Reverie Rescue

Introduction

For my inquiry, I decided to investigate escapism as a coping mechanism as it pertains to me. It has become intertwined with my art and artistic style, and the places I have been have contributed to it as well. I have had considerably impactful trauma in my childhood, and I often felt outcasted by the people around me. Whenever I found a physical place which made me feel safe and welcomed, it became intertwined with my inner-world. I am often disconnected from reality as a trauma response, and for this project, I decided that combining my personal experiences with escapism and the places I have been to are a perfect point of reference for this project. My second field of study is in Asian studies–I chose this field because I have family that live in Japan, as well as a grandmother who grew up in China. I have been fortunate to visit Japan on a few occasions, and it has made a lasting impact on me and my perception of the world.

In order to complete my project, I needed to look heavily into my own personal history and the movies/shows that impacted me when I was a child.I decided to take an auto ethnographic approach to my research. According to Autoethnography, “Autoethnography is a method of research that involves describing and analyzing personal experiences in order to understand cultural experiences.” I looked into different approaches to autoethnography, including an early reading assignment in which the writer spoke about reconnecting with a family member over an old fight they had. The look at the two perspectives was very interesting to me, and gave a well rounded view of what was happening in hindsight. It inspired me to look deeper into my own past and how that changed my perspective on the world. Below I have detailed the findings as I looked into my personal history.

Context–My Personal History

When I was a kid, people around me tended to criticize my sensitivity, and at the time I equated my sensitivity to immaturity. My creativity, also is fueled by a lot of my sensitivity, so the worlds that I had built, those who connected me to my creativity became the things I would try to deny. This also would cause issues, because creativity is at the heart of my coping mechanisms, especially when I was a child.

For context, I have dissociative Identity disorder. It’s a severe trauma disorder that results in the brain fragmenting and having multiple states of consciousness, or, as some people have said over time, multiple personalities. All of the personalities are separate from each other, have different memories, ways of acting and reacting, and in all ways other than physically are different people from each other. Some personalities “hold” the traumatic memories so that other personalities can continue functioning without having a mental breakdown. It can be very debilitating and makes remembering things very difficult, as well as getting things done. I am not an expert on D.I.D., but I am an expert on my own D.I.D., along with my other physical and mental health diagnoses.

My fragmented brain created alters, or alternate personalities when I was a child, some of which I was able to communicate with. The ones I was able to communicate with as a child were ones that would not expose me to the traumatic memories I went through, and in fact would help guide me or comfort me a lot of the time. My answer to this dilemma was to make creations that showed me growing up and being more mature.

In high school I made a short film where the main character had imaginary friends, positive and negative. She was working through her emotions as a high schooler and she starts the film with an antagonistic imaginary friend on her shoulder; A harbinger of negativity and isolation. She wrote a lot of these emotions in her diary, which a bully finds and decides to burn in front of her, effectively disrupting her connection to the imaginary friend that represented a false sense of security within her insecurities. The main character ends up developing a new imaginary friend, who encourages her to get out more, ask questions in class, and even ask someone out for the first time. In the end, both imaginary friends end up leaving the main character, as a sign of growth for her that she no longer needs to rely on those parts to be comfortable in herself.

Analyzing this in hindsight, I see a lot of denial of the persecutors, protectors and caretakers in my brain. It reflects the idea of removing certain coping mechanisms or “growing out” of them. You can’t really “grow out” of D.I.D., and the protectors, persecutors, and alters will not just go away with a snap of the fingers. But as a high school kid, I believed that I needed to stop communicating with those parts of my brain and invalidate the way my brain coped at the time.

Another point of context is my physical disability. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune muscle disease in my junior year of high school. It heavily reduces my mobility and energy to carry things out in a day. From the moment I realized I had a disease, I didn’t spend much time processing it, so much as avoiding truly internalizing what I was going through. However, art and digitally based activities were very accessible for me, so I would find ways to experience things virtually, escaping into those worlds. Because my disease was at its height I was diagnosed around the age of 15-16, it stunted a lot of my transition into adulthood. I didn’t get my first job until a couple years into college, and to this day I routinely spend a majority of my time taking care of myself physically and pacing myself because I get exhausted easily. My disability often leaves me feeling stagnant, or like I can’t really physically escape what is happening, so I often turn to mental escapes.

A third point of context has to do with bullies. The other kids at school made me feel like I didn’t belong, and many of my teachers either didn’t notice or didn’t do anything about it. I would go to the nurse’s office a lot as a kid to get away. I would spend the 15-30 minutes my nurse would allow me to lay in her office, completely quiet, either looking at the back of her desk or the ceiling, which had an encouraging poster on it. It would be my way of resetting or getting away from the people who made me feel less than.

