Imagine your normal everyday life, then everything goes black and when you awake you’re unable to recall what happened during that time. This is what happens to Mrs. Eve White, a sweet and innocent house wife. The lapse in time, Eve White is unable to recall specific moments and it starts to cause an impact of her daily life. Her husband, Ralph drives her to meet with a variety of therapists to figure out why she is getting these headaches. The doctors that attempt to treat her; Doctor Luther and Doctor Day.
She and her husband worry due to the fact they ave a young daughter, Bonnie. Soon these episodes increase in how long they last and another Eve is brought to the surface. The headaches she had been having were from a non- diagnosed form of a mental illness. During the 1950’s, treatments and diagnosing diseases of mental health were just beginning to be noticed. In the movie, Dr. Luther asked Dr Day if he had a seen a case and he replied that he had not seen any cases, but he would be able to pick out someone faking.
Upon observation Dr. Day suggests that she is faking, until she comes back from her “spell”. Mrs. White on the first appointment states she had these terrible headaches which led to blackout periods with amnesia. Mrs. White begins to hear voices and when she is asked what the voice tells her she replies, “To do things like… ‘ leave Ralph, take Bonnie and run away. All kind of terrible things like that” (The Three Faces of Eve). She is diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder, which has been now renamed as Dissociative Identity Disorder.
Dissociative Identity Disorder “is characterized by the presence of two or more distinct or split dentities or personality states that continually have power over the person’s behavior” (Dissociative Identity Disorder). In many cases, they have at least two identities, “one … functions on a daily basis and blocks access and responses to traumatic memories, and another state fixated on traumatic memories” (Halter p. 317). The best way to understand is to describe each personality. Mrs. White as I said is the homebody wife, quiet and demure and trying to please her husband. Ms. Black is the complete opposite.
She is single, flirty, loves to go ut and sing and dance and engage in some risky behavior like drinking and sexual encounters. With her case, Jane is just right in terms of personality; she likes to go out but is stable and ready to be a wife and take care of Bonnie. During the 1950’s life was different for a married woman, the main point was for a woman to, “foster a happy marriage and steer it away from divorce” (Tartakovsky). The idea was to be supermom and raise the kids, keep the house tidy and make the husband happy. When her illness started to become a factor was when she began putting others and herself at risk.
The first incident was when her husband heard their daughter scream and Mrs. White attempted to choke Bonnie with the cords from the blind. Ralph rushes to aid Bonnie, but slaps Mrs. White for hurting Bonnie and threatens her hurt her more if she stands. Mrs. White goes through physical and emotional abuse from her husband; however, as Ms. Black she is cruel to her husband. The best example is when Dr. Luther asks if she is married and replies, “I’ve never been married. That’s for laughs, gettin’ married. You don’t think I’d marry a jerk like that? “(The Three Faces of Eve).
I doubt it is considered neglect, but the husband thinks she is faking it and the lack of support makes her act out more. The biggest stressor in the movie is her husband Ralph; he does not support her or try to understand her condition more. As I said before, he believes she can just snap out of it whenever she wants. He wants his wife back and the way things were before, which is not realistic, because she has no control of when and where it happens. Instead of worrying about Bonnie during the treatment, she goes off to live with her grandparents ntil she gets better.
Ralph and Eve White were both afraid harm could come to Bonnie. Mrs. White never attempted to hit or harm herself or anyone else, except the one time with her daughter. Mrs. White was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for two weeks and then had no spells. They determined she improved and discharged her to go back home. The admission into the psychiatric hospital and the therapy sessions were the only resources available. In the movie, it was not mentioned about what other interventions were put in place besides the therapy sessions.
However, they did try hypnosis and from reading in the book, they may have used somatic therapy as well. I believe the somatic therapy towards the end was efficient to get her to explore the trauamatic experience and allow her body and mind to emerge as one again. This movie was one of the first things that I every watched about Dissociative Identity Disorder. It was actually my mother who introduced me to this movie many years ago when she had to watch this for her nursing class, so I sat and watched with her and it became a favorite movie.
The movie shows a true story of just one patient, but gives deep insight to the struggle she faced with trying to deal with everyday things and depicts life in another time when mental health was just being brought from the shadows more. I think I have always been aware of the stigma attached to mental health as I have experienced it from both sides of the spectrum, and I want to be active in trying to reduce the stigma attached to mental health. I have said and thought about saying in many posts, the person is not the illness they are diagnosed with.
