrational stuff he does in addition to fitting with his thought process.
-naming everything with bats? A tradition held over from Dick’s time. He’s too worried to quit because maybe that’ll be bad luck and things will stop working, and he knows it’s stupid but he won’t risk it.
-after Jason died, he pretty much removed any sign of him from his life aside from the case—asserting control over his memories and grief
-keeping a bunch of ways to take down the JLA even after its repeatedly hijacked and used against them? Hoo boy, that’s some OCD right there.
-seriously this guy’s thing is being super prepared for literally anything. You know how you end up having BatEverything? You freak out and invent it “just in case,” and then that one happens to come in handy. There’s probably millions of useless gadgets off panel that he created to relieve the panic.
-he’s petrified of killing people, but more than that, he believes it makes him irredeemable. He holds himself to a high but RIGID moral standard with clear rules: no guns, no killing. If he kills, if he uses a gun against anyone, he’s as bad as those he fights.
-Tl;dr this boy has some really nasty OCD he hasn’t treated because on very rare occasions it actually helps him prepare.
“Batman has a gadget for that” is a bit of a running gag, especially in the 1960s series. “Why the hell did he prepare for that?” you laugh. “He hasn’t faced a villain like this before.”
Bruce tries to sleep, he’s done his things for the night, but a persistent thought keeps nagging at him. What if we’re caught in some elaborate scheme that flattens us all into two-dimensional figures of ourselves? It keeps repeating, gaining in detail, Dick and Barbara forever trapped, Gotham crumbling around him while he cannot even scream. He gets up after a dozen repetitions. He never liked reruns.
Alfred wakes up to find Bruce awake in the Batcave, muttering about a three dimensional bat-restorer.
(But then that happens, so his intrusive fears are “justified.” Pay no attention to the bat de-gooinator, batdog resizer, bat deglutenier, bat golf ball retriever, and other batgadgets deep in the cave that will never see the light of day.)
The thing a lot of abled (mentally and physically) people don’t understand is debilitation isn’t a clear cut yes or no Boolean function.
I had trouble with this when my psychiatrist diagnosed me with ADHD, because I was doing fine in my classes. I was getting decent grades. But she asked me, “do you do anything else? How long does it take you to do your work? How tired are you after it?” And the thing is, I was exhausted. I often struggled to get anything substantial done. I was succeeding from an outside perspective, but my quality of life was unnecessarily poor. And she told me I didn’t need to live like that.
For years, I lived with constant, intense OCD. I didn’t realize it was an illness, I thought I’d just fucked up my own head and I was stuck like this. My compulsions were entirely mental, though. My brain was a constant loop of ritualistic phrases. I wasn’t working on remotely the same level my classmates were. I was depressed and spacey. But from the outside, I was getting my stuff done (usually).
So when people say Bruce can’t have OCD because he’s “functional,” I kind of laugh. Because his quality of life is garbage. If we argue that his obsession is protecting everyone, we do see that his prioritizing of it can make healthy sleep, relationships, and other self care impossible.
I’m not arguing Batman is just a giant compulsion, but his compulsive behaviors—particularly how he overprepares and prioritizes his rules and need for control over all else—blur the line between some imaginary Mentally Healthy Bruce and the Profoundly Fucked Up Bruce that we see.
(Also, Bruce’s obsessions get reinforced, which contributes to the cycle.)
after the surprising popularity of my other post, i figured it might be worthwhile to take a look at what makes me think bruce has OCD in the first place! if you ever looked into it yourself, you'll probably be somewhat familiar with what i'm covering. what i hope to do in this post is explain why OCD bruce just... makes sense, to anyone who has doubts or just doesn't know what that looks like.
i'm going to be treating his diagnosis as irrefutable fact for the purposes of this post, so i'm not going to be matching panels up to the DSM criteria to prove it or anything. i'm just going to be looking at a few events in his history and give my perspective on why i think they could be informed by his OCD. there's always gonna be a different interpretation you could make, and that's fine, everybody's valid, bitch, let's get you some fruit!
also: this is not a very nice post!!! it goes through some major points of trauma for bruce, and it will cover some events where he was in the wrong and even acted cruelly. his OCD is not to be used as an excuse for cruel actions, only as an explanation. mental illness does not absolve anyone of responsibility over their actions.
i'm not a psychologist, so i may get some things wrong. i don't claim to be a professional! all i do know is how it feels, for me, to live with this disorder. that's the perspective i will bring to you now.
