Do you think Morty has Autism, ADHD, Bipolar, Depression, Anger Issues, or do you think Morty has something else and when Rick moved in and took Morty around in their adventures and makes him miss school most of the time, how do you think Morty's interactions with Rick affected his reasonings, thinking, and his mental health in general and how did it not only affect Morty but the whole entire Smith family as well including Jerry, Beth, and Summer?
"fuck you Narnia"
This has been my take for a while. After season 4 Morty is nothing like Morty from season 1. Completely polar opposites.
It has been our take.
Yet, in megaseeds episode- "... the truth is...you...you.. brrrp... as dumb as they come..."
are as dumb as they come
Clever girl!
Interesting take
Remember cookie magneto? Morty said that there is sugar in every living creature. It's true and not the kind of thing you hear from a "dumb" kid. Also, over time, he gets better at arguing, and he proved that a religion was wrong. These, to me, seem like he gets smarter.
I've had a theory for a while that rick is morty, time loop style, giving us the reason he doesn't like time travel, but it doesn't seem well supported by anything else
This was a common theory up until the showrunners/writers openly stated they hate time travel. And made fun of it for a whole episode.
Also kid Rick looks nothing like Morty.
Just because people think he’s dumb doesn’t mean he is
He doesn't.
He just misses out on a lot of school, has entirely different social encounters to any of his peers and has a really weird and unique family dynamic.
He only displayed symptoms here and there that could be correlated with anxiety disorder, ptsd and depression, which could be caused by his life, but the symptoms were episodic.
I don’t see autism spectrum, adhd, bipolarity or anything else.
Meanwhile every other characters displayed consistently one or multiple mental issue when they have one.
Rick is depressive, has substance abuse disorder and antisocial personality disorder. Beth has a dependent personality disorder. Jerry has a anxiety and depression. Summer has typical adolescent issues.
For every other chars, their mental issue is a great factor in their dynamics, how they interact with others or how they make the plot advance.
There is no such pattern in Rick throughout the episodes.
I would also say Beth has a narcissistic personality given that whole box of murder toys thing and seeing the ideal sexual partner as herself
she has some positive emotional aspects that rule it out though.. My therapist tells me narcissistic traits are common, many people have a couple or more, where as full blown narcissism is not so common. they're full on, they make Beth seem like a princess
The deer episode to me is the real decider for who she is to me. She’d rather cause any amount of damage than take a hit to her ego/pride, it’s respectable in a way.
I wouldn't call it full blown narcissism, but she absolutely has narcissistic tendencies
normal people can be like that too and not have the narcissism disorder, sure It's a big narcissistic trait, but it's not really a decider.
I wouldn’t say she is but I’d lose any argument defending that idea. She shares at minimum 50% of narcissistic traits. The problem is the fact that half of those can stem from her childhood trauma and sense of abandonment.
I'm not sure the murder toy things give me the impression of NPD. And having the ability to empathize with and love people disqualifies her. Maybe narcissistic traits tho
Conpletely agree, I mean, she is Rick's kid. If Morty has issues then Beth, at the same age, definitely had similar issues. They just manifested in different ways.
he’s also Jerry’s kid, dumb af
I wasn't talking about Morty. I was talking about Beth and her issues as a kid.
Rick says he has autism in so many words on the episode where they avoid the president while playing Minecraft.
"Is this game popular with autistic people?"
"Why would you say that?"
"Because I'm starting to love it!"
He also mentions how he doesn’t want to catch “neurotypical cooties” at one point as well.
And in the words of the president, "you pompous autistic cadaver"
I kinda see ADHD for Morty. It's not always super obvious for most people, plus ridiculous adventures are kind of the best environment for ADHD. We like to act in the moment, not super great long-term planners.
It's also heavily related to ASD, hence the catch-all term neurodivergent. The spectrum of symptoms that defines each have a lot of overlap, and they both seem to be related to the dopamine transport network; albeit in different ways. Many ADHD meds also benefit people with ASD.
