BH
Lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth, the wife of Macbeth, suffers from Post-Traumatic stress disorder and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder resulting from her aiding in the murder of Duncan, the King of Scotland.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
Lady Macbeth exhibits symptoms of Obsessive-Compulsive disorder. She mostly has recurring behaviors that are meaningless and uncontrollable.
“It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands: I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.” (V.i.)
“What will these hands ne’er be clean, my lord, no more o’ that: you mar all with this starting.” (V.i)
-Finally even her husband, Macbeth, notices something distressing his wife and asks for help from a doctor.
“Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain and with some sweet oblivious antidote cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart?” (V.iii.)
The death she witnessed of the King of Scotland mentally traumatized the Duchess of Glamis. From it she developed Post-Traumatic Stress disorder. She has several symptoms proving so.
"Nought’s had, all’s spent, where our desire is got without content: ‘Tis safer to be that which we destroy than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.” (II.ii)
-Here she is basically saying that the grief and the guilt of being alive is not any better than being dead. She is showing survivor guilt.
“I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it’ write upon’t, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all in a most fast sleep.” (V.i.)
“Not so sick, my lord, As she is troubled with thick coming fancies that keep her from rest.” (V.iii.)
-According to her nurse, Lady Macbeth has been sleep walking and fretting about in her sleep. Having trouble sleeping is a symptom of PTSD.
“What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.” (V.i.)
“Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” (V.i.)
-These quotes are an example of distressing recurring thoughts about the traumatic even that caused Lady Macbeth's PTSD. She can't stop remembering all of the blood she saw from the King.