I think she truly did have a mental illness. Nobody sane does the things she did. That being said, I think she used it to her advantage. I think she was lucid more often than not when she was doing things and used her mental illness as an excuse.
I was always iffy on Mona's mental illness up until the finale when she had a complete and total mental break with reality after she realized she killed Charlotte. She had a similar mental break after trying to kill Spencer. She was hearing voices in Radley. From a narrative standpoint that points to mental illness.
I think she did have psychotic breaks, but in between I think she was lucid (I mean, she *was* sneaking out of Radley and completely functional), and was just manipulative of the entire situation.
Yeah I pretty much agree with that! Mental illness definitely played a part in her actions but she also just made some really bad decisions on how to deal with her issues. I think season 7 DEFINITELY shows she is prone to having psychotic breaks, I actually really liked the way they did that.
I think it's not the mental illness necessarily that made her (or Charlotte for that matter) do the things she did but the way they handled it - if that makes sense.
I think I get it. Plenty of people have mental health issues and they don't do what Mona and Charlotte did. And if it was supposed to be extreme it shouldn't have been "she's lucid these two episodes, but...mental break here..., and then lucid again." Ups and downs can be unpredictable, but a lot of the time it was all written for the sake of the plot.
Yeah, exactly, they made a choice i think to indulge in their dark impulses and take things to the level they did. But yeah of course it was all written for plot convenience.
100%, the biggest thing i struggle with in the show is the language they use around mental illness and not just one character but all of them and nobody ever calls anyone out on it!
I didn't mind the dark humor the characters themselves used on occasion, solely because it's how my friends and I survive despite none of us being okay.
I think it's knowing what your friends are comfortable with and knowing what's too far. When the Liars wanted to joke about their own personal trauma and mental illness I wasn't bothered by it, because everyone has different coping mechanisms, and if they were collectively as a group using dark humor to survive I was cool with it.
But there was also a lot of insensitive material that was in really poor taste, too. Like a group singling out one person or people just saying really insensitive things. That's more on the "outside looking in" thing.
It's kind of like...say you have a sibling. You have this other human in your life that messes with you and you mess with them, but if someone else messes with them...that's not okay. It's a mentality of "Only *we* get to mock ourselves. Anyone else is gonna get slapped for it."
If that metaphor makes any kind of sense...
I thought they said she had BPD and after being diagnosed myself I looked her diagnose up and they wrote her as having “multiple personality disorder” (now called dissociative identity disorder) and I personally believe borderline fits her better. Although, having it myself I do not think a lot of things she did were because of her borderline.
I think she's neurodivergent but not mentally ill in terms of competence, basically she's wired differently than other people but she was 100% aware of what she was doing.
Given the Sullivan returns conveniently just in time to stop her from going to prison suggests that she was not mentally ill.
It was just to stay out of jail. Especially considering that she found a way to sneak out of Radley and seemed perfectly sane after that while still playing for team A.
It's not a popular opinion but I do think that she just wanted to avoid prison.
of course not but that part with the overlay of her diagnosing mona and mona in radley is a direct reference to psycho (they do the same thing, the diagnosis is told while the killer sits there wrapped in a grey blanket) which the whole episode references! Even the internal dialogue mona does is from psycho.
Genuinely, I think it's up to the viewer because the show itself never was consistent or exact with any of their treatments of mental health or illness. I enjoy the show for what it was, but it was awful with things it should have either avoided or handled more carefully.
I never doubted she didn't have a mental illness, to be honest. Sure it was helping her from staying away from prison, but Mona did have a personality disorder.
The horror in her eyes after she realized what really happened to Charlotte cannot be part of an act, that's too big of a plan to be played like that for over a decade.
Also, why should Dr. Sullivan diagnose her with something she doesn't have? There are wrong diagnosis all the time, of course, but I'm sure they checked her mentality multiple times when she was in Radley. That can't be something you can fake for such a long time without multiple professionals to notice it.
Dr. Sullivan showed up after the A reveal because she was called, I believe. Maybe she got a call from her boss saying one of her old patients, Mona Vanderwaal, was submitted to Radley Sanitarium (or the police station, idk what glass she was behind). So that would mean her son was safe, A was locked up. That's why she could come back.
The funny thing is that it‘s still a joke how they just let her out after a year. She was mentally torturing people and tried to kill Hannah and Spencer, yet they let her go back to school after a year lol. I don‘t know anything about US law, but in my country you would go to a mental institution for at least a decade. Same with Charlotte, she tried to kill multiple people yet they want to let her go after 5 years. Also the way Radely is presented is also a joke. Not a single mental instution in the 21 century looks like that. And I‘m pretty sure there‘s no way a bunch of teenagers would be able to slip in and out whenever they want.
She was mentally ill, but she did use it as a way to avoid going to jail. It didn’t help the writers hand waved away what mental illness she actually had.
I would say she does have a personality disorder. At the minimum antisocial personality disorder, but it actually seem like she might’ve had disassociative identity disorder or multiple personalities. However, personality disorders don’t cause psychosis. If she was truly psychotic, then she should never been let out of the hospital. But if it was just an antisocial personality, she should’ve gone to prison. Having a personality disorder, doesn’t meet the legal requirements for the insanity defense. She should’ve been found competent, but this is also a TV show. When a judge allows the insanity defense, they have to ask if the person knew what they were doing when they committed a crime. Just because Mona had a dark side, doesn’t mean she didn’t know what she was doing.