And while there isn't good evidence on neurodivergence being genetic, it's not unlikely either. It's not uncommon to have multiple diagnoses in the same household. And at least anecdotally, neurodivergent people seem to be good at recognizing each other and grouping up. So Rick claiming to be autistic lends some credence to the idea that Morty may also be neurodivergent.
SO, if I thought the writers actually cared about any of that and had a plan there, it would add up for me.
But I think it's mostly a throwaway joke and nothing is canon until it airs. They could take it any direction they want. It's a comedy show with infinite suspension of disbelief. The homeland security bit could mean he fits the profile of a school shooter or it could mean he is unusually susceptible to Gazorpean mind control. So this is mostly just me geeking out about neuroscience, but yeah, ADHD would fit if they want it to.
I mean ADHD is more than just that, theres also sensory issues, missing social ques, stimming, bucket loads of other stuff aside from what Morty has shown in the show (and according to Rick Morty is autistic but seeing how luckluster the synptoms hes shown are the only way that/ADHD works is if hes really good at masking)
everything mentioned as an adhd symptom is an autism symptom though
yeah, that single ADHD symptom could work for autism, a single symptom isnt enough to diagnose (im sure plenty of neurotypical people work better in the moment and arent great long term planners)
sensory issues, missing social cues, and stimming are all autism symptoms though. not adhd symptoms
no people with ADHD have sensory issues aswell, and also missing social ques is an ADHD symptom but for different reasons than autism, and stimming is 100% an ADHD symptom, like did you even try to fact check before saying those werent symptoms?
nah rick is way more in line with NPD to a fucking T. possibly both? but NPD fits way more imo
Beth has BPD for sure, not NPD
He's actually perfectly ordinary in most ways, he's just a little on the dumb side, not a lot, but enough so that he knows it.
He's the most stable member of the family.
He does, hes stupid.
Morty could have borderline personality disorder. He's obviously not a well adjustment dude for his age.
Considering he's learned how to disarm drunkenly assembled neutrino bombs, I really don't think Morty is all that stupid. That was a quick and easy joke in earlier seasons, and his emotional intelligence has really taken off post season 4.
And honestly, he is surprisingly well-adjusted for a youth who has seen as much death and destruction as Morty has, not to mention the impossible existentialism he has experienced being a part of so many multiversal adventures. Burying your alternate self in your own backyard as you abandon your real family to an apocalyptic nightmare? Any average 14-year-old would have put one of Rick's guns in their mouth. Let's not even mention all of the emotional abuse he receives from Rick on a daily basis.
His resiliency is to be admired.
Mental disorder =/= stupid. Besides it's canon he has learning difficulties (Dan Harmon)
I agree. Please see picture 2 as to why I mentioned that.
Besides it's canon he has learning difficulties (Dan Harmon)
Source? Dan Harmon has learned that he is likely on the spectrum after doing research for one of the characters on Community, and that both Rick and Morty have been written to be the same way.
I don't know if I'd automatically consider ASD a learning disorder, but that may be a defensive attitude on my part.
Dan Harmon from an old AMA said that [Beth] seems relatively fine with [Rick's] influence on her learning-disabled son
Hmm. I wonder if he's changed his mind on the subject at all in the last 10 years, because the writing doesn't reflect Morty as being as dumb as he used to be.
Certainly not as dumb as Jerry... but that bar is loooooow.
Just an FYI, a learning disability does not indicate a lack of intelligence. When classifying a student as having a learning disability, what this means is that they have a disparity between one area of processing that is >1.5 standard deviations below their general intelligence, best represented in academic settings as an IQ score.
And if this was more common knowledge, I might have been properly diagnosed with one as a child instead of struggling against myself my entire life.
I'm sorry you went through that :(
You deserved much better!
Everyone does. I just hope to do better for my daughter so that she can succeed in whatever she wishes to do with all the support she needs.
Maybe high functioning autistic? Though Morty actually seems pretty emotionally aware of others feelings.
Autistic people can have high emotional intelligence. I'm autistic and people have told me I'm more empathetic than almost anyone else they know.
Counterpoint: the morty waves still seem to neutralize Rick’s genius brainwaves. At the very least they haven’t said they don’t work anymore.
