#i think most of us severly understimated his state of mind

[acidmatze]

A Fractured Sense Of Self

About one year ago I made a post about Hawks possibly having Dependend Personality Disorder since I saw so many things in him that I saw in myself.

After several talks with my therapist however it became more and more apparent that I had been close but didn't really hit the target.

I'm not here to push a diagnosis on Hawks. He's just fictional after all and I am just someone overanalysing things and not a professional of any kind.

I'm probably gonna lay out the “symptoms” or rather.... Behaviours of Borderline Personality Disorder, see if they fit Hawks and how and then try to somehow make sense of his state of mind and how it ties in with how he acts.

Trying to make sense of whatever the hell is happening in the recent chapters.

So when my therapist said “I looked some things up and I would say his behaviour fits BPD the best.” my brain immediately went to “No that can't be. Isn't that a thing teenagers have?”

Even though I Should Know Better. Damn you, media.

Ableism is so ingrained in society even people with mental illnesses themselves aren't safe.

But anyway, this isn't an essay about me doing parkour to avoid feelings and problems this is more about HAWKS doing the same.

Part 1  So what is BPD anyway?

BPD is characterized by the following signs and symptoms:

Markedly disturbed sense of identity

Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment, and extreme reactions to such.

Splitting ("black-and-white" thinking)

Impulsive or reckless behaviors (e.g., impulsive or uncontrollable spending, unsafe sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating)

Intense or uncontrollable emotional reactions that often seem disproportionate to the event or situation

Unstable and chaotic interpersonal relationships

Self-damaging behavior

Distorted self-image

Dissociation

Frequently accompanied by depression, anxiety, anger, substance abuse, or rage

Says Wikipedia

Let's see if and how Hawks fits these behaviour patterns.

(If you read this and suddenly realise “Oh shit I do stuff like that!” then please know you are in no way a horrible person. You did not choose any of these things. Stay safe cuz the world needs you.)

I'm intentionally leaving the Identity part for last.

Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment, and extreme reactions to such.

And

Splitting ("black-and-white" thinking)

I'm gonna take both points on at the same time cuz they are dependend on one another and one thing causes the other.

Why did he suddenly switch from “I don't want to fight you! I want to help you!” while looking desperate and disturbed (and meaning it!) to a pretty much emotionless “I have to kill you” (and meaning that too)?

He wanted to help Twice!

He really believes that Rehabilitation is the way to go for him.

After all, Twice is a good person and good people should have no troubles in hero society, right? Only bad people are villains, right?

If Twice is a good person he should have no problems choosing Rehabilitation and come back to the hero side, right? They are friends and that's what friends do right? Friends agree with one another, right?

And then Twice declines and insults the one thing Hawks really believes in (because he never was taught anything else).

Which caused Hawks to:

Perceive Twice as an enemy instead.

Friends agree with one another and Twice does not agree which means he is not a friend which means he is an enemy and should be killed.

Hawks (probably) has never killed before and it's not the job of a hero even. Heroes should go out of their way to avoid murder and bloodshed.

So in my opinion this sudden switch from “my friend” to “enemy” is definitely fueled by Hawks own emotions. The feeling of betrayal; not only did Twice insult the hero system he also insulted Hawks himself because Hawks cannot seperate himself from the System. As far as he perceives it they are one. It is Hawks sole identity.

It is easy for us to say there are bad heroes and good villains.

Because what is Good and what is Bad can change from situation to situation and is always dependend on circumstances.

A person can both be good and bad at the same.

A person can give lots of money to charity. We would say that's a good person.

The same person can also constantly lie to people and be unreliable towards their friends.

We would say that's a bad person.

But we know it's the same person and we all do things that are good AND bad. We all do good things. And we also have done bad things.

What I wanna say is, no person is completely black or white. We are all shades of grey.

“I really love to have Joe as a friend. He's such a great listener and we have amazing talks but he really has to come clean to his girlfriend about crashing her car.”

For Hawks, this is not so easy to understand.

In his mind a person can either be good OR bad.

All villains are bad. All heroes are good.

This ties in with his own anxiety about not solving a situation in the best possible way.

Making even one mistake is not an option. Heroes are good people and good people don't make mistakes.

He was So Close to realising that Twice is a good person even though he is a villain but one of these moments cannot undo over a decade of brainwashing.

“The contradictionary truth that things or persons can be black and white, good or bad, etc At The Same Time, seems unimaginable.”

(Fragmented Selves: Temporality and Identity in Borderline Personality Disorder by Thomas Fuchs)

Impulsive behaviour

This one is either easy or hard, depending on how you look at it.

We don't know what Hawks does in his free time and if he even has anything like such.

But reckless behaviours are basically part of his job so he probably already gets his fill there.

Intense or uncontrollable emotional reactions that often seem disproportionate to the event or situation

See his reaction towards Twice.

Unstable and chaotic interpersonal relationships

Or rather, a complete lack of any relationship whatsoever.

He either idolises people (Endeavor) or demonises them (Twice right now).

One could argue that as of now Hawks is completely incapable or forming any sort of emotional connection. He himself says he doesn't get attached, sees it as a weakness. For me it sounds like a defense mechanism.

He Did get attached to Twice and we saw how that played out.

But Hawks getting hurt over and over is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thinking of someone as either completely good or completely bad does little to aid a friendship.

Endeavor’s abuse getting exposed would probably cause Hawks to go through a crisis. He idolises Endeavor. In his eyes Endeavor can do no wrong.

