Batsh*t: A Look at Batman’s Mental State

BY MATTHEW McLACHLAN

batman: caped crusader, world’s greatest detective,

and the only person we as a society have been cool with training child soldiers. He’s a multifaceted hero with endless stories diving into various parts of his damaged soul, but something I’ve noticed we don’t ever really talk about is the psychology of the guy. His mental health, in particular. Now, just to be clear, Batman is my absolute favorite of all superheroes and I am aware that he is beloved by millions, but holy hell does this guy need a God damn therapist. The dude has some serious deep-rooted mental and emotional issues and it’s a miracle he’s fighting for good instead of sitting on top of Gotham’s smoky rubble. He is who he is (and who we love) because of his mental state and what he became because of it, but I really think that trauma is something we should talk about more often.

Now, before I go any further, I want to say that if you’re looking for an in-depth and clinical look at Batman’s psychology, you should check out Dr. Robin S. Rosenberg’s book What’s the Matter with Batman (yes, that is a real book. And no, I didn’t read it because I’ve got a deadline, people.) You can find some incredible excerpts online in which she makes some very compelling arguments. However, if you’re looking for a nerdy, half-informed, comedic take on the whole thing, well then, I say, “Come on in, Bat-friends!”

Here’s something we all know: A young Bruce Wayne witnessed his parents being murdered. Worst of all (and this has never actually been confirmed) I’m pretty sure he just, like, sat with their bodies for a very long time. Now, I’m no psychologist, but that has got to f**k you up, right? I mean, I, as an adult, feel shaken when I see someone yell at my coffeeshop barista for giving them the wrong drink, not to mention watching your parents being gunned down in an alleyway as a child! We know there was an emotional and mental void created within him that he filled by promising to stop all crime in Gotham, right? We know he then went off and spent his teenage and young adult life in the Himalayas and other impossible-to-reach places learning how to break a man’s wrist forty-seven ways and how to do that impossible disappearing thing that pisses everyone off. But we, as a collective fanbase, all know that something snapped inside Bruce Wayne that day, but we never really talk about that. We’re only ever focused on what came after.

Everyone overlooks how mentally torturous it would’ve been to train to the physical limits it would take to become Batman, not to mention the physical and mental drive it would take to maintain it as he got older! Some would say you’d have to be somewhat mentally unstable to push your body that hard for so long. Who says that? Why, the people who do it, of course! You ever watch any of those CrossFit documentaries on Netflix? These

athletes push themselves to such physical extremes that over the course of these documentaries, many of these athletes admit that you’d have to have something a little wrong with you to find the joy from this level of exertion. Uh. Yeah! No sh*t! Flipping 700 pound tires in a 110-degree garage 100 times in a row isn’t exactly the portrait of sanity, people! Now, can you imagine doing that every God damn day as just a warmup so you can keep up the physical endurance to support 150-pound Bat-armor as you flip through the air while avoiding getting shot in the face?! Yeah, sounds insane doesn’t it?!

I think what no one ever addresses in the Batman comics and/or films that I think is tied directly to the psychological break within Bruce Wayne is that, if he really wanted to eradicate crime from the streets of Gotham, he could. He’s smart enough. This is the guy who figured out how to stop the entire Justice League and you’re telling me he can’t figure out how to clean up the city streets? Even Rudy Giuliani figured that out! I bet if any of Batman’s allies said to him, “Yo, Bruce, I crunched some numbers and found that if you donated X-amount of millions into education while using your political resources to push strict weapon laws and prison reform, you’d cut the Gotham crime rate in half in less than 10-15 years! While as Batman, if you punched these people in the mouth and sent them off to Arkham or Blackgate while you did all that as Bruce Wayne, your job would be done, mah dude! You could retire in no time!” But he wouldn’t do it. Because I don’t think he really wants to. I think that a part of his psychological break is that he craves the fight. He doesn’t really want to stop. He self-medicates on the process of stopping crime, not the actual stopping of it. If I were to be so bold, I would tie this to the reason why he doesn’t just kill the Joker. He needs him. He needs that little piece of chaos in his life to keep him moving forward, to keep giving him that sense of purpose, to give him his medicine. And I don’t think Bruce Wayne would ever give that up. That’s a part of his break from reality. So, what do we do when the only real person who can eradicate all of crime in Gotham could actually be the reason it still exists after so many years in the vigilante game? I don’t freakin’ know, I’m just a nerd who thought this article was a good idea and needed a good ending line. Leave me alone.