Late seasons Morty definitely seems intelligent from his adventures but as far as I know this is still canon. Maybe it’s some kind of base intelligence that doesn’t get affected by knowledge.
It’d be a fun reveal if our Morty becoming smarter actually did mess with his brain hiding Rick. Like it hasn’t been working for a while and Rick’s secretly been taking Morty on adventures just because he wants to.
Counterpoint: the morty waves still seem to neutralize Rick’s genius brainwaves.
Because Rick has ALWAYS been a reliable narrator, so we know for certain his explanation is entirely truthful and not just a cheap shot at Morty's expense.
That’s fair, but I don’t think it changes much. Rick would still be hiding that he’s keeping Morty around because he wants him there. Plus all other Ricks have a Morty that they’re not supposed to care about so there probably is some real reason for that.
If Rick was lying about the Morty waves coming from Morty’s stupidity, that could be another cool reveal. Investigating the real reason Morty’s brain waves hide Rick’s could be interesting.
Investigating the real reason Morty’s brain waves hide Rick’s could be interesting.
I agree. But with Evil Morty's storyline being all but closed, I doubt we'll ever revisit it.
I think this could help the next part of evil Morty’s story. As a Morty he would care if his brain waves were distinct enough to be findable. If none of the Rick brains he scanned knew why, he would want to investigate so he could stay hidden.
It stands to reason that this would be the case. If Morty's cancel out Rick's, it would mean their amplitude and frequency would have to be the perfect inverse and just as detectable.
Yeah, Morty waves could be something else like static, which would be hilarious, but if we’re trusting Rick’s explanation this sounds like how they’ll find evil Morty again.
Disability doesn't mean stupid. It means they cant do certain skills. You are maybe projecting into disabled.
He’s down with the Rickness.
A wah ah ah ah ah
He’s the mortyist Morty
In one episode I think it kinda looked like he had dyslexia or something in that matter
Episode one when he’s imagining fondling Jessica’s boobs. All the math and writing on the board starts to fly around and merge into a complete mess.
It’s easy to forget that Morty has to be hundreds of years old mentally at this point. The amount of resets he has used is getting up there.
Specially after playing Roy. Lived like 80 years there.
he lived 5 billion lifetimes simultaneously in the Die Hard episode
And tons of resetting back as a 14 year old chronologically while retaining the same mind
I don't think he has a learning disorder, he just doesn't learn well in a school setting. Lots of kids that are highly intelligent get labeled as having learning disorders because sitting at a desk memorizing boring facts and taking tests every day isn't the best method of learning. Some kids need to be actively involved while learning, and I think Morty is one of those kids. Like someone else mentioned, he can disarm neutrino bombs. You don't learn that in school.
This, theres been studies showing that boys in general don't really mesh with the way schools and education are layed out. They're much better when they can be hands on and have proper outlets for their energy. I can see Morty excelling in things like shop or automotive because he does similar things with Rick all the time. Hell most of Ricks tech/gadgets is just stuff he cobbled together out of things in the garage.
I know personally that from the age of 11 forward all I could think about was either having sex with the teacher or one of the girls in my class. I couldn't learn shit in that enviornment.
this is why I do an alternate school on a computer but it's still super boring and I haven't learned a single thing
Rick in the heist episode : „He‚s a getaway driver with Aspergers and my butthole is a demolitions expert“
Fr tho, i think he mainly has trouble learning, in the first episode before daydreaming about jessica he is on the same level math as the rest of the class and he‘s fine driving a car for example? Maybe he just doesn‘t do school well and missing it so often isn‘t helping.
He has Schizophrenia and all the adventures are his psychotic episodes
Like a comical Jacob’s Ladder
Plot twist: Rick doesn’t actually exist. It’s Mortys all the way down.
Rick exists but he's just a regular old alcoholic grandpa
“It was all just a dream”
Complex PTSD, dude definitely has an ACE score of 10
This. My dude is profoundly traumatized.
