Mental illness for children: Disney's Frozen

I have nieces that are obsessed with the Disney movie Frozen. I haven't actually seen it yet, but they have explained to me the entire plot and I have probably heard them belting out the Let it Go song a couple dozen times. The song is sung by Elsa, the older sister of Anna. Elsa was born different, had special powers that she didn't understand or know how to control. A primary plot point of the movie is watching how Elsa learns to how to become her best self.


Since I am Mormon, I've been also been exposed to the "controversy" of how this movie promotes the "gay agenda" by encouraging children to identify as being gay, which has been hilarious. But, as my sister said "I think it's actually about sociopaths," tongue in cheek. Not surprisingly, however, many people have made serious parallels to mental illness, particularly bipolar disorder:

Disney released a new movie called “Frozen” last month, and in doing so, has provided us all the chance to begin cultivating awareness. The movie showcases two main characters — sisters, Anna and Elsa. Anna is a warm, charismatic social butterfly; her sister Elsa, bourn of a darker nature, and though wildly charismatic too, grows up to be more cold and emotionally withdrawn. These two characters symbolize the conflicting dual-nature of my manic/depressive personality — manifesting the ongoing struggle always, to overcome the great force of inner darkness so that my inner warmth and goodness can shine on through.

Why is this such a big deal for children to have this sort of role model for mental health awareness?

For me, Elsa is an important character not just because she needs to learn to accept herself the way she is, but because the writers show through her just how devastating and terrifying it is to fear your own soul. There is no terror and sadness like that of thinking you are bad and you do not want to be. It leads to a type of self-sacrifice that actually makes you unable to heal. On accident, Elsa's parents taught her to be afraid of herself and the only way to protect others was to sacrifice herself. So she shut herself off from the world, becomes filled with fear, and she never knows love and belonging.

Many people can relate to this archetype, especially people who have been physically or emotionally abused who were told they deserved the abuse because they were "bad" and that if they were just a good person then they would not get hurt. I am glad we finally have a character in mainstream media that shows how trauma can effect you and that bad behavior does not mean you are a bad person. (Which is why I love Elphaba from Wicked and the Beast from Beauty and the Beast.) My son says the most important line in the movie is in the song "Fixer Upper" that the trolls sing where they say: "People make bad choices if they're mad or scared or stressed." For some people if they are scared enough, even their ability to make a choice is taken away from them. I feel like this scene from the movie best shows Elsa's fear and how much she wants to never hurt anyone.

And these types of stories are one of the best ways to introduce children to these sorts of concepts, to teach them that there is nothing evil or insurmountable about mental illness, in themselves or in others. From G. K. Chesterton:

Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon. Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him for a series of clear pictures to the idea that these limitless terrors had a limit, that these shapeless enemies have enemies in the knights of God, that there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and stronger than strong fear.

Sociopaths in media: Collateral

From a reader:

I loved the movie Collateral, starring Tom Cruise as Vincent the hitman and Jamie Foxx as the largely hapless cab driver, particularly this clip. Here’s the set up: Maxx is a cab driver with dreams of owning his own limo service. He’s been driving his taxi for 12 years, telling himself all the while that he is planning and saving money, awaiting the perfect time to start his own business. When Vincent gets into the backseat of his cab, Maxx assumes he’s just another fare. He is of course dead wrong. Vincent forces Maxx to act as his driver, ferrying him to various locations around LA to kill everyone on his to-do list.

In this scene, Vincent and Maxx have just escaped a hectic shoot out at a nightclub. Vincent has killed the 4th of the 5 victims on his hit list and Maxx attempted to escape during the melee with the help of detective Fanning. Just when it seemed as if Maxx and Fanning would make it, Vincent shoots the detective, thinking he was doing Maxx a favor. As you will see, Maxx has an epiphany of sorts after being confronted with Vincent’s harsh but truthful views.

I really liked this movie. The performances were terrific. Contrasting Fox’s passive everyman with Cruise’s uber disciplined sociopath made for a thematically interesting dynamic. The scene was, in a nutshell, an insightful look at how sociopaths see empaths better than they see themselves. I wonder though, is Vincent really a sociopath or is his career choice simply an inevitable result of his philosophical nihilism? Not that it matters to any of his victims.

