While Eeyore isn't formally diagnosed in the books, many experts interpret his chronic gloom, low self-esteem, anhedonia (inability to feel joy), and tendency to withdraw as symptoms aligning with depression, potentially stemming from early trauma like losing his tail, suggesting he embodies aspects of PTSD or complex trauma. A.A. Milne may have used the Hundred Acre Wood characters to explore post-war trauma, with Eeyore's depressive state serving as a relatable portrayal of how trauma affects world view and emotional experience.
Eeyore is a character that displays a relatively accurate example of major depressive disorder. One major issue with the character portrayed is his consistent involvement with a support group.
Eeyore. The paper suggests Eeyore has dysthymia – a form of depression. This may be in part because of the trauma he suffered from his tail amputation.
In the stories, Eeyore's sadness is often attributed to his gloomy outlook on life, his tendency to focus on the negative, and his belief that he is always unlucky.
The global models suggests that individuals with PTSD experience a limited or constrained capacity for positive emotions, perhaps as a consequence of chronic avoidance behavior, positive emotion dysregulation, or neural alterations in reward processing circuitry that are observed in PTSD (see Vinograd et al., 2022, for ...
When our brain then recognises similarities between our present situation and our past trauma (e.g. a colour, smell or noise), it can activate the fight, flight, freeze, flop or friend response, even if we're not currently in danger.
For example, people living with PTSD may cry more often than others. So, if you've experienced traumatic events, your tears could be a trauma response. This is because PTSD is linked to an overabundance of stress, and crying can be a way to self-soothe.
Eeyore is hardly ever happy, and even when he is, he's still sardonic and a bit cynical. Ironically, he actually seems to enjoy being gloomy to an extent and sees it as the essence of his very being.
While author A.A. Milne never diagnosed them, popular theories suggest Tigger represents hyperactive ADHD, while Winnie the Pooh himself embodies inattentive ADHD, due to his scattered focus, daydreaming, and difficulty staying on task, often getting distracted by honey or butterflies. Other characters like Piglet (anxiety) and Eeyore (depression) are also linked to mental health, but Tigger and Pooh are the primary ADHD figures, with Tigger being the "classic" impulsive type and Pooh the "space cadet" inattentive type.
Piglet: Generalized Anxiety Disorder. The theory states that he may have suffered from an injury that crippled his self-esteem, and that his stuttering problem most likely developed from said injury.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD): One of the most common mental disorders, GAD is characterized by excessive worry about issues and situations that individuals experience every day. Any worrying that is out of proportion to the reality of the situation may fall under this disorder.
Roo – Autism Spectrum Traits
Roo's limited awareness of danger and strong attachment to his mother might suggest traits of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
Eeyore has Persistent Depressive Disorder because he always feels dejected and gloomy. Owl has Dyslexia and Alzheimer's Disease because he often misspells and misreads words and forgets things. He may also have Narcissism, as he believes he is wiser than the others.
Disney Princesses and Mental Disorders
Eeyore is generally characterised as pessimistic, depressed, and anhedonic. Illustration by Ernest Howard Shepard from Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), by A. A. Milne.
Eeyore is thought to encompass that of depression. Maybe it's the color of his donkey's hair, which is grey. Maybe depression can be seen in Eeyore's constant losing of his tail as it is detachable.
If diagnosis is applied piecemeal, and the patient's total picture is not taken into consideration, four or five separate psychiatric diagnoses could be listed rather than a single "borderline personality disorder" diagnosis. This happens frequently.
ADHD estimates by sex, race, and ethnicity:1
Eeyore was killed (cannibalized) by Winnie the Pooh and friends in the horror film Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey because they were starving after Christopher Robin abandoned them for college, a traumatic event that turned the friends feral and hateful towards humans. The decision to eat Eeyore was a desperate act for survival, which then fueled their murderous rampage against humans, with Eeyore's tail even being used as a weapon later.
It's the kind of smile that says, “Maybe today will be okay after all.” Christopher Robin once told him, “You're never fully dressed without a smile,” and though Eeyore didn't quite understand why a smile mattered so much, he tried anyway. Not because he felt he had to… but because it made his friends happy.
His tail was not always fixed to him by a nail, although Disney has chosen this as part of his permanent image. When Eeyore lost his tail, Owl found it and used it as a bell-pull beside his door before Pooh found it for Eeyore. Christopher Robin then pinned it back on.
Understanding the Nature of PTSD And CPTSD Meltdowns
Picture yourself standing next to a loved one, when their facial expression suddenly tightens. You can hear their breathing get shallow, and it feels like they've been pulled away from their normal state and away from you, even though they're right there.
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD) quicken the pace of biological aging. Greater PTSD/AUD symptoms are linked to human cells aging at a faster pace than would be expected based on age alone. These results replicate findings from previous studies.
Trauma dumping occurs when an individual shares their traumatic experiences without the recipient's consent, often at inappropriate times or places. This act can place undue emotional pressure on someone who may not be prepared or able to process such intense information.