Aspergers
Edit: Sorry we're not saying that word anymore.. It's all just autism spectrum now.. and Hans Aspergers was probably a nazi
lol you got downvoteed the people who prolly don't wanna "accept" it but Morty I'm pretty sure has a learning disabiliy "You're the learning disabled kid we do photo ops with" and I think Rick/someone in the family I think Jerry in the pilot has said it before. But Asperger's makes sense after all his grandpa is autistic or on the spectrum
He's canonically autistic, same as Rick. Though as an autistic person, I would like to point out that the term "Asperger's" is not used anymore, and is a literal Nazi term.
It's the surname of Hans Asperger, he wasn't actually a member of the Nazi party himself, but his research into childhood psychopathy was of interest to the Nazi party as it essentially gave them a label they could slap on any misfits who didn't tow the party line. Hence why his research received funding from the German government throughout the 30s and 40s. The concept of Autism has been around since 1911 so, it wasn't particularly 'new' it was just that Hans Asperger was the first researcher to get it accepted as a formal diagnosis (adopted by the Nazis into their psychiatric schedule).
His research was largely abandoned post war, until it gets picked up again by Simon Baron Cohen in the 1980s and in the 1990s it becomes a formal diagnosis for adults.
It's weird how the scientific community just glosses over the history like that. From a certain perspective, the diagnosis of autism spectrum is used for much the same purpose as it was originally conceived. To identify autism in children and segregate them from their peers.
Rick is, but when was it said Morty was?
Jerry said he had a disability, but Jerry is stupid. Morty has shown social intelligence, emotional maturity (at times, he is still young) and the ability to learn like he did with disarming bombs as well as many other complicated things he’s learnt how to do, some without the help of Rick.
Yeah Rick says Morty has asperger's in one episode (an outdated term by now, but it does confirm that Morty is autistic)
I don’t think that line was supposed to be taken seriously. He was fucking with the guy
Even so Idk I would believe that he is as an autistic person
That’s fair, it’s definitely plausible I just don’t personally see it. I could see him as a low support needs autistic person, but I tend to think of him as neurotypical a bit more, maybe ADHD too since he has a terrible attention span
Yeah I could see that
None of those qualities mean that a person is neurotypical. Society is very ill-informed on what autism actually is. It's a non-linear spectrum, and two autistic people can have a lot of differences as well as similarities.
Regardless, being competent in the fields I mentioned point more towards being neurotypical than neurodivergent, you’d have to agree to that . And I don’t think your supposed evidence, is evidence.
High functioning Autism is a thing. Are you also implying autistic people can’t learn complex things?
No. I’m saying that objectively those things (social and emotional intelligence) are more likely to be seen in a neurotypical person. If you disagree you’re just being purposefully dense.
And I quote: “Rick is, but when was it said Morty was?
Jerry said he had a disability, but Jerry is stupid. Morty has shown social intelligence, emotional maturity (at times, he is still young) and the ability to learn like he did with disarming bombs as well as many other complicated things he’s learnt how to do, some without the help of Rick.”
“and the ability to learn like he did with disarming bombs as well as many other complicated things.”
This is what I’m talking about. Also, chill.
Doesn’t matter. Just poor wording. My main point is that Morty has social and emotional intelligence, and I don’t think one (very clearly a joke) line about him having asperger’s is evidence. And as a result, I think Morty is probably neurotypical. Or maybe some form of autism but not very “severe”, not sure what the correct terminology is when it comes to where someone is on the spectrum.
thanks I forget this, the change is still very fresh for me. sure makes it hard when my own therapist still uses the term "Aspy"
I would correct them on that
Rick, Beth and Morty all have autism
Beth has the horse / anatomy autism
Rick has the science / invention autism
Morty has the creative autism, which is why he has good ideas but doesn't know how to make them happen (Place saving video games thing)
Autism is genetic and is passed down
School isn't a place for smart people and having Rick as a mentor is doing Morty more good then a generalized education ever could
When Morty reaches maturity it will be clear what kind of autism he has
Rick discouraging Morty from writing is a hint that Morty doesn't have a science based autism like Rick or Beth
Morty has the creative but bad at math autism like me
He isn't like Rick, he won't be doing great science one day, but he will be an artist, a musician or a writer
Something creative that will end up disappointing Rick but fulfilling Morty
Their creator Dan Harmon has the writer autism and I don't think I'm the only one projecting themselves onto Morty in this way
Yeah Morty’s hopeless at math but holy shit can that kid write a story:
”My name is Mike Johnson. That's good coffee. Better get that door.“
”Iiiiiiii, hello. I want your cookies. I'm hungry, I want your cookies.”
