Sarah's Disability Explained
I mentioned I was a student of psychology in another thread and someone asked me to try and determine what exactly Sarah's disability was, so I did, because it's kinda cringe-worthy for me for people to assume Sarah was acting "stupid" because "she wanted to" and hate her because of it. Just take this post as some sort of trivia or interesting tidbit to know about her, or something.
Forgive me in advance for my English, since I am not a native.
She seems to have spectrums of anxiety disorder, in particular panic disorder and separation anxiety disorder.
She possesses a number of symptons:
Panic disorder:
- How she freezes up at the sight of danger, has difficulty breathing, speaking and moving is consistent with panic disorder.
- Her freezing up due to an intense fear of the consequences of "messing up" when she has to do a simple task such as picking berries by herself.
- Her "flight or freeze" response to a traumatic events, to which she will either freeze up or develop an intense irrational desire to flee the place which the event has ocurred and get as far away from it as possible. This explains why she instantly fled from the scene and was "running through the woods like a maniac" as Luke put it after her dad died, and later on why she froze up when surrounded by walkers at the trailer park.
Separation disorder:
- How she clings to Carlos, and seems to have a small fit every time she is separated from him.
- How she's contantly paranoid about his safety and that he might not come back when he's away from her
- How she feels ill when he's not around and keeps repeating "I'm not okay" or "I don't feel well"
- How she will call for him whenever she feels scared or sad "I want my dad!"
- How she sometimes ceases to function and retreats into a corner when her dad is not around [the whole holding her legs in fetal position thing], but is able to snap out of it if there's a person she trusts near her [which is why Clem is always able to snap her out of it: she really trusts Clementine]
- An additional trivia to the two last points is that if you save her, she starts calling for Clementine when she's in danger, instead of her dad. It shows how much she appreciated and trusted Clementine, and how she was beginning to get over her father.
Both of these are treatable through therapy only [medicine is not mandatory,if they're not available], while the latter could have most certainly been entirely Carlos' fault for coddling and sheltering her too much. Excessively coddled / sheltered children and teens often develop separation anxiety. Sarah could indeed have become a functioning member of the group. Her dad was the biggest idiot in this story.
I don't believe she is intellectualy challenged , given how she has enough perception to be completely aware and upset over how her dad shelters her,how she knows whether Clementine was forced to watch her in the forest, how she realizes Luke and Jane were going to leave her to die, and how she's also sharp enough to tell whether Clementine is lying to her when being comforted. She is also not as oblivous to how the world is out there as Carlos says, since she is aware that she must start learning how to protect herself if she wants to survive and asks Clementine to help her,and that she must not tell Carlos about it. Quoting Sarah herself : "Everything is dangerous. I need to learn how to protect myself someday."
Her behaving like a 12/13 year old instead of 15 is simply the result of her father's intense sheltering ever since the apocalypse started, which would have been her age when it happened. As a result she never "grew" past that age.
Comments
CeaseToFunction
All praise Carlos, the genius doctor, Lord of the Shed!
Can't tell a lurker bite from a mosquito bite or dog bite... :^)
I thought she was just a kid so i never gave her that hard of a time.
I agree with this completely.
I felt bad when i slapped her, but it WAS the only way i could get her to listen to me, i'm no Rick Rice i swear.
Ha and you thought you were going to be down voted to hell. 7 up votes already.
Give it time bro, i got down voted earlier today by posting a funny picture of Lee Everett. I'm the downvote king, and i'm so close to capacity.
the salty seas behind the eyes and it's the tears that come and make me cry
Sarah was naive and had anxiety issues, to say the least.
CEASE TO FUNCTION xD
Yep yep yep. I related so intrinsically to Sarah for these reasons. Having lived with anxiety and panic disorders since 6th grade, I can tell you it is hell enough in the real world, and takes a lot of strength to work through. It has literally nothing to do with your intelligence and is all about brain chemicals, genetics and the environment you were raised in. It's even worse when you're young and dealing with the emotional struggles of puberty on top of it.
