Teddy Daniel Suicide

Teddy Daniels is from the movie “Shutter Island” and is portrayed by actor Leonardo Dicaprio. Teddy is a U.S Marshal, who was left heartbroken when his wife Dolores was killed by Andrew Laeddis in what was suspected as an arsonist attack. Teddy is crippled both by the memories of his now deceased wife as well as horrific flashbacks of World War II visions that haunt his nightmares on a regular basis. We are very restricted as to what we know from Teddy’s life prior to his wife’s death. The one big thing that we do know however, is that he was a recovering alcoholic who refuses to let his past devils get a hold of him in the present day. Therefore, he avoids drinking as much as possible, no matter how much it kills him.
When we first meet up

This shows how Teddy creates his own alternate reality to protect himself against his pain and guilt. All of Teddy’s memories of what truly had happened to his wife and his children are all repressed and then replaced with fake misconceptions that his wife was wrongfully murdered by Andrew Laeddis so then he re-created himself as a hero in order to cope. Comorbid with this defense mechanism he also suffers greatly from PTSD with which vivid and grotesque memories ultimately begin in his dreams. His doctor, (who Teddy thought was his partner) tells Teddy that the hospital had decided to try to play out an intensely elaborate role-playing experiment. In this experiment they try to go along with every single one of Teddy’s delusions as an attempt to bring his mind back into the real world and subsequently save Teddy from a lobotomy which would ultimately become the hospital’s last

Because of this, he becomes keyed on the idea that they have been providing him with drugs to brainwash him, thus keeping Teddy from actually discovering the ugly truth. Teddy uses another defense mechanism in projection he accuses the doctors of constructing this “made-up story” about what had happened to him in order to protect themselves. These show Teddy’s attempts to purge his mind of all of the anxiety that he cannot accept has any association with what happened in his life. We can tell that Teddy has always had some bit of anxiety, but it becomes full blown once the truth is revealed. However, this may relate to Teddy’s implicit memory because upon arrival Teddy has very little, if not any suspicions about the realism of his own identity and he seems to think that everyone is just out there to get him. This serves as Teddy’s unconscious memories manipulating conscious behavior therefore, causing Teddy to almost always being defensive about the ill will of the people around