”Scorpions, scorpions. There's scorpions outside. Get inside.”
”What do they want from us?”
”They want food.”
”Me too.”
He’s actually pretty socially savvy at times, can be mature (like when he was doing a bunch of missions for rick on his own), and can actually learn fairly quickly like with the neutrino bombs.
If he DID have a disability, then maybe it’s a learning one, but other information seems to conflict with that.
I think nothing really challenged him until Rick and OG Rick specifically was both more nurturing and infuriating than other Ricks that treat Morties as both useless and unvaluable. If you treat your Morty as worthless and replaceable, he is, and the Citadel's proclivity to force uniqueness into something mundane means every Rick and every Morty becomes cookie cutter. OG Rick gave OG Morty confidence and something to rail against.
There might even be something genetically consistent across all Morties to be some particular way, but I think Rick is right when he tells Jerry in S07E02 that mental potential is less about genetics and more about fortitude and confidence, which Jerry has never had. We see OG Morty acquiring both over the seasons and becoming less "ahem...Morty"
I think your confused about dimensions. C137 is our Rick but doesn’t have a Morty. Our Morty is prime but Rick abandoned him. So they both stick together for some reason
Your "um...akshually" has been addressed
Dyscalculia.
Given how his math class seems to be special education or massively remedial.
Morty is smart and he's capable he just has a neurological impairment for math. He can do math but it's orders of magnitude more difficult like swimming in a suit of metal armor.
The PTSD, depression, and anxiety are the results of Rick's adventures and his parents early issues.
The taking a test and having to have homeland security line was hilarious. I liked the new season a lot.
the last screenshot sends me so bad every time i watch that episode lmfaooo. not homeland fucking security.
Well considering the detoxifier made him into little American psycho, a rich unfeeling stock broker capitalizing on his lack of morals, I don't think he is that stupid.
They also talk about how Rick's breed Morty's for forgiveness and God knows what else. So in my opinion, Morty unlocked is actually quite capable, it is the childhood programming that ricks have cultivated that holds him back.
Isn't that what the central finite curve is? The realities where Rick is a God? Or the closest thing to it, and everyone serves his means. Morty is the biggest victim within. Ricks are always telling c137 Rick to get his Morty in line, but the c137 Rick actually cares about his family. He isn't as into the whole god complex that the other ricks ascribe to. So you have instances of Morty breaking the mold and becoming "the one true Morty."
In my opinion Morty's perceived lack of intelligence is a result of social constraints artificially created by Rick's, in order to have a disposable assistant that makes them feel even more empowered than they already are. The entire central finite curve is exactly that, and everyone except Rick is a victim, with Morty ranking highest in victim-hood.
rick said he had Aspergers in the heist episode , and in another episode he says "do autistic people like this game" morty says why ,and rick replies "because I'm starting to love it" which might imply they both have some sort of really mild disorder
He's got the Dumb-Horny-Teenager disease. It'll go away sometime in his 30's if he's lucky.
I feel like a lot of people in these comments are confusing mental disorders and being stupid.
I saw a post on reddit that made a pretty solid case that Morty survived fetal alcohol syndrome.
Which the show makes a few hints at Beth's drinking, plus she is Rick's daughter...
I thought they just meant dyslexia or something. He’s not stupid but I can totally believe that he’d struggle to learn in a classroom environment. He never seems to know what the answer is in math class but he can drive a spaceship at least partially using instruments so maybe he just learns better in the field.
Why dyslexia? When in the show did he struggle reading something?
There’s dyslexia for numbers too
That‘s not dyslexia. You‘re thinking of Dyscalculia, its a difficulty understanding calculations and similarities between mathematical equations.
Ok… then that’s what I meant.
Yes.