Normally I would say this is something that must be avoided at any cost but in Hawks case, it is probably a necessary step to help him break the lock of his golden cage.

Self-damaging behavior

“If corrupting myself is enough to put everyone at ease then I will gladly take on this job”, anyone?

Hawks sending all his feathers to Endeavor to help him anyone?

When is this bird NOT hurting himself?

There are many ways to self-harm and this is Hawks way to do it.

Isn't it convenient that nobody would question is since he's just doing his job?

Distorted self-image

Goes hand in hand with the very first point which I wanna do last, just in case it gets really really long.

Dissociation

To be honest, I couldn't find any signs of that in Hawks. If someone of you can, just correct me.

Frequently accompanied by depression, anxiety, anger, substance abuse, or rage

Hawks seems to vaguely know that something is going wrong in his life and he absolutely does not like his circumstances.

He wishes to be free.

When he looked at Twice and smiled and said “A cage is not where I belong” it seemed to me like he looked more pained than genuinely joking.

He mentions drinking alcohol after work so this could or could not mean anything.

Maybe he wishes he could get smashed after work?

Who knows.

But he is definitely depressed and tries to cover it with jokes. Some depressed people joke even more the worse they feel.

Seriously, his interactions with Twice seemed to be the most genuine ones, where he was/is the most vulnerable.

The jovial, easygoing, chatty Hawks is a lie. A lie he has forced himself to believe in.

A role he has to play. But he played it for so long he forgot that it is just a role in a play and not real.

Part 2 Hawks must die

Okay, that sounds really harsh. I promise it's just a metaphorical death. I'm side-eyeing Horikoshi so hard right now.

Now we will take a look at his identity, or lack of one.

Lately what I really was reminded of was this “Inner child” thing.

We only caught glimpses of Hawks as a literal child. He probably grew up in an unstable home. Probably had no one really looking after him, why else would such a young child roam around the city alone so freely that it has the chance to help in a car crash?

He didn't look much older than 6 or 8.

The Hero Commission discovered him and took him in and “provided for his entire family”.

What happened was that he was apparently completely removed from his family and was put into a clinical environment, cold, not suited for children at all, hell probably barely suited for any human being.

Hawks remembers that even as a child he was taught interrogation techniques. Espionage.

From a very young age he was taught to leave himself behind. To mold himself into whatever he needs to be to complete the mission. To be a chameleon. A mirror. Just a reflection of what others expect him to be.

He has to be A so he becomes A. He has to be B now so he ignores he ever was A and is B now.

He has to be Hawks so Takami Keigo becomes Hawks and leaves himself behind.

The last time he was Takami Keigo was when he was a child.

Change is a normal part in humans. It's very important during puberty. That's why teenagers experiment with it so much.

“Oh, it's just a phase” sneer the adults when the teen wears only black and say thats the “Real me”. In a few months the same teen probably tries something else.

That's a good and normal thing. Even as adults we are constantly changing and adapting.

But we never forget the person we once were. We stay connected to it, maybe remember it fondly and think of the friends we found that way.

Or sometimes we look back and cringe because “Wow, my parents really let me go outside like this?”

It forms one fluent narrative. All these changes are still us. We know that we are the same person as we were last year even if last year's us was completely different from today's us.

Hawks doesn't have this continuity.

He became Hawks and wasn't allowed any further change and he also wasn't allowed to be Takami Keigo at the same time. He is a tool to be used.

Takami Keigo is a frightened child. A child that made a decision and thought he did well and now this decision is his downfall.

Takami Keigo was never allowed to grow up. He was pushed away, so he can be Hawks instead, probably as an attempt to gain approval, to be praised, to be liked.

Hawks is an amazing actor, likeable, chatty, funny and witty, very competent at his job and smart.

Takami Keigo is a scared child.

If Hawks stops being Hawks there is nothing he can go back to.

Normally people with Borderline ofc also go through “phases” as everyone else does but instead of putting them all into a single narrative and file them all away under “That's me” every phase is it's own seperate story.

All energy is put into one “phase” as much as neurotypicals do but once this phase is over there is nothing that comes after it. When people without Borderline change “phases” we know a “home” we can revert to while we change. Our Self still exists in us wether we are currently obsessing about Ballett or Comics or Dinosaurs or Architecture or whatever.

For someone like Hawks theres either Ballet or comics or dinosaurs or whatever. No neutral spot. You are either the person who puts all their energy into becoming an archaeologist or you're nothing. Being something gives you a goal to work towards to. It tells you who to talk to, what to talk about, what to do in your free time etc.

Hawks being Hawks gives him a goal, a worldview, things to believe in, topics to talk about, a job, people to talk to, opinions to have etc. It gives him an identity, ready-made and easy to consume.

He cannot be anything else but Hawks. He is nothing beyond that.

Takami Keigo plays Hawks, they are not one and the same person.

He is Hawks but Hawks isn't Takami Keigo.

Takami Keigo holds no opinion of his own, no worldview, no goal, no hobbies, nothing.

Hawks has to die so Takami Keigo can heal. So the frightened child can finally grow up.

#hawks #here have 2.2k of word vomit #this probably doesnt make any sense..... #keigo needs therapy urgently #like... pls.... #a friendship with Twice would be So Good because Twice is such an empathetic person #but thats a topic for another word vomit #that probably someone else should write #as i am not exactly competent at this #too emotional #i have emotions too big for my body disease #its kinda hard to see that the person who seems the most stable #is actually the one whos the least stable #i think most of us severly understimated his state of mind