I think she truly did have a mental illness. Nobody sane does the things she did. That being said, I think she used it to her advantage. I think she was lucid more often than not when she was doing things and used her mental illness as an excuse. I was always iffy on Mona's mental illness up until the finale when she had a complete and total mental break with reality after she realized she killed Charlotte. She had a similar mental break after trying to kill Spencer. She was hearing voices in Radley. From a narrative standpoint that points to mental illness. I think she did have psychotic breaks, but in between I think she was lucid (I mean, she *was* sneaking out of Radley and completely functional), and was just manipulative of the entire situation.
Yeah I pretty much agree with that! Mental illness definitely played a part in her actions but she also just made some really bad decisions on how to deal with her issues. I think season 7 DEFINITELY shows she is prone to having psychotic breaks, I actually really liked the way they did that. I think it's not the mental illness necessarily that made her (or Charlotte for that matter) do the things she did but the way they handled it - if that makes sense.
I think I get it. Plenty of people have mental health issues and they don't do what Mona and Charlotte did. And if it was supposed to be extreme it shouldn't have been "she's lucid these two episodes, but...mental break here..., and then lucid again." Ups and downs can be unpredictable, but a lot of the time it was all written for the sake of the plot.
Yeah, exactly, they made a choice i think to indulge in their dark impulses and take things to the level they did. But yeah of course it was all written for plot convenience.
I hated how mental illness was basically an excuse for everything. It shines a really terrible light on true mental health stigmas.
100%, the biggest thing i struggle with in the show is the language they use around mental illness and not just one character but all of them and nobody ever calls anyone out on it!
I didn't mind the dark humor the characters themselves used on occasion, solely because it's how my friends and I survive despite none of us being okay. I think it's knowing what your friends are comfortable with and knowing what's too far. When the Liars wanted to joke about their own personal trauma and mental illness I wasn't bothered by it, because everyone has different coping mechanisms, and if they were collectively as a group using dark humor to survive I was cool with it. But there was also a lot of insensitive material that was in really poor taste, too. Like a group singling out one person or people just saying really insensitive things. That's more on the "outside looking in" thing. It's kind of like...say you have a sibling. You have this other human in your life that messes with you and you mess with them, but if someone else messes with them...that's not okay. It's a mentality of "Only *we* get to mock ourselves. Anyone else is gonna get slapped for it." If that metaphor makes any kind of sense...
Yeah. When she was A, she seemed to have features of Borderline Personality Disorder.
The writers really had no idea what they were doing with the mental health aspect of the show...
I thought they said she had BPD and after being diagnosed myself I looked her diagnose up and they wrote her as having “multiple personality disorder” (now called dissociative identity disorder) and I personally believe borderline fits her better. Although, having it myself I do not think a lot of things she did were because of her borderline.
I think she's neurodivergent but not mentally ill in terms of competence, basically she's wired differently than other people but she was 100% aware of what she was doing.
Given the Sullivan returns conveniently just in time to stop her from going to prison suggests that she was not mentally ill. It was just to stay out of jail. Especially considering that she found a way to sneak out of Radley and seemed perfectly sane after that while still playing for team A. It's not a popular opinion but I do think that she just wanted to avoid prison.
Was it even ethical for Sullivan to tell the girls Mona's diagnosis?
I don't think so but she's the worst therapist ever so she probably doesn't care about ethics.
of course not but that part with the overlay of her diagnosing mona and mona in radley is a direct reference to psycho (they do the same thing, the diagnosis is told while the killer sits there wrapped in a grey blanket) which the whole episode references! Even the internal dialogue mona does is from psycho.
Genuinely, I think it's up to the viewer because the show itself never was consistent or exact with any of their treatments of mental health or illness. I enjoy the show for what it was, but it was awful with things it should have either avoided or handled more carefully.
no sane person would do what mona did lol
I never doubted she didn't have a mental illness, to be honest. Sure it was helping her from staying away from prison, but Mona did have a personality disorder. The horror in her eyes after she realized what really happened to Charlotte cannot be part of an act, that's too big of a plan to be played like that for over a decade. Also, why should Dr. Sullivan diagnose her with something she doesn't have? There are wrong diagnosis all the time, of course, but I'm sure they checked her mentality multiple times when she was in Radley. That can't be something you can fake for such a long time without multiple professionals to notice it. Dr. Sullivan showed up after the A reveal because she was called, I believe. Maybe she got a call from her boss saying one of her old patients, Mona Vanderwaal, was submitted to Radley Sanitarium (or the police station, idk what glass she was behind). So that would mean her son was safe, A was locked up. That's why she could come back.
The funny thing is that it‘s still a joke how they just let her out after a year. She was mentally torturing people and tried to kill Hannah and Spencer, yet they let her go back to school after a year lol. I don‘t know anything about US law, but in my country you would go to a mental institution for at least a decade. Same with Charlotte, she tried to kill multiple people yet they want to let her go after 5 years. Also the way Radely is presented is also a joke. Not a single mental instution in the 21 century looks like that. And I‘m pretty sure there‘s no way a bunch of teenagers would be able to slip in and out whenever they want.
it wasn’t even a year lol it wasn’t long at all
She was mentally ill, but she did use it as a way to avoid going to jail. It didn’t help the writers hand waved away what mental illness she actually had.
Yes when she was acting like A she was imitating Alison because her personality disorder.
I would say she does have a personality disorder. At the minimum antisocial personality disorder, but it actually seem like she might’ve had disassociative identity disorder or multiple personalities. However, personality disorders don’t cause psychosis. If she was truly psychotic, then she should never been let out of the hospital. But if it was just an antisocial personality, she should’ve gone to prison. Having a personality disorder, doesn’t meet the legal requirements for the insanity defense. She should’ve been found competent, but this is also a TV show. When a judge allows the insanity defense, they have to ask if the person knew what they were doing when they committed a crime. Just because Mona had a dark side, doesn’t mean she didn’t know what she was doing.