Knowing Beth, fetal alcohol syndrome. He's a slow learner, has speech issues, is constantly anxious and nervous (though let's be real, wouldn't you be in his situation in season 1?), small for his age. He's poorly socialized on top of that. Obviously any physical features are not discernable because it's a cartoon
What’s the last image from?
Doesn't Rick regularly erase their memories? Morty might be resilient, but he also might not remember everything.
It’s likely just a case of nihilism and existentialism. Nothing matters because everything is infinite.
No need to be sad if a classmate dies because they still exist somewhere else.
I think there's a great deal of confusion between mental illness and having a learning disability.
Mental illnesses (like depression, bipolar, ptsd, addictions, generalized anxiety, schizophrenia, etc) are things that are developed through life events and affect our brain in our thoughts, emotions and behaviour. This does not affect intellect. Some people have genetic predispositions to certain mental illnesses, but that does not mean that they necessarily develop it in their life time. All mental illnesses are treatable and some are even curable!
Learning disabilities on the other hand are something we are born with and it will stay with us for our entire life. There are multiple learning disabilities and various degrees, but in general will affect how one processes information. This has no effect on mental health, since a person with a learning disability can have a very good mental health.
In the show, i think what is implied for morty is a learning disability, although its unclear what it would be. He's rather impulsive, but thats normal since he doesnt have his prefrontal cortex fully developed (the part of the brain that says "hey, maybe don't put your sausage in the horsejerk5000™")
Morty is just like anyone else bumbling through adolescence under particularly bizarre circumstance. I don’t think he has any disorder.
Co-dependent and PTSD
im of the opinion that he doesn't have a disorder. why would you trust the opinion of jerry? Or that jackass superhero guy? Those characters are both complete idiots that have never made a correct observation in the entire series.
In fact, that's the point of jerry. He's always incorrect.
So, based on that, we know that Morty, in fact, DOES NOT have a mental condition.
Rick for sure gave him PTSD and depression. As an autistic person myself I'd also put money on it that Because Rick is autistic, Morty probably is too.
He doesn't. He's never gotten a chance to really socialize with other kids after Rick showed up and started abusing him. His family dynamic is super toxic mainly because of Rick also. His life is almost always in danger also. The few scenes of him without Rick, he seems more like a normal, I don't even remember how old he is, like 13. So a normal horny teenager. With limited social interactions to go off of.
Morty is just desensitized to all the programming and he’s experienced things that are LITERALLY out of this world so trying to communicate with normal people his age has to be near impossible. Very relatable.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he was in the autism spectrum, I mean Rick has it and it is gentical
I don't think Morty has any mental disorders except perhaps anxiety.
Although one would be right to question his mental health given what he's been through, mindblowers or not.
Depression anxiety dread. I don't know the diagnosis I am not a psychiatrist.
A bunch of nerds attempting to add life to their personal problems. He's a boy with a little anxiety and average intelligence for a teenager, let him be and don't corrupt him with your mental issue seeking ways lmao
Mortys are tools of Ricks. They hide their brainwaves from the government.
Morty doesn't learn from books or instructions he learns from hands on interactions. That's why he is able to use Rick's tech because it's hands on. The cemetery episode where he and Rick were doing science to figure out how the resurrections work show he's not stupid. Morty has his strength in practical knowledge and actually doing things. He probably does horrible on homework and testing because it's so insanely boring to him. Who wants to do a High School Science test when you know how to disassemble a neutron bomb?
Both the episodes involving planetina and the one where they remove there toxins Morty shows incredible people skills being a huge broker and also getting a superhero to date him not to mention the girl from "The Prestige" segment of the save state episode.
I'm still holding onto the idea that Rick and Morty are the same person. Evil Morty is proof he's smart and Prime Morty has shown he's willing to be smart, just lacks confidence in himself. My guess is that the other Ricks use implants/parasites to keep his brain from functioning at optimal levels when a Rick is around; like the locator beacon only works when they're in close proximity because whatever the MacGuffin is, it probably is only good for a certain amout of time before Morty's body rejects/tolerates whatever is in his system.