⚠ content warnings for: direct discussion of violent intrusive thoughts, mentions of child & parental death, self-harm, violence, non-consensual memory erasure, covert surveillance, allegorical racism, general ableism ⚠
becoming batman
Alfred: “It’s armchair psychology at best, lad, but as much as he would probably deny it -- I believe Master Bruce is almost as obsessive about family as he is about preventing crime.” - The New Titans #61
the very sudden murder of his parents was committed right in front of bruce's eyes. i think the dissonance of a normal night out being so suddenly punctuated by something as horrific as that would stick with bruce. his brain would latch on to the idea that something terrible could happen to anyone at any time... this would be the first theme of his intrusive thoughts: that anyone he loves could be violently ripped away from him in an instant.
not to get too personal, but i have had something violent happen very suddenly to a family member, in a similar but not as extreme way as bruce has, and i'm constantly afraid something like that will happen again. with bruce's kids constantly putting themselves in danger, i can't help but think he'd definitely have the same kind of intrusive thoughts.
and so, the compulsion he has to deal with that type of thought is to toughen himself up, so that if anyone he loved were in danger, he could actually do something to stop it from happening this time.
he doesn't stop there, though. he wants to prevent the same thing from happening to anyone else, too. prevent violent crime as an entire whole. thus, we have batman. he takes such responsibility over crime in gotham that he hates to be away from the city even for a moment, doesn't see himself ever quitting unless forced to by injury or death - because if he ever stopped, then, in his mind, he's responsible for any deaths that may happen.
OCD gives you such an erroneously exaggerated sense of responsibility - the oft-joked about example of "i have to flip the lightswitch exactly 17 times, or else my family will die" demonstrates that principle: unless you, specifically, do something to prevent The Thing, it's going to happen, and it's going to be because you didn't stop it.
if gotham is terrorized by a supervillain while he's gone, it's "his fault", because he could have prevented it. never mind if that's technically true or not. it could be that it would've happened anyway, but the tough thing is that he can't know... and so, he must always be batman.
jason's death
Dick: “When Alfred wrote and said he feared for Bruce’s sanity, I thought he was exaggerating. Now I’m not so certain. He refuses to acknowledge Jason’s death. He never even called to tell me. I’ve got to find him…” - Batman #436
Dick: “Alfred was right… the trophies end with my last case with Bruce. There’s nothing of Jason’s. Nothing to remind one he fought alongside Batman as Robin. Whatever was here was taken away in the past few weeks since Jason’s death. Even in your bedroom… no sign that you ever loved him… or even that he lived. Jason was real. Flesh and blood. He was your son. What’s wrong with you, Bruce? What’s happened to you?” - Batman #436
clearly, bruce doesn't want to risk anything triggering him and making him remember jason. that would likely set off all manner of intrusive thoughts, ranging from "it was my fault, i could've prevented it" to "all my loved ones are going to die just like jason has" and even "i have to find and kill the joker to keep him from hurting anyone else"... and it's hard to get out of that mood once you're in it.
the only canonical compulsion that bruce has, that i know of, is going out as batman, and that is what he does to deal with these obsessions. but he over-indulges to the point that he's hurting himself and others:
Alfred: "In the past two weeks, you have been shot twice. Stabbed twice. You have been bloodied and bludgeoned by foes you once would have danced around without thinking. I distinctly remember when you first instructed Master Dick in combat, you said: 'We're not brutalizers. We've got to think with our heads, not with our fists.'
"Since Master Jason's death, you've changed. It seems, Sir, that you now do all your thinking with those sadly bruised and battered knuckles. Yesterday you collapsed from your wounds. I cannot be certain that next time you will survive them. Sir, as loath as you might be to hear this, I do not intend to spend the rest of my life playing nurse." - Batman #440
bruce threw himself into his work to get away from having to think, forgetting that he needs to think in order to do his work properly. it isn't all beating people up. he's a detective, not a cop!
i can relate to this desire... when i get deep into intrusive thought distress, i obsessively clean up my environment to distract myself from any thoughts, even at detriment to my physical health. i can see bruce having the same compulsion... focusing on a physical activity to empty your brain. it's not really just an OCD thing, but it can be.
i could also see it as a desire to punish himself for his perceived fault in jason's death. putting himself in harm's way because he feels like he deserves it... this boy needs therapy. but we already knew that.
vs. the joker
Bruce: “He’s out there, Jason’s killer. And when I see him in my head and wince when I hear Jason scream -- I wonder why I don’t simply get a gun and shove it in Joker’s mouth... I’m scared, Alfred. Scared one day I may.”
