Tony Stark, an American billionaire playboy, industrialist, and ingenious engineer was born in Long Island. At 7 years old, Tony Stark attended boarding school, finding it hard to understand and relate to others. In his period of separation from his family, he built machines as a method of escaping reality, creating his own world. At 15, he enrolled in MIT College, at age 19, he was able to graduate with double masters in physics and engineering. When he hit 21 years old, his parents unfortunately died in a car accident, allowing him to inherit Stark Industries. However, due to his nonchalant playboy lifestyle and lack of interest in the company, he placed most of his work on his secretary. Being born into an ideal life, he was granted with everything desired, but constantly felt adrift. Since he was always isolated, he didn't understand how to behave or talk in certain situations. Due to his fame and attention, people would naturally attempt to use him. Instead of affecting him negatively, the mindfulness made him overly confident of his knowledge and wealth. He encompassed the motivation to constantly improve his knowledge and understanding, while trying overdo his competitors and himself. While setting goals and yearning to meet them, he would make mistakes while exceed his own intentions. Due to his severe chest injury from being held captive, he created a powered armor to save his life and escape. Following that, he strengthens his suit with technological devices and weapons with the help of his company, Stark Industries. He becomes known as Iron Man through the utilization of his suit and successive versions while protecting the world. Iron Man displays his handicap by earlier developmental experiences such as his lack of unconditional warmth and validation from his father. He agonized through a faulty attachment that created two flawed personality traits. One, feebleness and a sense of revulsion towards himself. Two, despondency and mistrust with others. He experienced emotional deprivation and rejection as a child, forming profound distressing wounds, eventually establishing his defense form of narcissism. In return, it created a impediment between his emotions, himself, and those around. The series of unfortunate events leads to his Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as depicted over the course of four films. This is also shown through the numerous panic attacks he experiences in Iron Man 3 including hyperventilation, heart palpitations, and derealization which is the feeling of being outside of your body or that your surroundings are unreal.
"A person with PTSD shows symptoms that fall in the following 3 categories: recollections (such as nightmares, flashbacks, and intrusive thoughts), avoidance (making efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma), and hyper-arousal(difficulty sleeping or being agitated). In the beginning of the film, Tony mentions that he has been awake for 72 hours while working on his Iron Man suits (hyper-arousal). As previously described, he escapes situations where he might be reminded of the trauma (avoidance). Undoubtedly, Tony is haunted in his dreams (recollection), which could arguably be one of the reasons he stays awake for days at a time (more avoidance)."
With his overwhelming amount of partying and constant drinking, came the plummet of his self-esteem. Eventually, he was viewed as a volatile individual, creating conflict with his alliances. With this, he begins to conceal his knowledge through partying as a avoidance technique. In comic books, Tony’s alcohol dependence, nearly kills him and in movies, Tony engages in alcohol abuse.
We create our own demons