What the Grinch Teaches us About Good, Evil, and the Possibility of Change

I love the Grinch story/movies. For those that haven't experienced them, the Grinch is a bad guy (or tragically misunderstood?) who has a turnaround and his heart grows three sizes. How does it grow three sizes? It wasn't because he was shamed.

I got some pushback on my dislike of shaming as an enforcement method in the recent post "6 Surprising Findings About Good and Evil." (Some people found the scientific findings so surprising, they flat out disagreed with them.) People did not like my suggestion that we stop using gossip and public shaming as blunt instrument enforcement mechanisms for ensuring conformity of moral and social behavioral standards. And this was even before the Justine Sacco fiasco, where a Sarah Silverman style joke was the impetus for people who had never given half a thought to the AIDS crisis in Africa to judge her worthy of the equivalent of public social stoning.  One person's criticism: "Your solutions are always based on the whole world changing, but not you. . . . This is the self-delusional part of your diagnosis that has to change in order for you to see a change in how the world accepts you." I think the gist of that comment is that people could simply avoid being shamed by always acting properly (or that social change is not possible or not desirable in this instance?).

The problem is that no one behaves properly all of the time. Whether it is a tasteless joke, or a deeply held belief that is politically unpopular, every single person has done, said, or thought something that, if widely publicized, could ruin them. So often these people who have been shunned by society are not necessarily better or worse overall than most people, they are largely just unlucky (or have too much integrity to change their values due to the pressures of the crowd?). And for that lack of luck (or abundance of virtue however misguided we believe their virtue is?), we collectively destroy them. And I think this is wasteful, unnecessary, and suggests that people must really enjoy shaming to do it as often as they do because that seems to be the major benefit.

I think ruining people's life over one thing they did is generally a bad idea because people are dynamic -- they change their beliefs and their loyalties and their values many times over their lifetime. Think of the violent criminal who mentors and assists his fellow prisoners while incarcerated or the Grinch whose heart grows three sizes. Society is also dynamic -- an idea that was once politically unpopular becomes the norm and vice versa. You may think you're very right in the moral judgments and punishments you invoke against strangers, but so do the people who publicly stone people for otherwise consensual adultery. I'm not saying that society is wrong or needs to change to accommodate me. I'm just saying, these are some of the easy and not even original to me critiques of the prevalent and severely effective blunt instrument that is social shaming to ensure compliance of social norms. Furthermore, as I previously posted, shaming doesn't work how people would like it to. If someone shamed you, would you change your heart or just try to stay more under the radar? There is actually evidence that restorative justice is actually more effective than retributive justice (like shaming and the subsequent social fallout), both in terms of victim satisfaction and offender accountability. For instance, wasn't it because the Grinch was the recipient of restorative justice (allowing him fully back into society after he brought back the Christmas he had stolen) that he was able to change his heart? Or do we no longer give people the benefit of the doubt or even acknowledge that they have the power to change? Maybe we would have preferred for the Grinch to live his life in isolation in his cave, forever shunned from polite society?

I guess it's easier for me to see the negative aspects of shaming than the positive because I have seen so many people in my life make radical changes -- it's why I don't hate my parents for things that happened in my childhood and why I have an appreciation for the redemptive power of spirituality and religion in people's lives. 

Film: Nightmare Before Christmas

When I was younger I really identified with the film Nightmare Before Christmas (currently streams on Netflix). It's about Jack Skellington and the people of Halloweentown, whose job is to scare people ("that's our job but we're not mean" because "life's not fun without a good scare"). They end up taking over Christmas and making a mess of it, largely because they can't quite grasp the concept of it (regarding stockings hung by a fire, "Oh, yes! Does it still have a foot? Let me see, let me look. Is it rotted and covered with gook?"). Their misplaced attempts at Christmas reminded me of this idea, from a father of an autistic child regarding his philosophy in placing autistic individuals in places of employment that take advantage of their strengths rather than focusing on their weaknesses:

 “A weed is a beautiful plant in an unwanted place,” he says. “An herb is the same plant where it is wanted. Who decides if something is a weed or an herb? Society does.”