Alfred: “You won’t, sir. You can’t. Fear not. Whatever else you may be, you are not a killer.” - Batman #451
if that doesn’t sound exactly like an intrusive thought... c’mon.
the main thing that makes me think so is how much it seems to distress him... because it goes against his rigid idea of himself as someone who would never kill. the very essence of an intrusive thought is one you really don't want to have, because it goes against your very identity, your beliefs, your moral standards, or whatever - and it distresses you so much that the only way to get rid of it is through a compulsion.
Bruce: "All the people I've murdered by letting you live." - Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2 (gif credit)
here we have more of that exaggerated sense of responsibility that OCD can make you feel. obviously bruce didn't actually kill anyone, but he feels like, by not killing the joker a long time ago, it's his fault that they were murdered by him anyway...
he often has every opportunity to go through with it, but he (usually) has a stronger desire never to become a murderer. it is ingrained in his very sense of self. and because it's core to his identity, intrusive thoughts attack it viciously. hence, his guilt over the joker's victims.
(a lot of comics and adaptations have a... different interpretation of this struggle. they pose that bruce actually really does want to kill him, even fantasizing extensively about it, but he holds himself back from it for whatever reason. this interpretation... misses the point, imo, but i can't tell people what to write... it just makes me think someone, somewhere, might've confused intrusive thoughts for active fantasization, which is not accurate.)
tower of babel
Bruce: "Agamemno."
Clark: "What?"
Bruce: "You remember. Alien tyrant. Gave a gang of criminals access to our bodies and powers a few years ago. Nearly won the Earth."
Clark: "That's your excuse?"
Bruce: I decided there ought to be fail-safes designed in the event something similar ever happened again."
Clark: "You decided." - JLA #46
OCD tends to get you to think "there's no reason it couldn't happen again", no matter the probability, so bruce being stuck on an incident like that makes sense. what would he be able to do if that happened again? this led him to create those famous contingency plans.
Alfred: "Must you always be this worried about them? Enough to take steps to incapacitate... even kill them? You've known some of them for years now. Must you view them as potential enemies?"
Bruce: "Mind controllers. Body swappers. Agamemno could come back. Amazo clones. Yes, Alfred, I need to know how to stop them."
Alfred: "You do realize that, despite the way you isolate yourself from them, they are most certainly not taking steps against you?"
he's obviously spent a lot of time thinking about several different worst-case scenarios. OCD gets you thinking about what the worst possible things that can happen are in any situation at all, generally things you already have trauma about. even in situations where it's, statistically, so improbable that it's not even worth worrying over. but OCD has you worrying anyway.
bruce is famous for his abundance of contingency plans - there's that joke that batman always wins if he has time to prepare. this is likely because he's spent so much time thinking about worst-case-scenarios that very little can surprise him anymore.
however, it really wasn't fair of him to keep it all so secret. sure, he did need to protect the plans from getting into the wrong hands, the less people that know about it, the better, but he violated the trust between him and his colleagues. he should have talked to them and worked out a different way to go about it, rather than scrutinizing them all for any sign of weakness.
identity crisis
Bruce: “People think it's an obsession. A compulsion. As if there were an irresistible impulse to act. It's never been like that. I chose this life. I know what I'm doing. And on any given day, I could stop doing it.” - Identity Crisis #4
...sure, jan.
the thing i really hate about this quote is. the "i know what i'm doing" part... this is not how OCD works, beloved. people with OCD do know what they're doing. they know it's irrational, but that doesn’t make the intrusive thoughts and the anxiety they cause just magically go away. only their compulsions bring relief, at least until they can learn some healthier coping mechanisms.
