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"The Eighth Child Revealed"
I was a huge fan of Digimon when I was a kid. I started watching it when I was 7 or 8 years old. By then, some of the worst elements of my abuse had been introduced, and I had florid PTSD and DID.
When I was a kid, I would inexplicably cry at this episode. I remember the first time I saw it, I kept crying off and on and I didn't understand why. Because of the amnestic barriers due to the DID and trauma, I was not consciously aware that I was being abused.
The episode is probably one of the best written ones in the series - it is about this character called Gatomon, who up until this point in the show has been a villain. She is working to kill one of the main characters named Kari on the show for her master, the evil Myotismon. In this episode, she realizes that she is supposed to be Kari's partner. She realizes this because a friend she met before she was forced to be a villain reminds her of her lost memories from before her life was shattered - that she was kind and not at all the person she has adapted into so that she can survive. The episode ends with Kari and Gatomon connecting and pledging to be there for each other.
Gatomon talks about how Myotismon hated how she would look at him with "those eyes." She (Gatomon) would get punished for the look in her eyes. I get it. The eyes show that she is still defiant inside. I was punished for this too. There is a lot of physical and other abuse implied in the brief scenes of Gatomon's past.
There are, of course, the themes of remembering lost memories... "You can remember your past without fear." Her friend, Wizardmon, spends a good amount of the episode trying to remind her of her forgotten past and encourage her to fight her aversion/fear that is stopping her from remembering her past and who she really is.
But I think what hit me the most (and what always did, even when I had amnesia for the ritual part of my life) is Gatomon's forced perpetration trauma. Gatomon is taken in by the evil Myotismon, and is changed from the kind hearted person who saved Wizardmon's life into his right hand servant, perpetrating evil in his name. In this episode, Gatomon reconnects with her self from before she was abducted and realizes that she is not evil. She reclaims her sense of goodness and her identification with who she really is. She's not a perpetrator at all. I can relate to this to an existential level; a lot of my journey of healing from ritual abuse (where I was forced to hurt others) has dealt with the exact same theme.
Gatomon and Kari at the end of the episode (where they connect with each other and vow to protect the other) reminds me of the feeling of my daily life alters and alters that were forced to participate in my ritual abuse-related double life coming together for the first time. When the trauma alters came out of the darkness and were accepted by the ones on the outside.
I can't believe that even when I didn't know why this episode affected me, it still got through to me in such a highly personal way. That episode makes me cry even now.
Did I just write an emotional post about Digimon? yes.
When I was a kid, I would inexplicably cry at this episode. I remember the first time I saw it, I kept crying off and on and I didn't understand why. Because of the amnestic barriers due to the DID and trauma, I was not consciously aware that I was being abused.
The episode is probably one of the best written ones in the series - it is about this character called Gatomon, who up until this point in the show has been a villain. She is working to kill one of the main characters named Kari on the show for her master, the evil Myotismon. In this episode, she realizes that she is supposed to be Kari's partner. She realizes this because a friend she met before she was forced to be a villain reminds her of her lost memories from before her life was shattered - that she was kind and not at all the person she has adapted into so that she can survive. The episode ends with Kari and Gatomon connecting and pledging to be there for each other.
Gatomon talks about how Myotismon hated how she would look at him with "those eyes." She (Gatomon) would get punished for the look in her eyes. I get it. The eyes show that she is still defiant inside. I was punished for this too. There is a lot of physical and other abuse implied in the brief scenes of Gatomon's past.
There are, of course, the themes of remembering lost memories... "You can remember your past without fear." Her friend, Wizardmon, spends a good amount of the episode trying to remind her of her forgotten past and encourage her to fight her aversion/fear that is stopping her from remembering her past and who she really is.
But I think what hit me the most (and what always did, even when I had amnesia for the ritual part of my life) is Gatomon's forced perpetration trauma. Gatomon is taken in by the evil Myotismon, and is changed from the kind hearted person who saved Wizardmon's life into his right hand servant, perpetrating evil in his name. In this episode, Gatomon reconnects with her self from before she was abducted and realizes that she is not evil. She reclaims her sense of goodness and her identification with who she really is. She's not a perpetrator at all. I can relate to this to an existential level; a lot of my journey of healing from ritual abuse (where I was forced to hurt others) has dealt with the exact same theme.
Gatomon and Kari at the end of the episode (where they connect with each other and vow to protect the other) reminds me of the feeling of my daily life alters and alters that were forced to participate in my ritual abuse-related double life coming together for the first time. When the trauma alters came out of the darkness and were accepted by the ones on the outside.
I can't believe that even when I didn't know why this episode affected me, it still got through to me in such a highly personal way. That episode makes me cry even now.
Did I just write an emotional post about Digimon? yes.
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