Diagnosing Heathcliff, What Could be Wrong Essay

Emily Bronte’s, Wuthering Heights, includes the struggle for happiness, like marry like, and revenge. Heathcliff grew up neglected and abused. When he fell in love with his long time friend, Catherine Earnshaw, she betrayed him by choosing another man over him, causing Heathcliff to become bitter and rude to everyone who comes in contact with him. He goes out of his way to make everyone miserable and unhappy just like himself. Although the perspective of Heathcliff is seen as â€Å"a mad man,† he is actually suffering from Antisocial Personality Disorder, Conduct Disorder, and Depression. An adult that has Antisocial Disorder normally begins with Conduct Disorder as a child . Children with CD (Conduct Disorder) are found when the child has a†¦show more content†¦All of these symptoms are long term and do not just show up overnight. The patient will start to develop this disorder no earlier than at 15 years of age but is not officially diagnosed till age 18. The reason being is so the patient is not just going through these symptoms as a stage in his or her life (DSM). Though Heathcliff has most of these symptoms that make up a person with antisocial, he also shows signs of a person who could just be in a state of major depression. Depression is not when you are sad for a couple of days, it is a time in a person’s life when it is hard to eat, sleep, work, and enjoy themselves for at the least two weeks or longer. Also these moods must last through the whole day, periodically throughout or most of the day. It is also not considered depression if under the use of any substances, such as drugs or alcohol, or within two months of a deceased loved one. This state of mind can also cause him or her to have â€Å"impairment of functioning.† In Heathcliff’s case he was not under any known substance and his grief over the loss of Catherine lasted longer than two months after she passed away. He also was beginning to believe in the appearances of ghosts. He claims to see Catherine or he wishes that she would haunt him so that he would not have to bare his