Tatum Zabat, Paranoid Personality Disorder

Name: Tatum Zabat

Age: 21

Disorder: Paranoid Personality Disorder

Description of disorder: A paranoid personality disorder is a mental disorder characterized by paranoia and a pervasive, long-standing suscpiciousness and generalized mistrust of others. Individuals with a paranoid personality disorder may be hypersensitive, easily feel slighted, and habitually relate to the world by vigilant scanning of the enviornment for clues or suggestions that may validate their fears. Paranoid personality disorder sufferers tend to be guarded and suspicious and have constricted personal, emotional lives. An exact cause of why someone would develop a paranoid personality disorder isn't clear, but a link between this personality disorder and schizophrenia does exist. Parent modeling and negative internal feelings are also theories. Some signs of someone who suffers from a paranoid personality disorder are that they're very sensitive to setbacks, they have a tendancy to hold grudges over even minor things, they feel friendly actions from other people are something to be cautious and suspicious over, and they're preoccupied by "conspiratorial" explanations of events both immediate to the patient and to the world in general.

Has been at LPH for: Newly arriving

Medicine: Pimozide (antipsychotic), Oxazepam (for anxiety), psychotherpy sessions

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Background: Tatum's story is very similar to that of another LPH patient, namely Mia Garret. After all, the two did both grow up in Alder's Parish, prone to the lies and destructive teachings of their elders and their false prophet. Although, while Mia was struggling to find a home that would accept and embrace her and her trauma, Tatum found a stable one the second she was adopted, at the age of seven. Born Roseanne Ezekiel, her new parents, Jessica and Andrew Zabat, decided to give their daughter a new start, with a new name: Tatum Rose Zabat. Foolishly for them, they assumed this would be all their new child needed to forget all about her troubled past, but it was far from the truth. Because she was so young, Mr. and Mrs. Zabat figured Tatum didn't remember much of her time spent at Adler's Parish, but Tatum remembered very much. Even though she kept them bottled inside, Tatum had felt increasingly paranoid to those around her, bits and pieces of what her false prophet had taught her creeping back into her mind. Alder had said that people would pretend to accept her in the outside world, only to have ulterior, negative motives. Those of Alder's Parish were the only true, kind folk left in the world, and the town had actually come to believe it. Including Tatum, regardless of how much she tried to accept others, she just couldn't bring herself to trust anyone and always thought they were conspiring something against her, so she kept everyone at an arm's length. Her parents had thought that maybe she just needed some more time to adjust, although she'd been with them almost nine years already, but they didn't want to believe what they knew was the truth. That the daughter they had raised from a young age felt they were going to one day harm her. The Zabat's had hoped Tatum would grow out of her suspiciousness, but when the girl had moved into her own apartment at the age of twenty, things just got worse. She'd call her mother every day, coming up with a new, elaborate scheme the world had against her. And Tatum honestly believed them. On Tatum's 21st birthday, her parents had gone to her apartment to celebrate, and her mother expressed her concerns. Tatum, knowing something was wrong with her, agreed to get help. The next day, Mr. and Mrs. Zabat drove their daughter to LPH, in hopes she would soon be cured.

What you get to decide: Tatum's overall personality (keep her background in mind), odds and ends about her childhood/growing up, how the medicine and therapy sessions are working for her, how she now feels about her parents/Alder's Parish

Played by: Jennifer Lawrence