Doom Patrol’s Crazy Jane is a Refreshing Portrayal of Mental Illness — and Here’s Why
WARNING: This piece discusses sexual abuse and pedophilia briefly.
I was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder four months ago.
DID is a disorder caused by severe, repeated trauma that occurred when an individual was very young, and is defined by the existence of two or more states of self, called alters by the DID community, who are generally different in behavior, personality, and thinking patterns. These alters are able to take control of the body, and when they are controlling the body, the other alters are unable to recall the events that happened during that time. It’s a bit more complex than that, but those are the main aspects of Dissociative Identity Disorder.
It made perfect sense when my therapist went over the symptoms. I’ve dealt with losing time and amnesia for as long as I can remember. As a child, my parents used to refer to me as “triplets trapped in one body” due to the fact that my behavior was always inconsistent. The staff at my school stated that they were unable to deal with me because one moment I would be dismissive and adopt a nonchalant attitude towards my homework, and the next I would focus on only homework, ignoring all other activities. I was either very talkative, and occasionally rude, to other students, or very docile and shy in my behavior, preferring to isolate myself during recess. When I got in trouble for acting out, I was never able to recall what I had done.
Initially, it was a terrifying diagnosis. Learning that other people can control your body is never a pleasant experience, but luckily, I had a point of reference that helped me feel less frightened: earlier this year, I became a fan of Doom Patrol, a show on the streaming service DC Universe that features five superheroes that gained their powers through traumatic incidents. One of those superheroes happened to be Crazy Jane, a woman who suffered abuse that caused her to develop sixty-four alters as a result of her trauma. Each of those alters has their own superpower due to scientific experimentation she faced when she was young.
Jane’s origin story is hinted at in the sixth episode, and fully revealed in the ninth episode, which I consider to be my favorite television episode of all time. The ninth episode, Jane Patrol, heavily implies that Jane was sexually abused by her father as a child. After a traumatizing event that happens in the present, Jane retreats into her own mind. With the help of another character, Cliff Steele — a former racecar driver that, following an accident, becomes a brain in a robotic body and develops a familial attachment to Jane — enters her subconscious.
Upon being transported into Jane’s mind, Cliff meets several of Jane’s alters. Some of them look like Diane Guerrero, who portrays Jane in the show, and others have their own appearance, which is reflective of experiences that many people with DID have. Most notably, he makes contact with Penny Farthing, who realizes that Jane is considering retreating into dormancy and enlists Cliff to help her.
Another common experience for those with DID is an “inner world” — a world that resides in the mind where the alters, for lack of a better term, live. These worlds can look like anything, from literal worlds to simple, singular rooms; whatever the mind deems necessary. Jane’s inner world, named the Underground, is a combination of a complex system of memories that each alter has had, as well as other locations that are useful, such as a room with holding cells where alters are “imprisoned” for a certain amount of time. Every alter seems to have their own “station” — a part of the inner world that belongs to only them — but everyone is capable of accessing the memories.
Penny Farthing takes Cliff on a journey through Jane’s memories and eventually they find her in a location called “the well”. The previous host (a term for the alter that controls the body most often), Miranda, had jumped into a well which led her into dormancy — a state in which she is unable to control the body and is confined to her station in the mind, unable to cope with the outside world. Alters, in real life, cannot die, but in the show it is a metaphor for death. Essentially, to the other characters, if Jane also jumped into the well, it would be as if Jane had jumped off of a building to kill herself.
After Cliff finds Jane standing on the platform of the well, a virtual representation of her father made out of puzzle pieces rises from the well. He pulls her down, and she enters a flashback state, claiming that no one can fight her father because he’s too strong. Cliff tries to help her, but the father grabs him and bites him in half. This seems to upset Jane, and it forces her back into the present. She screams to her abuser something I wish I was strong enough to say: “I am not afraid of you.”
The image of her father disintegrates, and they return to the real world.
Jane Patrol is one of the most respectful portrayals of a childhood sexual abuse survivor’s story I have ever seen in any media. It shows the lasting effects of trauma and how hard it is to cope with sexual abuse, while simultaneously giving Jane the power to symbolically confront her abuser and begin to heal. It’s an incredibly beautiful episode, and it shows me how much the writers truly care about representing a mentally ill character in a correct way.
Of course, not all aspects of DID are portrayed correctly on Doom Patrol, but that’s to be expected as to my knowledge no one on the writing team has DID. However, in a world full of stigmatizing and demonizing portrayals of the disorder, such as Split, Jane is refreshing. It is clear that the people behind this intriguing show have only positive intentions with Jane, and that’s something you rarely, if ever, see in media that incorporates Dissociative Identity Disorder.
I can see myself in Crazy Jane. Her existence helped me cope with my diagnosis. I am eternally grateful to the writers of Doom Patrol for what they have done.
