My opinion on the "Second Skin" Movie

To me, this movie felt very doom-and-gloom about the whole gaming community. No example could explain this better than the mother who started the 12-step program for 'addicted' gamers. She asserted that excessive gaming was equal to excessive drinking and that nearly all gamers play games too much, saying that the only way to get out of it is to go through the same 12-step program as an alcoholic. Mind you, she was a 'recovered' alcoholic herself.

Needless to say, I was absolutely horrified, especially as she talked about her son who committed suicide. I have always been interested in medicine and as I listened to her talk more, the itching in the back of my mind increased. It wasn't until after class did I realize that she was a nearly classical example of Munchhausen Syndrome, a disease in which the caretaker ends up making their patient sick. In the case of this woman, she wanted the doctors to say that the gaming was the cause of her sons manic depression. She dragged him from doctor to doctor to doctor, further upsetting him, until she found the answer she wanted to hear.

Put yourself in her sons shoes for a moment: your mother is insisting that something you take pleasure in (could be games, movies, books, music, etc) is causing your supposed mental illness and is relentless in finding someone who agrees with her, successfully further alienating you from your own family.

I hate to say it, but the woman smothering her grown child like that was more likely the cause of his suicide. Perhaps she should have backed off, realized that she, in fact, was mentally ill as well. Instead, she now is asserting her will on other gamers who (by their own testament) could have done far better on their own, not being insulted and belittled by that mentally ill woman.

Perhaps this woman needs to take a step back, adjust her focus, and see who she is and where her mental state is. It saddens me that people like that can go so long without assessing their place in the world.