@KittyKrawler This is long and Iām not sure it arrives. But It is an attempt to carry our conversation forward. I look forward to whatever thoughts this pulls out of you and anyone else who wishes to join.
You ask should the Crazy Jane āmoving forwardā be a lot less crazy. In Janeās circumstance, I would first assume that the word crazy refers to her DID, the fact that she has many different personalities. However, some of those personalities have demonstrated themselves to be anti-social in nature, which some people might also consider crazy. Additionally, some of her personalities have demonstrated themselves to be so far out of any earthly norm ā but maybe not out of any DC universe norm ā that those alone might earn her the title of crazy. In other words, she is many different forms of crazy.
As we move forward in this discussion, I will assume that Janeās DID operates in the manner that it is presented to us on the show, which stripped of its superhuman dressings is still not necessarily an accurate representation of DID as the current psychological profession recognizes it in the DSM. (There is validity to @laudsavidās argument regarding the criticism of DID as a diagnosis; however, I disagree with his conclusion and seeming dismissal of psychology as a whole, nor do I think any well-meaning scientist in this modern age of neuroscience would dismiss psychology and its findings as merely a matter of opinion. For one, the very fact that a person expresses suffering is a physical phenomenon which can be observed and triangulated with various other observable phenomena, but that is an entirely different discussion.)
My understanding is that dissociative symptoms often are associated with other issues, like post traumatic stress disorder. And the psychological profession tends to treat the other issues. Often when those issues have been dealt with the dissociative symptoms subside. DID as a full blown disorder carries a somewhat different and challenging history to unpack as @laudsavid has pointed out. So, letās assume that Jane moves forward having relieved the issues associated with her trauma through various therapies and whatever other treatments fit her particular needs. There is a chance that the DID would subside and she would lose all of personalities as well as her powers. Thereās also a chance that wouldnāt happen. Who would she be then?
I prefer to look at this from the Jane as a metaphor for normal human experience perspective. If we deal with traumas in our own life, do all of the selves that we have been, wish to be, and want to be subside. No. We still have our memories. We will have desires. And visions for who we could be. But what is different? Perhaps, it is that we have accepted all of those things. But, more importantly, we can recognize them when they arise in our minds. In seeing them arise, we can make a decision about how to act in the face of it. We can learn that emotions are a choice. We can learn that our past doesnāt control us. Nor does our future. Or even our present. We could literally do nothing. The only thing we canāt control is the fact that these things arise. Thoughts arise. And identities, or ways of being in the world, begin as thoughts. (The ones that donāt, we can attribute to other biology and arenāt really relevant to this line of inquiry.)
I think that Jane has clearly accepted her condition. She has accepted that all these personalities arise. But Jane could become something more powerful than the one personality she was before her trauma, and more powerful than she is as a set of fractured personalities who barely communicate with one another and demonstrate no real cooperation with each other, other than to stay out of each otherās way. She could become an integration of all.
Like we can see all of the selves we could be, have been, want to be, fear we are etc. arise in our minds, Jane can see her personalities arise, and with an integrated personality, she could access them or not. As I write this, Iām not entirely convinced that Jane is not already here, except for what she has said about them doing their own thing. Her personalities have certainly arisen in the right circumstances for their ability, and have for the most part, subsided before any significant harm or dysfunction happened. (In the comics, we at some point go into Janeās Underground and the personalities refer to, I believe, the body as their shared concern, which you could view as the mechanism by which an integration like I am attempting to describe is realized.)
Considering the fact that Jane has this intricate map of her personalities, the Underground, we could imagine that she has a greater self-knowledge than any of the characters or than many of us do. Her personalities have certainly provided the most forward momentum for the story of the show. The character serves a very valuable story function; instead of cut to the chase, we just cut to one of Janeās amazing powers, which solves the narrative Gordian knot we find ourselves in. There is a certain amount of self-actualization that comes from controlling your own narrative, which Jane is doing so often.
We certainly know that Jane has not dealt with her trauma. But how far away from integration is she? The show is inconsistent in the evidence on that so far, which leads me to believe that she has the potential for integration, but would need to resolve her trauma.
If she did so, would she still be crazy? If Silver Tongue is still threatening to slice peopleās throats with a katana made out of expletives, then, yeah, Iād say she is pretty crazy. But itās a kind of crazy Iād like to keep watching.
