by Missy Jubilee
A film about finding out that you are an unreliable narrator of your own memories.
How to divorce oneself.
To nullify the most intimate relationship imaginable.
Insert song.
50 ways to leave your lover.
A song about “getting free ” from a romantic relationship.
The song suggests a few avenues to dip down whilst trying to shake off an unworthy partner.
An unworthy partner..
Such an odd turn of phrase.
Why unworthy?
And unworthy of what exactly?
Attention?
That has to be it.
Attention takes time.
And time is the diamond more precious than the diamond.
Time cannot be mined.
Cannot be made.
Will not echo.
Won’t even bend like the light.
What am I focused on?
What is it that I am chasing?
Perhaps a thing that is missing
or has been there
but never seen?
Or felt?
Or touched
For some reason?
Script
Narrator: Why do people think I’m you?
Missy Jubilee: I don’t know.
Narrator: Yes you do.
Missy Jubilee: No I don’t.
Narrator: Say it.
Missy Jubilee: Because…
Narrator: Say it!
Because we’re the same person?
….
Who is the most powerful character in a script?
Is it the villain?
Or the hero?
Neither.
It’s the narrator.
…
Wet As Pussy
A film about being an unreliable narrator
A narrator who can’t be trusted because their recall of a
situation is compromised by self interest or self deception.
Unreliable narrators are almost always, by definition,
first-person narrators.
Tyler Durden in Fight Club is the most notable
example of an unreliable narrator in modern cinema
…
The End.
You really don’t see it until you see it.
In my case, I realized my memory was wrong.
The ending was untrue.
The part where I screamed – fuck you
Technically,
this makes me an unreliable narrator.
But I can reliably tell you what I know
about fearful avoidant attachment.
You won’t know you have it
until you know it.
But when you see it,
and you see how it plays out…
you will only ever speak of it deceitfully.
Because you’ll need to.
Because this is the essence of
fearful avoidant attachment.
It’s a defence mechanism.
It is created by a very particular relationship
with early caregivers.
Intermittently loving and fearing.
Push and pull.
I love you and I hate you.
I want to fuck you and I want to kill you.
…
This was going to be a film about
object constancy.
A lack of object constancy
is a psychological concept.
It is the inability to have any positive
feelings for a person you once cared about.
And as I was researching object constancy
I actually saw it.
For the first time.
The answer as to why
I was an unreliable narrator.
…
In my own story,
I didn’t used to feel this way about this person.
I actually seemed to have an inability
to get truly mad at this person.
No matter what they did.
No matter how much they lied.
No matter how much they deceived.
Themself.
Except that one time.
That time I stopped trying.
For one nano-second.
For one day.
For one year.
For ever.
But aside from that, when I was with this
person I couldn’t hate them.
But when I realised I did,
I didn’t say anything.
I just left.
I didn’t scream ‘fuck you’ at all.
We’re all unreliable narrators when we have
absolute belief in our self-told stories.
…
Part 2: Insomnia
Narrator: Are you getting enough sleep?
Missy : Sometimes when I sneeze, my eyes close
Most children develop ‘good enough’
object constancy by the age of three or four.
And then they just keep it.
And they keep getting better at it
throughout their lives.
However, children with parents who are
unreliable caregivers sometimes don’t.
Object constancy means a child has established
a secure enough bond with a primary caregiver…
to be able to trust that bond will remain intact.
Even when the caregiver is out of sight.
This enables the child to go out into the world…
secure in the knowledge
that somebody has their back.
and will, in fact,
be there when they get back.
This is known as secure attachment.
A subset of children with insecure attachment
will fail to ever develop object constancy.
This means they will never trust anyone.
Every day they are crucified.
Every night they are resurrected.
These people have a mix of anxious and avoidant
attachment.
I really want a relationship versus
I really fear depending on a relationship.
This is known as fearful avoidant attachment.
Fearful avoidant attachment is a defence
mechanism that keeps you from feeling…
the overwhelming emotions that could drown you.
Not feeling stops you from acting upon the
emotions that might make you rebel against…
a parent who is an unreliable narrator.
And, in this way, it keeps you safe.
There is one problem though.
Fearful avoidant attachment doesn’t
suddenly become normalised in adulthood.
Because the blinders you utilise to keep yourself
safe in childhood…
blinders such as lack of object constancy, splitting,
dissociation, avoidance – are still on.
But they are no longer keeping you safe.
In many ways, they have become
toxic and destructive.
They keep you existing in a haemorrhaged state,
unaware that you are constantly bleeding out.
Causing chaos for everyone.
But mostly for yourself.
Until you wake up with the realization
that the reliable narrator has been talking to you.
…
Epilogue
A journey into the unknown
I’ve woken up the last two mornings
with this song playing in my head
It is ‘Meet Me In The Woods’ by Lord Huron.
The lyrics make me sympathetic to myself.
And they may explain the reasons I had for leaving.
Or at least the reasons I convinced myself
that I may have had for leaving.
This song became a portal to understand how a lack
of object constancy was playing out in my life
More specifically, why I was unable to remember
any positive feelings for this person I used to care for.
Before waking up to this song…
I would greet every morning with my usual
defences – terror, heartache, confusion and denial.
When I felt these emotions…
they convinced me that I was 100% sure
I was over this person.
Again.
Just like every other morning.
Except when I would wake up 100% sure
that I once completely loved this person.
Then I would have to tell myself
that it didn’t matter.
Because they were gone.
As if that was the same thing.
Because them being gone, and my feelings for them
being gone, are two entirely different things.
Although, in my mind,
they should be, and were, the same.
This is how you know you have
fearful avoidant attachment.
And that you really do need to get some help.
Or make a film about it.
“I took a little journey to the unknown
And I’ve come back changed,
I can feel it in my bones.
There ain’t language for the things I’ve seen
And the truth is stranger than my own worst dreams”