Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: Personality Disorders We Hope the Characters Get Treated For in Season 2

Any fan of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend will tell you that Rebecca Bunch’s list of issues is a wrinkled, unraveled papyrus scroll written in crayon that rolls out the door of a foreclosed house.

Creator Rachel Bloom addresses her own personal struggle with depression, anxiety, and other emotional detriments and how her goal in creating the show was to mock the stigma of mental illness in pop culture, particularly its use in de-legitimizing women. Simply put, everyone feels crazy from time to time.

And so in the spirit of mockumentary, I present an armchair diagnosis of every major character putting the “crazy” in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. (Sponsored by WebMD, where the answer to every medical question is: you’re dying.)

Rebecca Bunch: Histrionic Personality Disorder

Creator Rachel Bloom says of Rebecca: “If you’re going to have a character who packs up their life for a guy, and you want to ground it, this is not a happy person doing that. This is a profoundly disturbed person.” Yes, but what KIND of disturbed? After an exhaustive 30 second scroll through Google, I have diagnosed Rebecca with Histrionic Personality Disorder.

Criteria:

• Being easily influenced by others, especially those who treat them approvingly
• Being overly dramatic and emotional
• Exhibitionist behavior
• Constant seeking of reassurance or approval
• Excessive sensitivity to criticism or disapproval
• Using somatic symptoms (of physical illness) to garner attention
• A need to be the center of attention
• Rapidly shifting emotional states that may appear superficial or exaggerated to others
• Tendency to believe that relationships are more intimate than they actually are
• Making rash decisions

Evidence:

Have ya seen the show?

https://youtu.be/on-FTnxjxaU

Rebecca’s history with disorders is well-documented. She left a high-profile job in New York to move to West Covina (“making rash decisions”) to chase after a high school boyfriend (“tendency to believe that relationships are more intimate than they actually are”) and has gone from being medicated to self-medicating to seeing visions of Dr. Phil to seeing a real therapist to seeing visions of her real therapist.

Just when you think that the show will be renamed “Perfectly Sane Current Girlfriend” after she accepts Greg, the Season 1 finale comes in with a left hook, and Rebecca finally consummates her obsession with Josh.

Judging by the look on Josh’s face once she’s told him the truth, we’ve only just begun to see the depths of Rebecca’s problems.

Paula Proctor: Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder

Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder is not to be confused with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. OCD is generally a series of habits known to be a problem whereas people with OCPD think that their methods are a perfectly healthy way to meet their goals.

Criteria:

• Is preoccupied with details, rules, lists, order, organization, or schedules to the extent that the major point of the activity is lost.
• Is excessively devoted to work and productivity to the exclusion of leisure activities and friendships (not accounted for by obvious economic necessity).
• Shows perfectionism that interferes with task completion (e.g., is unable to complete a project because his or her own overly strict standards are not met).
• Is unable to discard worn-out or worthless objects even when they have no sentimental value.
• Is reluctant to delegate tasks or to work with others unless they submit to exactly his or her way of doing things.
• Shows rigidity and stubbornness.

Evidence:

If there were a Crazy Ex-Girlfriend shipping war, Paula would be General Washington.

Her obsession to see Rebecca and Josh get their happy ending has resulted in the near-destruction of her own life.

She consistently ignores her children and husband to stay up-to-date with Rebecca’s activities (“is excessively devoted to work,” that “work” being Rebecca), has manipulated people and schedule to ensure everything goes her way, she often advises Rebecca to make poor life choices in the name of getting them together (“is preoccupied.. to the extent that the major point of the activity is lost”), and has a tendency to drop everything to show up when Rebecca calls.

Let’s not get started on the time she went out on a date with her husband and they bonded over smashing Rebecca’s window.

Her “rigid and stubborn” devotion reared its head in the Season 1 finale after discovering Rebecca was finally happy and Greg had started sleeping together. Paula confesses in glorious Gypsy fashion to being the one steering the Rebecca/Josh Chan ship this whole time.

Josh Chan: Dependent Personality Disorder

Dependent Personality Disorder is a “pervasive psychological dependence on other people,” going beyond simply asking a couple of friends for their two cents to actively needing someone else’s opinion before making a decision.

Criteria:

• encouraging or allowing others to make most of one’s important life decisions
• subordination of one’s own needs to those of others on whom one is dependent, and undue compliance with their wishes
• unwillingness to make even reasonable demands on the people one depends on
• feeling uncomfortable or helpless when alone, because of exaggerated fears of inability to care for oneself
• preoccupation with fears of being abandoned by a person with whom one has a close relationship, and of being left to care for oneself
• limited capacity to make everyday decisions without an excessive amount of advice and reassurance from others.

Evidence:

Honestly, can you think of a time when Josh hasn’t asked someone else for advice?

The entire season would have been wrapped up in a single episode if it weren’t for Josh’s fear of leaving his 15-year relationship Valencia (“fears… of being left to care for oneself”) and give something new a try.

There was the time he literally had Rebecca write him a Harvard-level cover letter to get a job at an off-brand Circuit City (“allowing others to make… one’s important life decisions”) because he had no idea how to apply for a job on his own, and then we find out he’s been insisting on hanging out with the same friends doing the same activities for the last decade.

In the Season 1 finale, Josh finally realizes that his voice matters and that Valencia was not listening to that voice. So he broke up with her!… and ran straight into the arms of Rebecca. Couldn’t go two seconds without someone there, Joshy?

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