(this quote is so ubiquitous that its even featured in thee Batman and Psychology by Travis Langley, which, if you didn't know, ultimately concludes that bruce is too functional to have any mental illnesses. which is, uh, complete hogwash. in my unprofessional opinion.)
i imagine that this is just hardcore denial. he probably suspects that he has something brainweird going on, even that it's OCD, considering the specific language he uses here, but refuses to be diagnosed, cuz that might be admitting he has a problem, and he'd have to compromise on being batman. which he simply can't do, or people will surely die, without him there to protect them... more of that exaggerated responsibility.
now, actually going in to the story of identity crisis - which is, in brief: certain members of the justice league have been secretly erasing the memories of supervillains, but one attempt backfired spectacularly. bruce didn't know about any of it, because they erased his memory, too.
this... this is a nightmare. because, like. the invasion of privacy, for one. but then the fact he will never be able to trust his memory again after that? this isn’t unique to OCD, but… it just makes it so much worse. i'm just thinking that it'd give him a whole new train of intrusive thoughts related to doubting his memory - "what if they erased something else i would want to know about?" or "what if i've done something horrible, and it was erased?" etcetera.
i'm just saying that i get why it takes him a long time to start forgiving those involved, like zatanna - it takes about 3 real-world years between identity crisis and detective comics #834, where he begins to forgive her.
dishonorable mention: batman v. superman
okay. so like. i do not like the snyder take on bruce at all (or anything, really) but i do, unfortunately, care about this movie. this take, even if i don't like it, does strike me as very OCD.
Bruce: "...An alien who, if he wanted to, could burn the whole place down. There wouldn't be a damn thing we could do to stop him." - Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
he's so afraid of an injustice-style dictator superman scenario... even though there's not much of an indication that'll happen.
to most people, superman is a hero, but bruce isn't able to forget the one time it seemed like superman didn't care who he hurt. to be slightly fair to him, there's really no way he could've known how much clark genuinely does care about humanity... (y'know... unless either of them tried to talk about it...)
Bruce: "He has the power to wipe out the entire human race, and if we believe there is even a one percent chance that he is our enemy, we have to take it as an absolute certainty." - Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
no matter how unlikely it could be, though, he's still worried about it. this is such an OCD thing, imo, because like. if it gets bad enough, it really doesn't matter the probability of The Thing, once you're thinking about it, you're pretty much convinced it's going to happen anyway. and bruce gets all the way down to (almost) killing superman, that's how convinced he was.
but, the fact is, bruce is being very stupid and even xenophobic. (or islamophobic, if you take it as an allegory for 9/11, like some people do) while i can see where OCD could have led him to this point, he had every opportunity to fucking slow down and think it through, rather than escalating like that. he really should have listened to alfred.
addendum: surveilling his loved ones
i had a section that touched on this topic in the original draft of this post, but i cut it because it used titans bruce as an example. and i hate titans bruce. but some panels were brought to my attention with comics-canon evidence of this behavior, so i thought i should talk about them!
Bruce: “Everyone close to me dies. And so I can’t help watching. Like a guardian angel… like a creature of the night… like a scared kid. She’s home now. In bed. The beating signal, like a heartbeat. It says… She’s alive. She’s alive. She’s alive.”
Alfred: “Trouble sleeping, Master Bruce?”
Bruce: “My biggest worry used to be: ‘What if that light goes on and I fail?’ But now...”
Alfred: “It must be love.”
Bruce: “Is this what love feels like?” - Batman: The Dark Knight #19
this is... this is so textbook OCD to me.
intrusive thought keeping you awake: “everyone close to me dies.”
compulsive action taken to relieve anxiety: “i can’t help watching.”
affirming to yourself that your intrusive thought is not happening: “She’s alive. She’s alive. She’s alive.”
i’ve literally had many, many moments like this, complete with repeating “they’re alive,” to myself. so it’s all the more infuriating that it's attached to such creepy behavior - the context being that he’s tracking his current girlfriend, natalya, without her knowledge.
it frustrates me how they clearly want to use OCD as characterization for bruce but aren't interested in committing and showing the realities of living with it. not only the bad parts but the neutral and even good parts, too. i want to see healthier expressions of his neurodivergency... is that so much to ask...
in conclusion, or tl;dr
this man has OCD. there are three main points that keep coming up:
his distress related to thoughts that challenge his rigid beliefs - he can't kill anyone, because he isn't, and can't become, a murderer.
his obsession over worst-case scenarios - he needs to be prepared to prevent terrible things from happening, no matter how unlikely.
his exaggerated sense of responsibility - he believes everything that goes wrong is "his fault", whether that's true or not.
that's about all i have! i'm sure there's lots of other content that i could talk about, but these are all the examples that i've seen talked about and know enough about myself. please feel free to discuss with me on the subject because i love love love talking about this!!! if you have any examples or even just some cool headcanons i'd love to hear about them. relating mental health to the batman franchise is my passion...
