Watched last night, or at least I’ve tried to watch, the new Netflix show, Baby Reindeer.
Had high hopes and thought that this was going to be like any other psychological movie. Presumed that the plot was going to be the same, but to my surprise, the plot was different this time.
Quite disturbing, may I say..
The movie explores the real trauma of the comedian Richard Gadd, who experiences abuse, stalking, assault, and many other things from a +40 years old woman.
If they hadn’t warned me at the beginning that this was a true story, I couldn’t believed that this kind of situation existed.
To my surprise the cause of all this horrendous and dark story is guilt and the need to make people feel good about themselves.
Donny, the main character, goes through many phases. He is the empath at the beginning and then the savior who wants to escape the feeling of guilt by making the aggressor feel better.
Was hard to watch this invasion, it almost felt personal. I will remember this movie as a wake-up call for boundaries and self-esteem.
All this time I felt confusion, desperation, shame, and mostly anger, because Donny would not react, would not protect himself. He didn’t cut the relationship from the beginning. It was a slow burn.
And at the same time, I understand it, I’ve translated into my own life and I see how I’ve been like this in the past.
I’ve been through a lot of situations in my life where I didn’t stood for myself, I left myself down so many times, thinking that maybe I was wrong and the situation was not so bad.
I chose confusion over truth, and this led me to many days and nights of suffering. This movie made me look at my past, and see what I was doing wrong. I’ve remembered all the times that I permitted a person to invade my space, soul, mind, and house.
Allowing the invasion was hard and took some time, but after this phase it was much easier thinking about how can I improve their mood. And because of that, I’ve started to please them, thinking that this will get me a reward, of ‘’you’re a good girl, you’ve done everything right’’, ‘’you helped this person, you will get to Heaven’’. I was in charge of making them feel better so that I could allow myself to feel better after. Many times I’ve chosen to neglect the red flags for a much better tomorrow.
Lots of self-love, right?
Overall, this movie is a painful watch, but is worth watching just one time.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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