Jack Skellington and his band undoubtedly do bad things, chief among them ruining Christmas. And he does it all gleefully and selfishly, although unintentionally. Rather, he just does things in a way that comes naturally to him but is wholly inappropriate for that particular context. I really identified with that growing up. There were plenty of bad things that I actively intended, just like Jack's terror filled Halloween celebrations. But there were also times when I felt like I was using my prodigious (I thought) talents for good. Like Jack, those times were largely because I misunderstood the complexity of what I was trying to imitate. For instance, Jack in trying to decipher the secret of Christmas magic finally gives up, assuming that it can't be as complicated as it seemed:

Or perhaps it's really not as deep as I've been led to think.
Am I trying much too hard? Of course. I've been too close to see.
The answer's right in front of me.
Right in front of me.
It's simple really, very clear,
like music drifting in the air.
Invisible, but everywhere.
Just because I cannot see it doesn't mean I can't believe it.
You know, I think this Christmas thing
is not as tricky as it seems.
And why should they have all the fun?
It should belong to anyone.
Not anyone, in fact, but me.
Why, I could make a Christmas tree.
And there's no reason I can find
I couldn't handle Christmastime.
I bet I could improve it, too, and that's exactly what I'll do.
(evil laugh)

There were many times as a young sociopath that I felt similarly about the emotional worlds of others. Even though I didn't relate to my own emotions or feel empathy, I figured that there couldn't be that much to it, so I didn't tinkering around with the emotions of others.

Jack decides that although he is naturally talented and well suited for scaring people, he would like to try something new -- bringing Christmas cheer. Once Jack decides to take over Christmas, there is nothing that he won't do to accomplish his goals, largely through manipulating his minions. He tells the trick or treaters Lock, Shock, and Barrel to kidnap Santa Claus, appealing to their pride and love of the nefarious ("The job I have for you is top secret. It requires craft, cunning, mischief.") He tries to explain the spirit of Christmas to the residents of Halloween but when they don't get it, he decides to instead just tell them what they want to hear in order to get their support -- the story of the monster Sandy Claws ("Everyone, please! Now, not so fast. There’s something here that you don’t quite grasp. (Well, I may as well give them what they want…)"). It's clear that they never quite understand the spirit of Christmas because when news reports of Jack saw that he is "mocking and mangling this joyous holiday," they cheer.

When Jack realizes he has utterly failed, he is disappointed for a hot minute ("how could I be so blind . . . everything's gone so wrong"). This sentiment falls just short of repentance and he is soon feeling quite pleased with himself and his ability to do as much as he did: "for a moment why, I even touched the sky." So pretty resilient self-esteem. Again I related to this, the knowledge that I had spectacularly failed, but never really seeming to feel badly about it all or change my behavior.

So, is there a role for Jack Skellingtons in this world? Or are they weeds wherever they sprout?

12 Years a Slave

I watched 12 Years a Slave recently and liked it, particularly for its portrayal of different types of people in different types of situations. You don't think (spoiler alert) that you'll be tricked by people pretending to be your friends, kidnapped, shipped thousands of miles away, and sold to someone who is "eccentric," possibly insane, but with the legal upperhand. But this ends up happening to someone and you see how he deals with these situations, as well as the reactions of countless others in related positions. People like to think that they would do the "right" thing in most situations, whether the morally right thing or the smartest choice in terms of survival and self-promotion. A dominant message of the film, at least for me, is to question this belief.

Instead, it seems that the popular reaction of viewers to the film is one of outrage or at least deep discomfort that almost seems to eclipse any other message. This is the theme (and criticism?) of this NY York Times review:

What had bothered me the first time is that the movie is basically an anthology of beatings and whippings, each one more severe than the last, culminating in a moment of deep horror when the hero-victim — Solomon Northup, a free black man shanghaied into slavery — takes the whip himself and administers skin-flaying lashes to a young girl (Patsey) whose only crime is wanting a bar of soap. It’s like the special-effects films that come out every other day where there is an escalation of mayhem: bodies and buildings blown up in ever more ingenious ways leading to a last scene in which everything in sight is blasted to kingdom come. In “12 Years a Slave,” the escalation is not technical — brutal realism, not video-game pyrotechnics, is the mode — but a ratcheting up of the level of pain for both the characters and the audience.

