News Movie: Split

[Poofycat]

This movie makes me livid. Here's what I posted about on facebook a couple weeks ago.

My SO is probably tired of hearing me bitch about the movie Split, so now it's your turn. I suggest that you not only don't watch it, but donate the money you would have spent on a movie ticket to NAMI or another organization that raises awareness about mental health.

I'm aware that this movie isn't a documentary and its sole purpose is to entertain. The problem with this movie is that it not only provides wildly inaccurate information about DID, an already misunderstood disorder, but presents the person with DID as a completely out of control person whose violent tendencies can be traced directly back to a number of his alters.

Did you know that the main cause of DID is believed to be severe and prolonged trauma experienced during childhood, including emotional, physical or sexual abuse? It's one thing (although extremely distasteful and possibly damaging to a larger population of people) to make a movie where someone with schizophrenia or or depression is the villain simply because they suffer from those disorders. It's another to make the villain someone who has suffered such horrendous trauma and abuse that they developed DID, then say the DID is the cause of the violence they are perpetuating on others.

This is disgusting and irresponsible behavior for someone with a large audience. Especially in an time where The United States of Tara and Silver Linings Playbook are normalizing mental health issues and showing that people who suffer from mental health disorders not generally understood by the mainstream population are just regular people. To perpetuate the stigma against an already traumatized population of people is... I don't even have words.

 

[Ladyghosthunter]

I've met a woman with split personalities. One of the personalities made her burn herself. I asked her if I were talking to "Tricia" and she said no. I was talking to Margaret-one of her personalities. It was unusual (the girl's name was Tricia). We became friends even after the hospital stay. She said she was going to a facility where they would be able to help her more and give her private care. To this day it baffles me.
Oh I forgot. I won't watch the movie. Just won't.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I asked her if I were talking to "Tricia" and she said no. I was talking to Margaret-one of her personalities. It was unusual (the girl's name was Tricia). We became friends even after the hospital stay. She said she was going to a facility where they would be able to help her more and give her private care. To this day it baffles me.

That is what makes DID, DID. That is why I am not diagnosed with DID. Though I had named alters in my trauma, I dropped them after I left and they never fully split into alters.

I have what I would call alters in me, though. I am starting to understand that what I call my "inner child" changes ages because "she" are several. And I hear my own thoughts in a voice that isn't mine (and is in a very sinister demon-like voice which is very freaky) many times. But what makes DID, DID, is the alter taking over control of the "host" or body. They are actually switching personalities so she wasn't Tricia anymore.. The one "behind the wheel" or in control of her mind was an alter.

I find it all VERY intresting. I can relate to it all except for the alter taking the driver's seat in my head. All are the same but that. So it isn't DID. Though I do think it is a very high level of disocissation. Not the highest as that is DID but close to that end of the spectrum.

 

[Symphony]

Movie Pilot stands up for mental illnesses:

Link Removed

 

[pixel]

Found this comprehensive article:
Mental illness and violent behavior: the role of dissociation

First it looks at all the scientific info we have available linking dissociative disorders and violent behaviour, then it provides the data from its own study.

I will quote the studies' conclusion:

In summary, recent criminal justice involvement among our DD clinical sample is low, according to patient self-reports and is not predicted by dissociative, PTSD or emotion dysregulation symptoms, nor by clinician reported substance abuse disorders or mood disorders. This provides compelling evidence contradicting public and media misconceptions and stereotypes of those with DDs as highly prone to criminality and violence. Public awareness about DDs needs to improve through thoughtful and accurate portrayals of DD, as well as all mental illnesses, in media and literature so that stereotypes and stigma are replaced with understanding and scientifically based knowledge. Enduring stigmas portraying those with mental illness as violent may have considerable negative impacts on their treatment engagement, ability to seek out social support, and overall quality of life [2, 3]. Reductions in stereotypes and stigma will allow those with mental illness to live more comfortably and safely and allow the general public to also be less fearful and more compassionate towards those with DDs and all forms of mental illness.

Oh, and it mentions how unhelpful movies like Split are by enhancing stereotypes.

 

[joeylittle]

Have to say, now that I know the 'surprise' ending of the film, I don't know that it's as potentially offensive. I'm not trying to tell anyone else how to feel, but it does put the use of DID in the movie into a different light.

Spoiler: An actual proper use of a spoiler warning: plot-twist reveal

It's a super-hero (villain) origin story. I think it's safe to say that easily 80% of the characters in any comic-book/superhero universe have PTSD...among other mental health issues. And in this case, the character with DID happens to be a mutant with not-'normal' human powers.

Yes, it could be bothersome that the implication is that mutant super-villains have DID...then again, that framework makes it so clearly Fiction with a capital F. I find it hard to carry any moral outrage about that, myself.

 

[Symphony]

@joeylittle Could you elaborate more about the ending in another spoiler? I don't get it and I seriously have no intention of seeing the film either way because it's still offensive to me that my disorder has been represented in commercials to millions of people to induce fear in them.

 

[joeylittle]

This article really explains it all very well (much better than I ever could):
Deciphering the Bizarre Twist Ending of 'Split'

 

[whiteraven]

Have to say, now that I know the 'surprise' ending of the film, I don't know that it's as potentiall...

I haven't seen it yet, but in my estimation, it doesn't matter how the film ends. I and the people I know who have DID were affected by the *previews* of the film. And the previews were seen, without whatever "twist" there is, by likely tens if not hundreds of thousands of moviegoers who are never going to see the actual film. The previews show a person with multiple personalities who is violent, a kidnapper, and someone who keeps children hostage and threatens them. That is ALL that matters here, to me.

 

[Symphony]

Same. Any perceivable redeeming qualities at the end are rendered invalid.

 

[pixel]

Movies attach so much importance to being racially correct or not offending homosexuals, how much more so should care be taken when depicting mental illness.

Considering that many sufferers are VICTIMS of violence, not instigators of it.
I'm in healthcare and let me tell you, its drugs and alcohol that wreak havok in society. Not mental illness. Mental illness wreaks havok on the individual (and sometimes their family), but not on society.

The media — no matter how independent & intellecutally free-thinking they believe they are — are influenced by the stereotypes shown in movies. This poisons their reporting.

The recent incident here in Melbourne where a man drove his car through crowds of pedestrians in the CBD after stabbing his neighbour? guess what the media claimed?
Mental illness.
Nevermind his substance abuse isses. Or the fact he was out on bail when he should've been securely behind bars. No, it was his mental illness that led to him becoming a killer.
:banghead::banghead::banghead:

People believe what movies & the media insinuate. It influences their opinions. Leading to stigma.
:(

 

[Symphony]

I consider substance abuse a mental health issue but nobody has to agree with me on that. It's a symptom like DID or anorexia. DIDers are addicted to dissociation (cheaper than street drugs yet just as sedating and numbing) and anorexics are addicted to the high of starving (well, I was, and also cheaper than drugs). But I digress.