I can't imagine what the few years Sarah spent in the ZA leading up to meeting Clem must have been like. I really wish she could have had a chance to prove she was strong in her own way, prove that she could learn to survive like she stated she wanted to. That even being disabled she is still as important to the group and worthy of being there as any other character was. Instead we get her killed in extremely unsatisfying ways, with a bonus "people wanted to slap her, so you get to slap her but you'll be stuck with her for a bit longer" bullshit option.
I feel sadder about her death now ;-;
I looked at it as her being neurodivergent, having anxiety, being naive and being highly sheltered by Carlos.
Thanks for taking the time to explain this to us. I just thought she was autistic and hidden from the real world.
Thumbs up!:)
Gonna bump it for a bit so more people can see it~
I like how whenever a character has a 'flaw' so to speak, it always has to be linked to some kind of disability, I always saw Sarah as simply having Anxiety issues due to social withdrawal (if we're to assume Carlos was extremely protective of her before the apocalypse) and the her having the mindset of a younger child, is just a bi-product of Carlos constantly coddling her (I reference you to the scene where Sarah tell Clem what her dad does when she's in trouble) and seeming to treat her like a 7 year old (as opposed to a 15 year old).
You are a frickin' genius mate !
In my opinion the problem was that she just didn't have enough time to recover after the death of Carlos
which led her to her death. BUT there where a few other problem's too.
If you think about it after Carlos die's the cabin group doesn't care even at the least if she has problems,
they're just like she can't survive so she has to die.This is TWDG not Mortal Kombat WTH.
There was an hour at the least after we saved her and Luke. Someone should've talked with her.
Maybe help her and tell her to be brave or something (sorry im not the best at these talk's xD) or encourage her a bit so she wont freeze ...
That's not what it means to be autistic.
She was showing signs of improvement though, as she did not freeze up again when the horde was approaching them at the statue, and instead of calling for her dad as she usually did when scared, she calls for Clementine, also warning the group, and keeping up with them when they retreat.
The fact that she called for Clem's help instead of freezing up and calling her dad is a way to show that she was going to be able to get over her separation anxiety. It also shows that Clementine was replacing her dad as her most trusted person.
Yes that's right BUT if she got help in the meantime, if someone talked with her and not just comfort her once like Rebbeca maybe she had a chance of surviving if you convinced Jane to help her.
As an experienced e-psychologist with no training and not really knowing what I'm talking about, I agree with your analysis. The speculation of autism seems over the top to me, the way she interacts with clem and others doesn't strike me as autistic, but she obviously has anxiety disorders and her "off" behaviour socially is most likely the result of having been coddled and not having had anyone around to grow up with. People often behave how you treat them, carlos treated her like a little kid so she acted like one.
Her second death wasn't really her fault or her condition's fault at all though, it was a freak accident and it could have been anyone in her place if they were standing where she was. That was just Telltale getting rid of her for the sake of getting rid of her.
Even if someone talked to her Telltale had a plan to kill her off from the beginning. She'd still die because of an accident that wasn't her fault.
It was a really crappy death, to me.
I agree, telltale did want to get rid of her
really stupid move though...
If sarah was alive the story could be even better
But i will disagree on your other statement
if it was someone like Molly or Jane they would probably live if you think about it only Molly or Jane would've gotten out because they had the skills and they dont panic. Kenny, Luke and etc. would've survived because they have that OP plot Armor. Mike or Bonnie would die depending of your choice in a situation like that if you asked me.
Lol, the people at TT247's Shame post should have a look at this and maybe stop overreacting and hating on Greg Miller and Telltale so much.
He never said hidden from the real world was autism... He said she was autistic AND hidden from the real world.
I read it but I think it actually reinforces TT247's post. Also Greg and Telltale interview made me sick to my stomach and I have a pretty strong stomach for terrible things. If you found it as us overreacting it makes me kind of concerned for our humanity as a whole. Are we as humans really that insensitive that we can laugh at a fictional innocent 15 year old girl's death because she was "not normal"? Even in fiction something like is sick and disgusting. I was already getting sick of people's lack of empathy and compassion in real life I don't need it in fiction as well. I came to this fiction to get away from it not to be force fed it all over again.
um how does the op prove me wrong exactly???????
Very nice post. I hated to see her get killed, but this is the Walking Dead. No one is ever safe in the zombie apocalypse. As a horror writer, it is the one genre I've stayed away from because i feel it has been done to death. (Bad joke I know.)