The funny thing is Morty is legitimately a smart kid in his own way. When the house was overrun by alien parasites in Total Rickall, Morty was the only one to figure out that the aliens could only fabricate good memories when even Rick was still questioning who was real.
I don't think Morty has a mental disorder. He's just really dumb because half his genes come from Jerry, and Rick's adventures causes him to miss a ton of school.
He could be borderline, with how he misses Rick when he’s gone but hates him when he’s around. He’s also highly emotion-driven and makes impulsive choices without thinking of the broader consequences of his actions.
Probably mostly a variety of accumulated trauma. It doesn't look like he has PTSD so far though. Probably mostly how he has coped with the consequences of everything he has done, including not caring about human life due to it repeating infinitely across the multiverse.
same thing as that kid Sketch who is internet famous
I mean. At the very least, he has a speech impediment, that being a pronounced stutter.
Stuttering is also commonly tied to emotional trauma, and Morty’s stuttering happens far more when he feels like he’s not in control.
There’s generalized anxiety and an unhealthy relationship with an abusive father figure, not to mention constant PTSD from living with the somewhat neglectful stand-ins for the family he abandoned to their deaths.
Almost everything that he shows as being ND has far, far more probable causes of stemming from trauma, and likely aren’t genetic. Morty takes after his father, after all.
If he hadn’t been born to this family, he’d be painfully normal. And probably relatively OK in school.
Maybe like Evil Morty, by going on adventures with Rick wherein he learns from him, he's badically walking up the steps to becoming a "God"
there are a lot of instances in the show where morty proves that he isn’t ACTUALLY stupid, he’s just a lil dumb at times. and we’re not seeing him with a normal education either, he stopped going to school in like 8th grade. if i had to guess i would probably say adhd
I think in a commentary or something Harmon mentioned that first scene with Morty in math class, where he's looking at the test and all the letters go wonky and he starts dreaming of Jessica, was hinting at dyslexia or ADHD or something, but he himself admits they never meaningfully followed up on it.
I hate it when the counselor has to homeland security
Morty was asked did he have autism he replied probably me and my dad but he prob also has PTSD he did also caused a massacre so That's Crashout energy right there so prob more
None, but he seems a little depressed because his mother married a man she can stand and his father, at that point in the show, competed with his children for her maternal care: he's deeply insecure so Morty needs to put himself in crappy situations to defuse his father's tantrums ( the Pluto episode), he can't hold a job and asks his kids for money, he doesn't actually do anything around the house, he's completely unreliable and wants all of Beth's attention.
Don't think for a second that having a father how gets triggered by mondane events because his entire personality is a ball of insecurities and nothing else, isn't really damaging for a child.
So yeah, Morty, at that point in the show, had really low self esteem and spent most of his time daydreaming away from his crappy family. That's in the very beginning. Things change for all of them.
He’s just a little dim.
I think the point isn’t that he may or may not in face have a mental disorder, I think it’s that he is perceived to be dumb. Even the “Morty waves” that counterbalance the “Rick waves” doesn’t necessarily imply Morty is the dumbest in the universe (in contrast to Rick being the smartest in the universe). It suggests Morty is somehow perfectly complimentary to Rick’s intelligence.
Morty isn’t brilliant, but he isn’t disabled or dumb. He is essentially perfectly complimentary to Rick; where a Rick falls short, Morty steps up—and vice versa.
Morty isn't dumb. He was never very bright but he doesn't have a learning disability. His knowledge and maturity has grown a lot since the series has gone on. Morty now would absolutely outsmart and outclass Morty from season 1.
I don’t think he is, he’s just been let down by both his parents and his school, who don’t know how to teach him.
The episode where their toxic sides get removed by the detoxification machine literally dissect their personalities. Morty is a genius but insecure and codependent. He needs to feel needed by someone with dependency issues, which means an alcoholic or a drug addict or some sort of addiction. Codependents are the people who forgive alcoholics over and over and over. He was literally bred for forgiveness. The one thing I codependent cannot forgive is being abandoned. Note how Morty can tolerate all kinds of abuse but is shattered when Rick ditches him for two crows.
