Review: “Dissociative Identity Disorder” Video by sk89q

April 15, 2008 at 11:40 am · Filed under Reviews, Understanding DID, Video and tagged: DID, dissociation, dissociative identity disorder, multiple personality disorder, Psychology, Video

I just exchanged emails with a guy with the online alias sk89q who posted a video on YouTube. He had created a video on DID for a psychology project, but was unable to finish it before the deadline. I am pleased he presented and uploaded the unfinished video anyway. (Direct link here and embedded video below.)

The video is stark and powerful. Informative, and nonjudgmental. It is also not triggering.

But what captured me/us is the way he created the video – it reflects how DID feels to those of us with it.

Floating white words on a black background, single word causes of DID fade into view and slide smoothly across the screen, then suddenly flicker and die out like a floodlight with a loose connection. The effect is jarring; …abuse … rape … intimidation … assault…the words creep in without complete awareness. As if to remind the viewer that yes, the world is bad place but all this stuff really just happens to someone else.

And that is exactly what happens in the heads of individuals with DID…to survive, we literally have escaped into the mind of another part of ourselves. Created a doppleganger and slipped into that twin’s shell to start a new life while the abuse happens to another.

Watching this video, it slips these ideas back into my head…yes, this really did happen to us. To me. It really wasn’t someone else.

sk89q created a wonderful effect – a child splitting visually into three on the screen, and the center child, the original one, fades from view.

a defense measure…

…to split into personalities and to forget

Another wonderful and dead-on effect…in stark letters flashes

nothing happened

Behind it flitting in and out of view almost subliminally behind it…

nothing

The music fits the video perfectly; having several personalities of it’s own. Edgy and jarring, with a comforting background at times that invites the viewer to be involved, to consider the content. To suspend judgment and allow the scene to settle into your brain like somewhat familiar but completely foreign friend.

That is DID.

Emily/Artist

Direct YouTube link here.

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