Hello Pride,
I was a psychiatrist/therapist (both) few years ago,then I decided to work as a surgeon.I was skilled at both.Anyways,a father had once came,and told me about his 13 years old son.He had the same problem as Sarah,but,his gender is different.
By the way,your theory is likely correct.The part that was COMPLETELY correct,about the too much coddling,or sheltering.His som just keeps playing video games alot,which made him a loner,and when he go outside,he stays outside 5 minutes and then he goes inside and starts playing.I told his father to discipline his son,but not by beating.I told him to never ground his son 2 years,and force him to go outside,and find new friends around.2 yeaars later the same father came to me.He have a new problem.His son stays outside home,with his friends.He leaves his home 7 AM and comes back around 9 PM.I told him to do the vise-versa of the previous solution,but don't ground him for too long,or the same probelm couple years ago will come back.
Sorry I got carried away.Anyways,you need to review very well your theory,and good luck becoming one of the best doctors around
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So, and I'm not denying your psychiatric capabilities and qualifications here, to stop a 13 year old boy from staying indoors and playing video games, you told his father to kick him out the house and FORCED him to make friends? I thought the whole point of being a psychiatrist would be gradual help beneficial to the patients needs.
Good post. I don't know what's giving @kindofconcerned the idea that this theory blows what I've been saying out of the water, this actually is part of what I've been saying; that Sarah shows clear signs of a disability. I only disagree where you say that "Her dad was the biggest idiot in this story."
Personally I used to agree that it was irresponsible and wrong of Carlos to shelter Sarah the way he did, but I realize now that he wasn't necessarily doing such a bad thing.
He knew Sarah's strengths and weaknesses very well, both as a doctor and a father. He wasn't coddling her or getting in the way of her growth, Sarah obviously knew what zombies were after all. (Although I do agree that it would have been smarter of him to teach her how to defend herself.) He only seemed to be trying to hide the cruelties of humans in the world from her, knowing that the way they act and think would negatively impact her innocence and self-esteem.
He could have pushed her or tried to force her into being a hardened survivor with no trace of kindness or weakness, but instead he recognized that Sarah would never be able to fill that kind of role. This isn't to say that Sarah would never have had any hope for survival or independence, only that she would never successfully become one of those hardened survival of the fittest types. It would have turned her into an entirely different person, made her weak and unhappy, instead of reinforcing her strengths such as her innate kindness and sense of morality.
It was a temporary solution,but his son just started liking to go outside and play with his friends.His son NEVER accepted to EVEN come to my office,because he was playing!He was so addicted.And I didn't mean that his dad would kick him,but he had to talk to him,and make him go outside,meet new people.You know,his son thought the world was Call of Duty,and once he asked his dad to buy him an A1 Thompson(From the game) because he wanted to fight the axis?!His son didn't take ANYTHING seriously,he always took life as a joke.I just remembered a point,I told his dad to talk to him seriously,and ask him to find friends in real life,not video games!(He got plenty on video games,which are his neighbors!!!!!!!!!).Thanks for pointing that out.Anyways now I'm a surgeon,so I don't have too much flashbacks.
So you told him to do something that didn't create a healthy, balanced person, then told him to do the same thing again? This time it's sure to work!
If this isn't some bullshit you made up to impress everyone, you were a terrible psychiatrist. How about stop treating the kid like an object and treat him like a human being instead?
Then I need to get my facts right?That just worked,meh nevermind.
Huh, well I'm not an expert of psychoanalysis so I can't say your methods are wrong, if you are even telling me the truth (which I doubt, to be honest but I'll take your word for it) I was just curious is all. Now the rest of the forum, mostly on this thread believe they are experts and can read people like a book! Be careful friend.
It didn't work, it created more problems because it didn't actually helped the kid's mental state. Just forced him to perform behaviours he didn't want to.
Great post! It is a very interesting analysis. This made me wish that the writers have developed Sarah better and she survived the Season. She had great potentials for character development.
Because people thought Greg was attacking disabled people (even though he wasn't).
And this presents the possibility that her mental condition, the severe dependancy, was induced by her father's choices in her upbringing, not because she was disabled.
I highly agree with that. I always blamed Carlos for what happened to her.