Regression as a Coping Mechanism

One of my coping mechanisms ended up being a return to a childhood mindset. Because I felt like I couldn’t really “grow up” in the same way as other people, I sort of went the opposite way in order to cope. I began rewatching all of those childhood movies, revisiting the scripts I wrote, and tried to get back into it. This is probably pretty close to where I’m at today. I still tend to just drift into these worlds that my brain created, and because I separated myself from it so harshly at one point, it’s hard to reconnect. This is one of the reasons my capstone is related to me. Both as a healing thing, and to share this experience with others because I know I’m not the only one.

Another guide to my moral compass was my religious background. I have very mixed feelings about my background, because it was in equal parts traumatic and guiding for me. I went to an evangelical church literally religiously as a child. I considered myself heavily religious and would follow the Bible as closely as I could in my everyday life. I feel like my time spent at church was complicated, because my connection to God as a kid helped me feel safe, but I did not feel safe at the church, because some of the people there were not good people. I had experiences with both adults and children who liked to show that they felt they were better than others based off of their level of involvement at the church, or their perception of their own connection to God. They would use their position of notoriety at the church to essentially shame others or make them feel less than if they were not as involved. But to be fully involved at the church is to give literally every bit of your time to it. The kids that I knew that did a lot for the church were homeschooled by parents who were also fully involved at the church. But from the activities, trips, vacation bible schools, sermons I participated in, I usually felt shameful by the time I got home because of the energy that some of the people put out there. This led to me having high expectations of myself. I had a strong sense of right and wrong, and I would defend that avidly. (Also an example of me getting denied a lot of experiences that were actually meant for kids, but instead having experiences that instilled guilt and fear into me through religion)

Escapism as a Coping Mechanism

Outside of school and church, I would try to get away whenever I could. As a child, I didn’t spend much time hanging out with other kids. Even one of my closest friends to this day agrees that we didn’t hang out for long periods of time, rather we would engage in creative activities together and then part ways after a couple hours. On the other hand, I would spend hours on end watching and rewatching movies, knowing them front to back and being able to recite every word. I would write TV show and movie scripts based on what I watched, identifying the formula that Disney used in their shows and creating my own show from it.

I also had an imaginative safe space in the mountains. My grandparents had a small cabin that I would go to a lot as a kid for mini vacations. The front yard, a mini mountainside, became my personal “Terabithia.” I would interact with the world around me and my imagination in tandem, and when I got tired, I would just sit out on the rocks, almost in a meditative state, enjoying the tranquility of a place without expectations. This location means a lot to me. It is in Estes Park, and although I can no longer visit because the cabin has been sold, I hold the front yard close to my heart, and think of it often in times of stress as a way to cope with overwhelming situations.

Another place that was a safe space for me is across the oceans; Japan. I have family who live in Japan, and because I was able to visit them a few times throughout my childhood, it quickly became a positive part of my life, and created more safe spaces for me. The main one is Ryoan-Ji Temple in Kyoto, Japan. It is a Zen Garden and Temple, and is an official UNESCO World Heritage Site. It began as a zen garden, and was later established as a temple. I have had the great privilege to visit it on a few occasions,  and it is another location that has had a lasting impact on my life. The temple’s zen garden is expansive and has a koi pond and lush greenery in addition to the beautiful rock garden you can pass on your way out. Every time I have visited, it filled me with a sense of peace, and safety. It quickly became a dominant safe space for me. Because it is a place intended for self reflection and meditation, it became, for me, a place to calm down, and “reset,” after getting overwhelmed.

 

Films also impacted my way of thinking as I grew up. From a young age, I watched movies like My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Bridge to Terabithia, Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, and more. These movies served as templates for me as a child, both in filmmaking and in how I interacted with the world; Essentially, life takes on a cinematic vibe when I begin disconnecting from reality. Below details the films that impacted my perception of the world, as well as gave me inspiration for my capstone project.

My Neighbor Totoro

Summary

My Neighbor Totoro is a story about two little girls living daily life and coping with their mother’s illness. The two girls balance each other out, the smaller of the two being carefree and wanting to explore anything and everything new, while the older sister is trying to grow up, and take care of the family while she realizes her mother is ill. Mei, the younger of the two, ends up going on an excursion that leaves her family to believe she ran away, because she wanted to see her mother in the hospital. The two girls meet some spiritual beings in the form of big fluffy creatures. Totoro is one of them, and he watches over the girls, almost protecting or caring for them.

Personal Connection

I watched this film starting in my developmental stages of life, and it quickly became a favorite. I loved the comfort that Totoro brought to the girls when they were in need, and most of all, I remember the use of wind in the film. The film subtly focuses on wind as a transition but also as a way for grief to flow through the movie without being devastating to the viewer. I gravitated towards this, because I often felt like emotions were overwhelming and big topics were hard to deal with. This perspective on allowing the wind to take you where it is headed helped me be a little more open to change.

