Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Season 3 of "The Bear"

Published by Zencare on July 25, 2024 and written by Amee Dassani, PsyD

I have spent my adult life living in the city of Chicago — my husband and I are foodies. We spend much of our free time exploring the culinary delight of this gorgeous city — from hot dog joints to Michelin star restaurants, we relish in the wonders of the culinary scenes. This is why when we saw that The Bear series 3 was finally out, we binge-watched the show in a week — as we loved the two other seasons. The Bear series is a show that follows a complex character: Carmy, who suffers from trauma from his past. It is a dark plot but a very realistic one when it comes to mental health challenges from a dysfunctional childhood and how that plays out in adult relationships and occupation. The mental health challenges unfold through the stories of the characters on the show. The show begins with Carmy, a high-end chef, leaving his job to run his brother Michael’s restaurant “The Beef”, after Michael commits suicide and leaves the restaurant to Carmy.

What is complex post-traumatic stress disorder?

Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) shares many symptoms with PTSD, but stems from repeated traumatic experiences rather than a single event. Key symptoms include panic attacks, depression, mood swings, interpersonal difficulties like relationship conflicts, trust issues and difficulty asking for help. Physically, someone with C-PTSD might get headaches and experience excessive sweating. Additionally, these people might detach from situations, and dissociate.

The repeated nature of trauma in C-PTSD creates a constant state of fear, severely impacting a person's sense of safety. This ongoing stress can have profound effects on both physical and emotional well-being.

For children, repeated abuse can hinder normal development and lead to unhealthy relationship patterns. Adults who experience ongoing trauma may develop C-PTSD gradually and be unaware of their condition until symptoms significantly affect daily life. We’ll explore how C-PTSD affected some of the characters in The Bear and their relationships.

Carmy

Carmy is such a complex character. The writers have done an excellent job of his portrayal of complex post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, perfectionism and complex grief over losing his brother. His many triggers include all of his training with various chefs at restaurants. Carmy trained with some of the best and was retraumatized by the bullying behavior of one chef of a high-end restaurant. I felt an ache in the pit of my stomach watching the scene where a master chef degrades Carmy, remembering my own critical supervision. I’m a highly sensitive person and I would guess that Carmy is the same. Perfectionism is a must and if it doesn’t happen we can degrade ourselves and feel intense anxiety. However, his resilience is apparent as he soldiers on even with the intense criticism.

At the end of season 2, Carmy accidentally locked himself in the meat freezer during the opening of the much anticipated opening of his restaurant. His avoidant attachment style has been apparent through the series with his reluctance to face emotions and his quiet demeanor. Avoidant attachment disorder comes from attachment theory coined by Bowlby and Ainswiorth. This attachment style is characterized by high achievement but avoids physical and emotional intimacy, and long term relationships. This usually develops from emotionally distant parents who discourage emotional vulnerability.

You can see that Carmy is a “lone wolf” and is very self-sufficient in the kitchen. We see him sabotage his relationship with Claire, a fear of hurting her and all the others he has hurt, this undoubtedly stems from his childhood and his complex relationship with his mother who has substance use disorder. She seems to be the love of his life and he finds it impossible to reach out to her and share how he feels. He made a mistake and in a vulnerable moment said all the wrong things. This often happens in relationships and can be fixed with the courage to face our vulnerabilities and simply speaking from the heart, telling the truth about how you feel.

Natalie, aka Sugar

Sugar and Carmy seem to have survivor guilt and complex emotions from losing Michael. Sugar appears much more attuned to her emotions and has worked on the trauma of her childhood. She tries to take the role of older sister to Carmy and he seems to respect her. It is implied that both children are estranged from their mother, Donna.

In season 3, we witness the relationship between mother and daughter as Sugar gives birth to her child with her mom in attendance. Donna speaks of her own memories of giving birth and in that moment they bonded, and even with Sugar’s conflicted emotions about her dysfunctional relationship with her mother, you see the love between them in this episode. The writers did a masterful job of portraying the effects of substance abuse and maternal borderline traits on adult children. Donna seems to feel abandoned by her children and vacillates between going through extreme measures to make holidays special through cooking for them and then acting very defensive when confronted while she is drinking copious amounts of wine. Borderline personality disorder is characterized by unstable moods, self destructive behavior, substance abuse, grandiosity which may look like narcissism and just overall poor choices.

The effects of intergenerational trauma

Trauma effects are usually intergenerational and passed down until someone is willing and brave enough to face themselves and work through the effects of intergenerational trauma. Carmy and Sugar are resilient in the face of adversity and both want a better life for themselves regardless of their past childhood adverse experiences. While Sugar has done a lot more work to navigate her complex post-traumatic stress, Carmy is living life week by week, and continues to struggle with the weight of perfectionism and grief.

In a monologue at an ALANON meeting, Carmy opens up about his estrangement from his brother Michael, who distanced himself likely due to his own C-PTSD and hidden drug use. Carmy turned to his pursuits of working in all the best restaurants in the world as an “I’ll show you” to his brother pushing him away. But Carmy’s work in high-end restaurants actually became everything for him, and he felt okay, achieving a form of peace. The more Carmy tried to share this with Michael and seek validation, the less Michael responded, which pushed Carmy to begin to withdraw into himself and his work. Unfortunately the effects of trauma are long lasting and the subconscious is in charge through complex post-traumatic stress disorder.

I have often heard my clients who have a history of trauma say that they cannot feel joy even when joyous events occur. This is portrayed in Carmy’s character as despite his success of opening this restaurant, he seems very apathetic, and sad. But Carmy also shows passion and joy for creativity and his craft.

Hope and Therapy

Vulnerability is difficult for most of us. However, complex trauma survivors who have learned to repress their emotions and push them way down, may self-sabotage instead of express themselves.  From my perspective, the purpose of relationships in this life is to grow and come back to who we really are through love, support and acceptance. The effects of complex trauma are long lasting but there is hope and therapy can help you gain tools to not only cope but uncover all of the barriers on your heart to live a truly joyous life as each one of us is meant to live.

If you resonate with these characters from The Bear, and feel that you may be in need of support with similar challenges, seek out a therapist who is specialized in C-PTSD. Zencare’s directory allows you to filter by therapists with this experience, along with any other criteria that are important to you.

References

1. Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and Loss: Vol. 1. Attachment. New York: Basic Books.
2. Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.