Q: What sort of mental problems would clones develop?
My character is a human clone in a future society on earth. [Clones live offworld.] Humans believe that clones are not human because they have no soul. Although they were cloned from human DNA they were not born of man and woman. Clones have the potential of gene mutation and therefore could be born monsters.
A:I think the best approach to take to this is to look at social psychology, which has studied discrimination and its effects. The X-Men movies have done a nice job of using these principles to differentiate between the ways the X-Men and the Brotherhood see regular humans — and why each side fights for the things it does.
I'm curious how your character ended up on earth if clones normally live offworld? If s/he's hiding that s/he's a clone, that would contribute differently to problems than being openly discriminated against might. I'll cover both possibilities.
When people are different from us, especially if we have a reason to dislike or hate them (one of the most common is competition for resources or jobs), we have a tendency to establish an outgroup bias. That is, we see everyone in the group as exactly the same -- inferior. We stereotype them as having certain negative characteristics. So your clones are less than human because they have no souls. Perhaps people also believe that makes them amoral, primitive, more dangerous, snobby, or whatever. (Fill in the adjectives with what you know about your society.) People then pre-judge every clone they meet, which leads to discrimination -- treating him or her as if s/he were (amoral, primitive, more dangerous, snobby, or whatever), which will in turn affect the clone's behavior.
Often the prejudiced people's behavior will cause a self-fulfilling prophecy, which means that the target of the hatred will start to act the way the discriminators expect them to act. (Think about how you'd feel if someone crossed the street every time you walked by just because you were different and they assume you're dangerous. You'd probably start feeling a little hostile! Or imagine how you'd feel if everyone looked down their nose at you. You might start to feel bad about yourself. Or...hostile...again...)
Since some clones have the potential to be monsters, it's likely that people would generalize this fear to all clones, leading to discrimination at best and genocide at worst.
So how would your protagonist react?
S/he would definitely struggle with more hassles than regular humans. That means that there would be more little stressors for her (you didn't say whether your character is male or female, so I'm going to pick a gender here for the sake of discussion) than for others. Each day she would deal with more mistreatment and abuse from other people, much of it so subtle she may wonder if she's just being paranoid. Assuming her body chemistry is similar to that of humans, all these little stressors would affect her body's immune system, making it work more poorly than it might otherwise. Over time, this could also degrade the functioning of brain chemicals like serotonin and norepinephrine, leading to anxiety and/or depression.
I think it would be hard not to have some depression, along with the cognitive (thinking) patterns common to depression -- hopelessness, all-or-nothing thinking, irritability, finding it hard to enjoy things. Other symptoms of depression include sleep disturbances and changes in appetite. (More on mood disorders/depression here: Overview and Explanations of DSM-IV Disorders for Writers Part 2: Mood Disorders ) People who are depressed may think things like, "What did I do to deserve this? I must be a bad person." Or, "It's not fair. I didn't choose to be a clone." Or "Just because I was born from a test tube doesn't make me less human." But those thoughts tend to make you spiral downward into hopelessness, frustration, anger, and helplessness.
People who are frustrated and angry in general tend to explode at things that shouldn't set them off; people who are depressed may cry or feel helpless in the face of relative minor problems. It's just one more thing on the way to the straw that broke the camel's back, as they say.
If she were hiding in human society, she'd be more likely to be anxious than depressed. She'd probably be jumpy, sure that someone was going to find out. She might also be frustrated, resentful, and even angry that humans can live without hiding who and what they really are. She might feel some guilt for hiding what she is or not speaking up when she hears people bash clones. Anxiety can lead to insomnia, jumpiness, feelings of dread, and fight-or-flight symptoms like sweaty palms, pounding heart, and feeling disconnected from surroundings. (More information on anxiety disorders: Overview and Explanations of DSM-IV Disorders for Writers Part 1: Anxiety Disorders.)
Your clones could also develop paranoia. The question would be -- where's the line between normal, healthy paranoia (if they're hated by society) and a true problem? In psychology, things become a problem when they're interfering with your life. So if the paranoia makes it difficult to work or live normally (and for a clone that would mean however the average clone lives), if it's getting the clone in trouble (he's starting fights, he's getting fired, he's landing himself in a prison colony, then it's above and beyond what's normal, and it could be clinical paranoia).
People who are clinically paranoid can either have paranoid delusions (completely unsupported beliefs that people are out to get them when they're not) or a paranoid personality (the person is paranoid about everything, all the time), or paranoia can be just a symptom of another diagnosis, like PTSD or anxiety.
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