Spirited Away

Summary

Spirited Away is a story about a little girl, Chihiro, dealing with a big life change. She is understandably unhappy about it, and her parents are more or less ignorant to this feeling. The girl learns a lot about sticking up for herself and working hard for her personal values, which for her at that moment, happens to be her family.

Personal Connection

I related to Chihiro a lot as a kid. I felt isolated, and it wasn’t so easy for me to connect with those around me. She looked at the world with big eyes, ready to learn and do things for herself, and that was something I aspire[d] to be. From Spirited Away, I learned what it means to be resilient–the film gave me an easy to digest and encouraging view of a brave and successful little girl.

Bridge to Terabithia

Summary

Bridge to Terabithia is a story about two children who serendipitously come together in a time of need for human connection–One of the two children teaches the other a few life lessons in being comfortable in their own skin and not letting other peoples’ judgements define their actions.

Personal Connection

Because I struggled to connect with other people as a child, this movie helped me remember that there is hope in the world. The friends in this film represented hope to me–Giving hope to those that one knows they can help, and also receiving it from those who are willing to give it. This was a pivotal film because it showed me the beauty of art, and how it can affect positive change in people who don’t know how to express themselves the same way.

Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium

Summary

Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium is a story about grief, but also a story about embracing one’s talents and creativity to get through that grief and continue on with life after a devastating occurrence. In this movie, the main character has a passion for piano. She has a dream of becoming a composer, although many people around her dismiss her idea as childish or not a real job. One man, who could be considered her mentor and father-figure, teaches her the meaning of embracing your passions, and once the person who encouraged you is gone, how to continue on and stay true to yourself.

Personal Connection

I learned piano when I was very young. It is a passion that I connected with all throughout my childhood. It was an outlet whenever I felt sadness or grief. I actually composed my own song when I was a child, which ended up being a starting point for the form of this project. It is a song that flows through the notes, almost as if processing an emotion, and ending with a feeling of satisfaction or clarity. It became a tool for me to process hard emotions for myself, a very personal ritual. It is also something that relates to my dissociation/derealization. As I play the music, it transports me mentally to another place. I’m still physically in the space, however I do not feel like I am. I float through the notes and follow the path of the tune, remembering that processing an emotion is possible, and that I can do it in a safe and productive way. Music is an emotional safe space for me, allowing me to express myself and also take in emotions comfortably.

The story behind the piece– “Reverie Rescue”

In my artworks, I decided to integrate all of the safe spaces that I have gone to over the years to cope with traumatic and overwhelming situations. I narrowed down the wo that encompass my coping as a whole, which were the physical safe spaces, “Wildernest” in Estes Park, Colorado and Rylan-Ji in Kyoto, Japan. My piece hints at my dissociation, but focuses more on “where” I sometimes go during that time. The vehicle I chose to use to transition was specifically drawing, as it is the first medium I picked up as a child. The drawing comes to life, as a little blue blob begins moving on the page, pulling viewers and myself into the picture. The friendly blob character acts almost as a tour guide, and a visual representation of my mental state as I travel through these regions.

I decided to use a “cut paper” or scrapbook-ish style as it keeps a childlike wonder and freedom to it, indicating that we are inside my mind as a child. The scenery also moves around a bit, as if the viewer is watching me piece together where I am in my mind, and processing being transported there.

I created an alternate cut of the song I composed on piano as a child for this animation, as I feel it carries the processing in the same way as traveling through the safe spaces in my mind. The song was written, performed and edited by myself, and although I would consider this a less pivotal part of my project, it is notable as a subtle supportive aspect to the short film.

Conclusion

This project was a monumental challenge for me. It was difficult for me to settle on my inquiry, and once I did, I struggled to verbalize it up until the end. I was prepared for the form of my project to change, however I did not realize how difficult it would be to actually talk about myself. I have only begun to scratch the surface, and I am encouraged to continue exploring myself after this project. I am proud of the piece I created, no matter the struggle.

 

 

Bibliography

Adams, Tony E, Stacy Linn Holman Jones, and Carolyn Ellis. Autoethnography. Oxford ; Oxford University Press, 2015. Print.

Csupó, Gábor, dir. 2007. Bridge to Terabithia. Film. Walt Disney Pictures.

Helm, Zach, dir. 2007. Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. Film. 20th Century Studios.

Miyazaki, Hayao, dir. 2002. Spirited Away. Animated Film. Toho Co., Ltd.

Miyazaki, Hayao , dir. 1990. My Neighbor Totoro. Animated Film. Toho Co., Ltd.

Ryoan-Ji Temple. n.d. “Our History.” Ryoan-Ji Temple. http://www.ryoanji.jp/smph/eng/history/index.html.

Schofield, Lindsay. Understanding Dissociative Identity Disorder?: A Guidebook for Survivors and Practitioners. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon?; Routledge, 2022.