#i mixed up two of my disorders bc head empty

[quismetarc]

𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞   𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐧𝐧:   𝐚   𝐩𝐬𝐲𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥   𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐬

before reading this,  please keep in mind that by no means am i a medical professional trained in any sort of mental diagnoses.   these are all extrapolations and just because i personally love doing deep dives in a character’s psyche.   while i do have a science background,  it is not in psychology,  so this is based off very minimal psychology courses,  research and personal hypothesis.   below you will find a breakdown of what i perceive to be the psychological profile of love quinn,  both as per my portrayal of her and what i reference from the show.   for the sake of this not being many many pages long,  this has been narrowed down to what i think are some of the most important disorders to note and have been simplified drastically.

ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY DISORDER

love has antisocial personality disorder (ASPD).   this is what is commonly referred to as psychopathy or sociopathy.   in order to be diagnosed with ASPD,  three or more of the criteria must be met past the age of 15.   below is the list of traits taken from the DSM-5, highlighted are the five love meets:

deceitfulness is one that can be argued,  because love tends to lie in order to cover any crimes or mistakes she’s made.   it doesn’t necessarily fall into the purpose of conning or personal profit or pleasure.   but i’ve highlighted it to make note that love can be incredibly deceitful and is a tactical liar.   it’s been said time and time again,  especially in season 3 that love quinn is impulsive.   every act of aggression she has shown has resulted in death because of how impulsive she can be.   this ties hand in hand with reckless disregard for safety of self or others.   while we see a brief moment where love seems to show remorse when it comes to gil’s death,  i think that primarily stems from the fact that her plans hadn’t panned out how she had expected them too.   i view every moment where love seems emotional about a death (i.e natalie and gil) to be a direct result of fear for herself and safety rather than remorse for her victim.   below is an excerpt from the DSM outlining the lack of remorse with examples that i think are appropriate for love:

they may be indifferent to, or provide a superficial rationalization for, having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from someone (e.g., 'Tife's unfair," "losers deserve to lose"). These individuals may blame the victims for being foolish, helpless, or deserving their fate (e.g., "he had it coming anyway"); they may minimize the harmful consequences of their actions; or they may simply indicate complete indifference.

a key note that the DSM makes is that “the occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.”   i will touch on love’s bipolar disorder,  but i don’t think any of her acts of aggression and violence were during any manic episodes.   they instead stemmed from impulsiveness and irritability.

to avoid rambling too much there are a few quotes in the DSM i’d like to highlight:

Biological relatives of individuals with this disorder are also at increased risk for somatic symptom disorder and substance use disorders:   in relation to forty’s substance abuse

There has been some concern that antisocial personality disorder may be underdiagnosed in females:   i think love was diagnosed with BP but never ASPD because of this

Child abuse or neglect, unstable or erratic parenting, or inconsistent parental discipline may increase the likelihood that conduct disorder will evolve into antisocial personality disorder:   see the treatment of love by dottie and ray quinn,  primarily dottie

while we know that love is a psychopath,  psychopathy isn’t explicitly defined in the DSM and instead has been proposed as a specifier under ASPD,  so that should be kept in mind.   i will separately post how i think love fares on the PCL-R (Psychopathy Checklist Revised) separately.

to note,  antisocial personality disorder cannot be diagnosed without a diagnosis of conduct disorder before age fifteen.

CONDUCT DISORDER

conduct disorder is broken into four categories:   aggression to people and animals,  destruction of property,  deceitfulness or theft,  serious violations of rules.   at the age of thirteen was when love had killed forty’s au pair,  which points to aggression to people and animals.   at least three of fifteen criteria must be met to be diagnosed with conduct disorder,  and i will only be highlighting the ones i believe she meets:

Has used a weapon that can cause serious physical harm to others (e.g., a bat, brick, broken bottle, knife, gun):   love had used a knife to kill sofia

Often lies to obtain goods or favors or to avoid obligations (i.e., “cons” others):   as a child,  i think this was more prominent with love.   she would call them her white lies,  twisting the truth in order to get what she wanted.   i.e manipulating / gaslighting other people

i don’t think love would entirely meet the criteria for conduct disorder at first,  especially because it requires repetitive behaviour and only one major event would fall into the conduct disorder category.   but i do think this would be something noted in her profile and later re-examined when diagnosing ASPD.  in this examination,  the last criteria would be brought into play,  bringing her to a total of three out of fifteen:

Has run away from home overnight at least twice while living in the parental or parental surrogate home, or once without returning for a lengthy period:   i do think love has run away from home,  likely with forty when home got a little too much to handle.   however,  i do think this is something that would be disregarded as typical prepubescent teen behaviour and not noted until further examination of her profile

once again,  i don’t think conduct disorder entirely fits for love,  but there is evidence of conduct disorder which is what leads to the diagnosis of ASPD.

BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER

there is a slight reference by dottie to the fact that love has borderline personality disorder in season 3,  and for this reason i think that love does already take medications to treat her BPD.   that also means we don’t entirely have a full picture of the extent of love’s BPD.

similarly to ASPD,  BPD also has a set number of criteria that must be met in order to be diagnosed.   highlighted below are the following that i believe love exhibits:

going through this one at at a time below:

love clearly has a problem with abandonment,  and i think this stems from her attachment to forty.   she’s had multiple scares where she’s thought that she would lose her brother,  and a part of her fears come from that.   we see her frantic effort to avoid abandonment with how desperately she keeps joe around.   even more so,  when she had told joe about her paralyzing james,  it wasn’t to kill him.   it was to convince him to stay with her despite it all.

i think both love and joe do this.   it’s very clear that all of love’s personal relationships are incredibly intense,  seen with joe and forty primarily.   the idealization of these relationships is what leads to her intense connections.   and i think,  if time had permit,  she would have ended up devaluing her relationship with joe when he turned more and more into a man she didn’t want. 

i’ve touched on love’s impulsivity more than once,  so i think it’s self explanatory at this point.

i think that love lacks a sense of self.   she has grown so used to molding herself to become what everyone would like that she doesn’t have a real version of herself to fall back to and this results in this unstable sense of self.  as per the DSM:  There may be sudden changes in opinions and plans about career, sexual identity, values, and types of friends.   i think this is very clearly seen with the shift in love’s friend groups,  and her going from an independent woman to a very motherly,  homely figure in season three.

both her reactivity of mood and her inappropriate,  intense bursts of anger are seen time and time again in season 3 when she suddenly snaps.   like a boiling kettle,  she seems to blow in a second’s time.  “the anger is often elicited when a caregiver or lover is seen as neglectful, withholding, uncaring, or abandoning”   which is often the case when love snaps due to joe.

note this excerpt from the DSM that adequately explains love and how she develops her intense interpersonal relationships (point two):

They may idealize potential caregivers or lovers at the first or second meeting, demand to spend a lot of time together, and share the most intimate details early in a relationship.

a common co-occuring disorder is bipolar disorder,  which i believe love has shown signs of as well but will not be touched on in this post.

lastly,  to note:   “borderline personality disorder is diagnosed predominantly (about 75%) in females.”

to wrap this up,   once again,   i am not a professional and this is not an actual diagnosis.   all my information is taken from the DSM-5 and a few quick searches online,  very basic very bare bones.   i will reiterate time and time again,  that mental illness doesn’t make a murderer.   at the very least,  not the mental illness we talk about in terms of everyday society and mental health.   but a murderer’s psyche is not of the norm so this is an exploration as to how she would possibly be diagnosed if given the chance.