This is a very fun post to write!
Mostly because it’s one of the few times DID or dissociation is handled and communicated with care and knowledge. Typically in the media DID is usually negative, or a gross misrepresentation of the disorder.
This post is a review of a short game that is available on steam or in the google play store for 1.99$. As soon as I found out about it I wanted to explore and I was not disappointed.
The concept of the game is akin to a choose your own adventure story revolving around the life of a teenage girl named Dorothy who has DID. She was adopted after being separated from her parents for reasons revealed throughout the game.
I love this because dissociation and DID are so prevalent in foster care and adoption but so misunderstood. It’s one of my passions to help foster and adoptive families identify and work through dissociation.
You initially walk through a tutorial that explains the game and how to play. What is revealed is that you interact with Dorothy in a dream space, and you as the user play as Dorothy’s therapist trying to help her solve daily life struggles and the triggered traumatic past that comes up from the daily experiences- this includes the activity and actions of the parts when they take control.
You are given limited attempts each time you enter the dream space to talk with Dorothy or one of her 3 parts Alice, Gretel, and Cindy (metaphors of fairytales are prevalent through the game).
The goal of the game is to help keep Dorothy’s stress low and manageable related to the concept of the Window of Tolerance, and to build the “integrity” of the parts with the hope that once their integrity is full they will integrate with Dorothy.
Each of the parts has their own story arcs related to the trauma that they were birthed out of. One of the story arcs is towards integration, and the other towards disintegration.
All of the parts are considered littles in the game which is an intriguing stance the game took because dissociative research disagrees about this but some believe that all parts are littles even the ones that act older because they were created at the time of the trauma (depending on when the parts were created).
Alice is shown as a younger part that identifies with Alice in Wonderland who encapsulates the derealization of dissociation. This part wants to protect Dorothy by having her escape reality to Wonderland. This is such a spot on representation that it is heartwarming to see how they careful developed the parts in the game.
Gretel is shown as slightly older and the part that holds the rage and anger of the trauma and also seems to take on some qualities of a perpetrator introject because its fixation on violence and blood which mirrors the behavior of the abuser. This part also has another quality of rage-filled parts- protective posture over littles. Gretel sees Alice as an innocent child needing protection from monsters (parents).
Cindy is what could be deemed as the ANP (Apparently Normal Part) this part seems to compensate for perceived weaknesses in Dorothy by being social, outgoing, popular. This part seems to be quite vain at times but throughout the narrative can be key in lowering stress, and being mindful of the depression or anger that is taking over Dorothy.
As I played this game I had to fail a lot to understand the dynamics and what the game developers wanted you to do to maintain Dorothy and her parts because it is much more nuanced in the therapy room and what works for one client does not work for another.
So my first attempt was to try and connect with the different parts depending on what storyline was being told. Within that connect there is an exploration I tried to buy into such as their interests and what they perceived. This was a total failure. It became clear that spending too much dialogue space on the different parts increased Dorothy’s stress and quickly got me stuck answering the parts in ways that decreased their integrity.
I eventually became successful by having the strategy of primarily speaking with Dorothy, and then engaging mindfully with the part that was involved in the particular narrative that the story found itself.
When I navigated the darkest spots of the story there is some triggering content. SPOILER: Such as the reason that Dorothy was adopted was that she entered care when her father killed her mother due to an affair she was having. Along with the darkness comes dark ways of thinking from Gretel, who is fixated in the blood and evil that came from the abusers.
There is an element that is creepy to the game from the music to some of the images of Gretel, especially her final disintegration which was her taking primary control over the body and being consumed with rage, and the trauma causing switching back and forth between the above faces.
Ultimately the lessons that the game tries to teach moving towards integration are beautiful such as trusting the love of her adopted family, advocating for her needs, reaching out to her new parents to clarify assumptions that she has about how they are acting, and finding self-confidence.
The biggest and only thing I would take issue within the game is the fact that integration is portrayed as the parts of self no longer being needed and going away. This is not what happens for DID clients, instead, integration is the unification of the parts- all being present and working together simultaneously once the traumatic past has been unburdened and processed. These parts are still there and experienced, but amnestic barriers once promulgated by the withheld memories are no longer causing the disintegration.
Overall, this game is wonderful and gives hope that people can engage with a healthy representation of DID and understand its traumatic roots and how to engage and help those in need.
Final Spoiler: The game ends when Dorothy turns to you and identifies you are not a therapist but actually another part of her that helped her through the journey. This is a beautiful sentiment but the goodbyes seem unnecessary.
Please support Onaemo Studios and buy Who Am I: The Tale of Dorothy!
Musings 