Interesting vs. Depressing: Child of Rage
Click to viewAbout the Documentary:
I was watching this deeply disturbing HBO documentary about a girl that was deeply sociopathic (the full thing is on youtube in parts). She matter-of-factly talks about how she would enjoy stabbing her little brother to death, or frequently masturbating or sexually abusing her brother. Seeing her talk is looking into the eyes and psychology of a murderer or serial killer. The inability to empathize with others was a direct result of her physical and mental abuse as a child in the home of her birth parents. But still, how does this wire her brain in that way and how can it be fixed?
This documentary was particularly interesting because the girl is adopted by a really supportive family that puts her in intensive therapy and she eventually is completely rehabilitated. In the live-in therapeutic enviroment, her actions are strictly controlled, as people with reactive attachment disorder like to be in control of everything. Eventually, they build up her self-worth through praise for following appropriate behavior and they make her feel needed and loved. This is where the disconnect between her and others began, and her lack of a moral compass (inability to feel "bad" about things): her lack of self-esteem and her inability to comprehend the care others have for her. Towards the end of the documentary, after months of strict watch and rehabilitation, when interviewed about how she has hurt others in the past, she cries about what she has done, meaning she now cares enough about herself to feel capable of doing "good" as well as "bad," and that she wants others to feel good instead of bad (can become attached to people appropriately). She has begun to understand what it means to feel, and that others feel emotions too. Today she is a motivational speaker and actually has people under her care and watch for a living -- as a nurse.
Why I'm Talking About This:
So..... I was explaining to the guy that I'm seeing that I was up late because I was fascinated by this documentary. We gain insight into our own emotional development and understand the much deeper developmental problems that can occur as a result of abuse, while looking at the institutional problems in foster/adoptive care (the parents couldn't be told anything about the children's past -- including the drunken sexual abuse of her father -- but had to figure out bits and pieces. The girl almost killed her younger brother by smashing his head against a wall and had planned on killing them as well. It is likely she had been in other abusive foster situations before adoption (Ugh, the other documentary I was about a girl deprived of sensory information that also ends up in horrible and abusive foster care and gets lost in the shuffle to one inappropriate caregiver after another.))
Anyways, is any of this interesting? His response when I sent him the link was, "why would you watch depressing stuff?" It may be depressing, but I don't seek happiness or unhappiness; those emotions are a side-effect of pursuing what is "interesting" to me. I was talking to some of my other friends about their life pursuits, and for the most part, my friends prefer complexity over simplicity, in almost all areas of their lives. Happiness is a byproduct of satisfaction with intellectual challenges. I don't feel as though I can open up to this guy about my curiosities and analysis about what I take in from the world -- in other words, that I can talk about what I find interesting without him being disinterested. I don't mind looking into the darkness, because not knowing if it is bottomless is exciting.
Hmmm... sounds like a fundamental incompatibility. I will wait and see if it is all a bit of an early defensive front, behind which lurks great depth and insight, or if it is simply endless surface.