Back to the toxin episode, once his codependency was removed he became highly successful stockbroker and lady killer. He knew how to help everyone around him with all of their problems but did not feel obligated to do so. Meanwhile toxic Morty was insecure self-deprecating and desperate to sacrifice himself for Rick.
Rick's personality is even more complex but I won't get into all that. Suffice to say it's in the neighborhood of depressed autistic alcoholic. Keep in mind it's not narcissistic to consider yourself a god like genius when you are the smartest entity in the universe. One aspect of autism is struggling with empathy.
Dum dum brain
My headcannon is that he’s just neurodivergent like myself. He isn’t mentally fucked up, he’s just autistic. Which is ok
Rick said Morty has Asperger's
It's Canon that he's autistic bc its genetic. And both of his parents are canonically autistic. I'd also go ahead and throw in adhd and ptsd simply bc duh.
Beth drank while pregnant with him. He has FAS which is a lot like autism
I think he definitely has a social and learning disorder, no matter the adventures or not although these adventures aren’t exactly helping it. Possibly autism but I’m not quite sure what all the symptoms are, but because if Rick started to “reappear” for the first time when Morty was a freshman in high school but Morty didn’t already prior have friends, or as Jerry said that he already doesn’t do well in school I think if Rick were there or not Morty would still be where he’s at now, no friends, bullied, poor grades and no Jessica
Idk it seems like the pilot episode isn’t really cannon.
I like how everyone here is a diagnostician. Just slinging anxiety and ADHD like they're so common.
I think the whole thing with the seeds giving Morty temporary super intelligence, making his parents think Rick’s adventures are making him smarter, is a perfect analogy for how the adventures are really affecting him. He may now know niche information that helped him in adventures but ultimately, constantly being out of school is having serious negative consequences on his developing mind.
And his parents may think that Rick is actually helping him cognitively, a line of thought they’re vulnerable to because they’re worried about his struggles in school, but like the seeds, that’s only how it appears.
That’s one of the tragic things about this show to me. Rick is taking an autistic kid who struggles in school and completely cutting him off from the opportunity to find resources to succeed. He’s setting Morty up for failure and creating so many further negative impacts on his developing mind, one that could use as much cognitive and social support as possible that participating in school could provide to him, just because Rick 1. needs Morty’s brainwaves to “cancel out” his own and 2. personally doesn’t agree with school.
I don’t know why so many comments are saying he doesn’t have one. Jerry reveals in the pilot that he does. He can have a learning disability and also be smart. My guess is autism or fetal alcohol syndrome.
With me being similar to how both Rick and Morty think and handle situations, Morty might have mild functioning autism, (I am not making this final since I'm not a doctor) it probably shows and runs in the family because Rick said something about autistic people liking Minecraft and saying that he likes it (or that could just be because he understands why autistic people like Minecraft) again, don't crucify me and burn the cross since I'm not a doctor, but I do have a similar mindset of both Morty and Rick when it comes to certain situations.
With me being similar to how both Rick and Morty think and handle situations, Morty might have mild functioning autism, (I am not making this final since I'm not a doctor) it probably shows and runs in the family because Rick said something about autistic people liking Minecraft and saying that he likes it (or that could just be because he understands why autistic people like Minecraft) again, don't crucify me and burn the cross since I'm not a doctor, but I do have a similar mindset of both Morty and Rick when it comes to certain situations.
Why does everyone now adays want a disorder?
Rick confirmed that Morty was autistic but tbh he shows little to no symptoms, to the point where he'd have to be insane at masking for it to work
Morty is 75% spectrum autistic with a hint of down
A bit off topic but I have a theory that Rick is training him to be some kind of genius... I think the mega seeds had a long term effect on his mental health and capabilities so even if he started out a little dumb he will probably end up a genius.
... he's obviously becoming an expert at diffusing bombs and portal travel....
I don't know enough about mental disabilities to diagnose him or speculate on his mental abilities.
I think hanging out with Rick has made him God adjacent. He can do and has done what other people can't even dream of.
What other people think of him or his abilities is basically irrelevant... with access to Rick's garage he could basically destroy a planet any time he wants.