#once upon a time i realized i was unintentionally writing genji with symptoms of bpd

[uchikatsu]

( cw for mental illness, substance abuse, self harm, & suicidal thoughts )

since some time in his late teen years, genji has struggled with borderline personality disorder. for a long time, however, his behaviours were attributed simply to genji being genji.

he was diagnosed in early adulthood, though seeing a psychiatrist was not something he personally wanted to do. he would always insist himself to be fine, hated to be honest about his emotions or mental state because he didn’t want to be seen as weak. he faced enough disapproval from his family and the clan as it was.

after being diagnosed, he was scheduled for therapy sessions and dbt (dialectic behaviour therapy), but he only ever attended a few of these appointments. the rest were skipped out on. he didn’t have anyone making sure that he went or even checking that he attended.

he was also prescribed some medications to help him balance some symptoms, but he didn’t keep up with taking them as he was supposed to. they were also abused on some occasions, but he never went back to his psychiatrist to get more after going through the few months of refills.

now i’m going to go through the symptoms of bpd, how genji has been affected by these, and how he coped with them.

FEAR OF ABANDONMENT.  prior to his near-death, genji saw himself as more or less abandoned by much of his family / clan. he was viewed with disdain and seen as a liability, all because of who he was as a person. though he didn’t care a great deal about the opinions of the clan, this all still had a greater impact on his self-esteem than he ever let on. what really terrified him was the idea of being abandoned by hanzo and his father. when hanzo began to pull away and become more involved with the clan’s expectations of him, genji would fluctuate between getting into massive arguments with his brother and practically begging him to spend time with him like they used to, or to not listen to what anyone, particularly the elders, had to say. the death of his father sent him spiraling into grief & depression for the short period of time he had to begin processing it before he was nearly killed.

for the majority of his time in blackw/atch & overw/atch, genji avoided making any attachments to people as best he could under the belief that in the end, they would either leave or betray him. he had no trust whatsoever

by the time of the recall, he’s still somewhat tentative about making new connections with people, but he has regained the ability to trust. there’s still a lingering fear of being abandoned by those he cares about, but this rarely results in any of the lashing out that it used to.

UNSTABLE RELATIONSHIPS.  prior to overw/atch, genji’s friendships and relationships were always short-lived. friends tended to last no more than a month or two before he cycled on to new ones, and ‘relationships’ were less that and more… one-night stands or casual sex. people would seem great at first, but he swung quickly from idealizing to devaluing. plus, if he left them first, they couldn’t abandon him.

relationships were especially tumultuous during his time in blackw/atch — most of the time genji despised the people he had to work with, at BEST finding them annoying. eventually some DID grow on him to an extent, but it didn’t lessen his hostility toward them much. there were occasions when he was calmer and even… open with others, but these moments were infrequent and never lasted long before he was right back to closed off and unpleasant. no one ever knew where they stood with him.

in the time of the recall, his relationships are much steadier, but there are still times where he will idealize others or devalue them, get angry at them for the smallest of reasons, etc. this is particularly the case with hanzo as he tries to mend the relationship with his brother.

UNCLEAR / SHIFTING SELF-IMAGE.  in his younger years, genji swung back and forth to some extremes on how he saw himself. at times he felt he felt great about himself, even felt superior to others, and other times he felt like an utter disappointment, like what the clan elders said about him was true, like he was a mistake that didn’t belong — not that you’d have been able to tell. he was always good at hiding this. even hanzo only saw the cracks in his confident facade a few times.

in blackw/atch, the negative self-image was by far more prominent than anything positive. he hated himself constantly rather than only sometimes, and the only real argument that went back and forth was that of whether he was human or machine.

by recall, self-image is much more stabilized and generally more positive. that isn’t to say he doesn’t still struggle, as there are still times where he feels like he’s a bad person, but he’s come a long way from where he once was.

SELF-HARM.  something that genji mostly engaged in during his time in blackw/atch. he would self-harm primarily through cutting himself and sometimes even tearing at pieces of his synthetic body — removing the outer plates, ripping at wires, etc. many of the scars across what skin he has left were caused by himself. he was also quite heavily suicidal during this time, faced with suicidal thoughts quite frequently. he would sometimes throw himself into battle almost like he was TRYING to die.

EXTREME EMOTIONAL SWINGS.  genji has always been prone to swinging from one emotion to another with enough speed to cause WHIPLASH. he can be perfectly happy one moment and fall into a depressed place the next, could go from somewhere content to outrage over the seemingly smallest things. the swings are intense, but generally don’t last long.

IMPULSIVE & SELF-DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOURS.  though some of his reckless and impulsive behaviours were simply him being young and… well, reckless, a great deal of the time they were fueled by a desperate need to FEEL GOOD, or to FEEL SOMETHING AT ALL. nights spent partying, getting drunk and doing drugs, hooking up with strangers, these were all methods genji used to cope. they made him feel better in the moment and distracted him from his life. on top of substance abuse & risky sex, he’d also spend money carelessly & excessively and commit the occasional crime ( outside his family’s business ), such as shoplifting.

as a blackw/atch agent, genji would throw himself recklessly into combat without any real care for himself. he often wound up in the medical wing with serious injuries, parts needing replacing, and sometimes with entire limbs missing. this was a combination of a need to feel something — anything — and being honestly quite suicidal.

come recall, genji is still impulsive, but he’s far better about keeping himself under control. he’ll still be reckless at times, but not nearly to the extent as in his past.

CHRONIC FEELINGS OF EMPTINESS.  fairly self explanatory. something he dealt with heavily prior to his near death and until his time with black/overw/atch was done. as with the other symptoms, he’s much better in the present, but does still struggle with some empty numbness.

EXPLOSIVE ANGER.  also fairly self-explanatory and, again, primarily a symptom he faced in the past. it was absolutely the most extreme during blackw/atch.

FEELING SUSPICIOUS &/OR OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY.  dissociation is another symptom that has affected genji across much of his life and is one of the symptoms that still affects him the most by the time of the recall. it was, understandably, especially bad during the first year or so after having much of his body replaced with cybernetics, but during times of stress, particularly emotional stress that he would and still does hide, he’ll often feel as though things aren’t real, or as though he’s outside his body. he’s good with grounding exercises in the present though, whereas in the past this was another symptom that he would try to solve with distractions & self-destructive behaviours.