I felt no ratcheting up of pain. But sociopaths have a much different reaction to theodicy, or the problem of evil seen from a theological or existential point of view. In other words, we not only have different responses to the question "how could bad things happen?", we rarely ask the question, at least framed in that way. The truth is that bad things are happening this very moment, equally as brutal and hopeless as anything that happened in the film. I know that and accept it as reality. I think other people know that, but don't like to think about it. Instead they spend their moral outrage on things like people's choice of Halloween costumes or people's out-of-the-box solutions to climate change.  Some have suggested that not being aware of worldwide suffering is due to the downside to empathy, that we feel more strongly for victims that come wrapped in a package of pretty sick white girls whose photos are splashed on the covers of newspapers than babies dying of malnutrition out of sight.

The most interesting part of the film was seeing the different reactions people have to their situations. There is the mother who is so happy to see her lost son, that she lets her guard down and becomes kidnapped herself. There is the man who talks about uprising and is quickly dispatched when he makes the slightest move to protect a fellow prisoner. There is the very educated man who courageously talks almost Black Panther style until when he is freed by his master he clings to the sure slavemaster in blessed relief that he won't be sold to some unknown danger. There are also many characters whose actions and reactions may seem so foreign that it is tempting to write them off as being unfathomable -- those of a sociopath. Sarah Paulson discusses her "evil" character's motivations:

I think the only way to do it, for me, was to try and figure out the "why" of her behavior. The idea of playing someone who is just evil to be evil seemed really boring to me and not realistic. Because nobody does anything for no reason. It may not be one I agree with or one that makes sense to me, but there will be reason. What I really came up with was that she's a product of her time. She was probably raised by ignorant and racist people, and I don't think she's of a complicated enough nature -- or self-aware enough nature -- to challenge what she's been taught. I think she just decided what she was taught is the right and true way, which many people in this country, and this world, sort of live by. Then, you add into that the reality that she's deeply, deeply, deeply jealous, because her husband is in love with another woman right under her nose, in her own home. It's humiliating. So when you're dealing with a person who's not very self-aware, who was raised by racists, who is not a deep woman, and who deals with surface feelings and emotions and appearances, then you might behave the way she behaves. That's how I could get into it.

Interestingly, despite people's strong reactions to the film, I haven't really seen this perspective a lot -- "I could have done these things in a similar situation". But that is the awful reality. There is no way that in all of history, horrible things were always done by sociopaths or the deranged. Normal people did these things. Normal people who lacked a bit of self-awareness and didn't bother to question the dominant moral teachings of their time.

Another reaction that I have not seen is people -- nobody seems to have been moved to go out and dedicate time, money, or effort to prevent the various forms of modern slavery that are popping up in their own backyards. Instead, one of the more common reactions has been to criticize the previous Hollywood portrayals of slavery as being impossibly rosy: "the paternalistic gentry with their pretty plantations, their genteel manners and all the fiddle-dee-dee rest." It's an odd criticism to make when so much of most peoples' daily lives are spent in deep denial of the horrors around them.

Or as a reader recently wrote to me:

People often think sociopaths are creepy for compartmentalizing and being able to hurt other people.

But  how great is empathy, if it allows normal people to go along with slavery? How can they take the moral high ground?

Sure, I'd be the sort to be a bounty hunter and track down slaves, happy to bring them back to the plantation and get paid. Or I'd be happy to punish a bad slave.

But what happened to normal people, that they went along with slavery? Maybe they aren't that different from sociopaths after all. Maybe they beat up on sociopaths because we remind them of their character traits that they hate the most.

The Little Prince

It would not be much of an exaggeration to say that most of what I learned about relationships in my younger years came from watching this movie.

Sex, drugs, and rock and roll

A reader suggested that I expand my emotional horizons by taking MDMA, the pure ingredient in the drug ecstasy. I told him that it was an interesting idea, but that I sort of already manipulate myself into feeling other emotions via film, music, art, etc., and I wasn't sure if it would be all that different. I certainly don't plan on becoming an ecstasy abuser, so I wouldn’t really know how expanded my emotional horizons would be with that drug. It was an interesting question, though, and reminded me of something another reader had asked, whether sociopaths like music and what effect drugs have on a sociopath. My response:

