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

Darryl Whitefeather: Generalized Anxiety Disorder

In today’s world of uncertainty, where a misogynistic and homophobic racist can get dangerously close to being President of the United States, it seems that there’s a bit of anxiety to go around.

People with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, however, find it difficult to function most days for all the soul-crushing anxiety. It is “generalized” as it stems from no other diagnosable source, such as PTSD or anorexia; it is essentially a worry of everything.

Criteria:

• Excessive anxiety and worry (apprehensive expectation), occurring more days than not for at least 6 months, about a number of events or activities (such as work or school performance).
• The individual finds it difficult to control the worry.
• The anxiety, worry, or physical symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
• The disturbance is not attributable to the physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication) or another medical condition (e.g., hyperthyroidism).
• The disturbance is not better explained by another mental disorder (e.g., panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, separation anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, anorexia nervosa, somatic symptom disorder, body dysmorphic disorder, illness anxiety disorder, schizophrenia or delusional disorder).

Evidence:

Darryl is a rather nice guy with a divorce and a burgeoning sexuality hanging over his head who is often greatly concerned with maintaining cool boss status.

There was “Weekend Tuesdays” or the time he paid women to show up at his party just so no one would leave or the time he sang about loving his daughter but not in a creepy way or… gosh, there’s just so many, it’s hard to concentrate!

His anxiety reaches a boiling point when he’s faced with the possibility that he might not be 100% heterosexual after White Josh kisses him. Once he realized he was bisexual, he called a work meeting to clarify exactly what that meant, just in case anyone was confused.

https://youtu.be/Fen-6lhrJs8

In the Season 1 finale, Darryl and Josh are seen happily attending the wedding of Josh’s sister with a bright future on the horizon. Of course, this is television, so go ahead and start worrying about that relationship now.

Hector: Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder

There’s sleeping in until noon on a Saturday, and then there’s missing all of your classes because you didn’t hear your alarm. People with Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder find it difficult to either wake up or fall sleep at times commonly required to function in society (i.e. during the day).

Criteria:

• An intractable delay in the phase of the major sleep period occurs in relation to the desired clock time, as evidenced by a chronic or recurrent (for at least three months) complaint of inability to fall asleep at a desired conventional clock time together with the inability to awaken at a desired and socially acceptable time.
• When not required to maintain a strict schedule, patients exhibit improved sleep quality and duration for their age and maintain a delayed phase of entrainment to local time.
• Have little or no reported difficulty in maintaining sleep once sleep has begun.
• Have a relatively severe to absolute inability to advance the sleep phase to earlier hours by enforcing conventional sleep and wake times.
• Sleep–wake logs and/or actigraphy monitoring for at least two weeks document a consistent habitual pattern of sleep onsets, usually later than 2 am, and lengthy sleeps.
• Occasional non-circadian days may occur (i.e., sleep is “skipped” for an entire day and night plus some portion of the following day), followed by a sleep period lasting 12 to 18 hours.
• The symptoms do not meet the criteria for any other sleep disorder causing inability to initiate sleep or excessive sleepiness.

Evidence:

We’ve seen Hector hanging out with the guys before, in group hangs, going to the grocery store, building a table, or hanging out at the Citadel Outlets, so we know he’s capable of waking up, but when it came time to take the three-hour party bus ride to the beach which was to start earlier in the day, Hector was nowhere to be found, having missed several alarms as predicted by, well, everyone. Poor guy.

As of the Season 1 finale, he’s probably just woken up and wondering why he wasn’t invited to the wedding.

“White Josh” Wilson: Nothing. He’s Perfect

Other than being white (which is not necessarily a personality disorder), White Josh is a perfectly well-adjusted human being. He has no hang-ups about his sexuality, is in peak physical condition, was completely patient while Darryl was off figuring himself out, was one of the first people to suggest that Valencia gots ta go, and knows his way around a kitchen sink.

He’s probably even up to date on all his credit card payments, the bastard.

The Season 1 finale saw him dragging a completely hammered Greg to the safety of an Uber (because he sure as hell wasn’t about to sacrifice his evening with his new boyfriend, Darryl, to put up with Greg’s self-destructive crap). Never change, White Josh.

Can you think of any other glaring disorders I might have missed? Do you or anyone you know suffer from any of the listed disorders and find the show (and this list) helpful/offensive?

Let us know in the comments, and be sure to check out Season 2 of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend starting Friday, October 21 on The CW.

(It would be irresponsible to end this article without referencing Medical Student’s Disease, where you diagnose yourself or a friend with a disease or disorder you happen to be reading about. Don’t do that.)

5 TV Tropes We Want More of… and 5 We Never Want to See Again