Okay, so we have been talking about building something, but let me give you a little back story and my thoughts about two childhoods. Using the genogram, let’s put the collective minds together to figure out what has happened to kids like Elliot.
We talked about CULTURAL SURROUND — let’s talk about what that means.
1975————————-1995 (entrance computer in home) —————————————— 2014
Off line vs On line childhood and the Depressive Position. (that doesn’t mean depressed, btw. — it means empathy)
In 1975 people had no access to ONLINE. All of life was lived OFFLINE, out in the “real world.” Now, a person might have encountered a bully in the real world then too, but the difference is people had “friends” to help them deal with that. What we see in the Elliot manifesto is FEAR in dealing with other humans at school. So this is a self-created narrative.
In 1995 people in the West are ONLINE, with the plethora of all the online things a person might deal with. We know that Elliot loved his computer games — he built himself a character inside there, I read in the manifesto. I’m going to show you a video about ART THERAPY, because these are my beginning thoughts on how we might start to create a HEROIC AVATAR for a human being in suffering as he was. So let’s look at these kids, talking.
The cultural surround in the 70’s was OUTDOORS with REAL MIRRORING.
The cultural surround in the 90’s was INDOORS (on computer) with NO MIRRORING.
So what we are going to try and do is BUILD THE MIRROR. The MIRROR will consist of OTHER HUMANS — as HUMAN. For MIRRORING, so kids can get that from other kids. Sardello’s research, I have written of that over and over — said that we were building a “sociopathic” soul. If kids were online and only had computer “pre-scripted” games. What he meant was that AGE ZERO to AGE NINE — this is where a child forms the EMPATHIC position. How they do that is by trial and error as their minds are developing “on their own.”
What happens if pre-scripted games take the place, in that age bracket? The mind can’t develop. So can we build a plan that will ALLOW people who have missed the formation of that empathy TO GET IT LATER? So that is what this is about. Without EMPATHY there is no caring for others as humans. Or animals. In fact these things may not even EXIST as “realities,” to a person without empathy.
So in Elliot we can see that in the first half of his narrative it is all self-referential. There is nothing “OUTSIDE” of him? Except in passing. Here is what I think. NO ONE SAW ELLIOT’S “SELF.” What they saw was a persona he built lost in an online gameworld, and then he was at some sites he frequented where people noticed there was something “wrong” with what he was saying. (PUAhate).
So, what this is basically like is: “My brother’s keeper.” — in a nutshell.
Had Elliot had a different experience of who he was in the ONLINE WORLD — a STRONGER, HEROIC AVATAR — perhaps we could have averted this tragedy.
I have never played any computer games? So I wanted to take a look at what I had seen back in 1995 when I was writing that paper on pre-scripted games. I remember I was in Circuit City and I was getting that little Performa. On every computer was the same game playing — except the MAC. It was something like this?
Okay so what are we looking at? A pre-scripted game. The HUMAN is behind the mouse clicks, but someone already wrote up the narrative. So in a sense it’s like a labyrinth?
So what is this? Listen to the LYRICS and let’s think this through! What does it mean that none of this is “REAL.” I just looked up MMO, that she is signing about? Well, no wonder Elliot was LOST in this world. Look at this: http://www.mmogames.com/
Okay so here are my thoughts as I build the TX PLAN. We are going to START with AVATAR SELF —————> and MOVE THIS TO REAL SELF!
And it will be FUN, and it will be WORDPRESS!
Along the way we are going to build the Depressive Position that people might have gotten in REAL LIFE because I think we can, even if all these “avatars” are older than 9 years old! Because of what we have seen with that emo heart and suicidal ideation. Next up, FALSE AND REAL SELF. I’m going to build a new blog, that will show what this TX plan looks like!
Because no more Elliots. Only humans, with real world interactions. We are going to be doing what Campbell called “The Hero’s Journey.”
All my best, and many thanks to Ma.tt and the WordPress gang because without what you built? We couldn’t do this?
<3!
From Adrienne
MA Depth Psych ’98 Pacifica Graduate Institute
ps: I’m going to check my research over with Reid Meloy who I met in Twitter the other day. So we can be thinking of a team that includes Doctors, now.
VALENTINE BONNAIRE - WRITER 