I don't know if I can speak for all sociopaths, but I love music. I was raised in a musical home and am a classically trained musician, and have participated in many popular music groups. I would imagine that other sociopaths would like it as well, depending on how open they are to exploring their emotional side. There's no doubt that music is manipulative, as is film (primarily because of the music in it?). The whole purpose of music seems to evoke some feeling or sensation in the audience. Music makes you feel things, if you let yourself get caught up in the experience. It can be a good way to learn about other people, allowing you to experience emotional experiences the way other people experience them or the way the composer/lyricist experienced them. Music is like a drug in some ways because it forces you to feel something different, which is another one of your questions. When I am taking mind altering substances, I feel like a detached observer noticing the differences in my brain chemistry, realizing that I now feel happier or sadder or whatever it is I am feeling, as if the feeling is being forced on me. I don't really like it. I don't feel like it is a welcome freedom from my inhibitions because I don't have inhibitions. If anything, it is the opposite of freedom; someone is playing with my mind, playing with me like a puppet on a string. Maybe that's just me, though. I could imagine that certain sociopaths or certain substances might be used more like the way I use music.

Okay, no sex I guess, just drugs and rock'n'roll.

Gold star sociopath?

When people ask me for recommendations of what to read/watch to understand sociopaths better, I tell them, among other things, the film The Woodsman with Kevin Bacon. In it he plays a "recovering" pedophile who struggles with his urges as he tries to form a "normal" romantic attachment with a woman and stumbles upon another predator like himself. Un-acted upon pedaphilia was recently addressed in a Dan Savage column. when I read it, for "pedophile," I substituted "sociopath," for "sexual attraction to children," I substituted ...

Let's say, theoretically, I'm a pedophile.

I'm not stupid or evil, so I'm not gonna DO anything. I'm not even gonna look at porn, because the production of it involves child exploitation. I don't even look at kids in public places.

So what the fuck should I do? Chemical castration? But I haven't DONE anything and I don't plan to. Am I obliged to tell anyone? Good way to lose friends. Can I keep babysitting my friends' kids when they need a hand? After all, if I were into adult women, people wouldn't see anything wrong with leaving me alone with a couple of those.

What the fuck do I do? Live alone and hope Japan starts producing affordable sexbots before I'm too old to care?

You know, theoretically. If I were a pedophile.

Knows It's Wrong

"My heart goes out to people to whom nature has given something as powerful and as distracting as a sex drive and no healthy way to express it," says Dr. James Cantor, a psychologist and the editor in chief of the research journal Sexual Abuse. "Pedophiles are not the only folks in this position, but they are by far the most demonized, regardless of whether they have ever actually caused anyone any kind of harm."

My heart is going out to you, too. As I've written before, we should acknowledge the existence of "good pedophiles," people like you, KIW, who are burdened with a sexual interest in children but who possess the moral sense to resist acting on that interest. It's a lifelong struggle for "good pedophiles," and most manage to succeed without any emotional support—to say nothing of credit—whatsoever.

Unfortunately, science doesn't know much about pedophiles like you, pedophiles who haven't done anything, because the social stigma is so great that most nonoffending pedophiles never seek treatment. And what research has been done, says Cantor, isn't very encouraging if you're looking to free yourself from your attraction to children.

"There is no known way of turning a pedophile into a nonpedophile," says Cantor. "The best we can do is help a person maximize their self-control and to help them build an otherwise happy and productive life."

"It is true that a regular heterosexual man is not going to commit an offense against every woman he finds attractive. However, most women are capable of recognizing when an interaction is just starting to go south and of getting out of the situation. Most children are not. So although there is every reason to believe that there exist cats that can successfully be in charge of the canary, it's not a very good idea for the cat to be the one making that call."

"I wish I had better news," concludes Cantor. "I also wish that more people did good research on this so that one day I could have better news to give."

The money quote for me: "Unfortunately, science doesn't know much about pedophiles like you, pedophiles who haven't done anything, because the social stigma is so great that most nonoffending pedophiles never seek treatment."

Sociopaths in film: Seven Psychopaths

I saw this film recently. I thought it was pretty funny, not terribly accurate? Probably the most interesting aspect of the film is how the psychopathic characters view the one empath character's alcoholism. They sort of wonder at it -- why might someone be drinking themselves to death. It doesn't make sense to them. And even though they are going around killing people, they express the same or more moral concern about whether or not the alcoholic should be driving drunk. It's a little hilarious because typical empath viewer would obviously think of the murdering as more serious than the drunk driving, but not the psychopath characters.