Black Swan: Ninas Toxic Relationship With Her Mother

The movie the Black swanNina sayers is a ballerina she is young and fragile; she is the protagonist in this film, Nina is about to play the role of her dreams in “Tchaikovsky swan lake,” where she has to change her sweet girl persona, on account of her required to play both roles, those roles are a white and dark side black swan. Nina has to learn how to play both characters. But Nina, who continually strives for perfection, has a deal with her sexually aggressive director and controlling mother. This film sheds light on two important things which is sexual abuse and emotional abuse from her mother (Erica) and her director. The black swan is mainly focused on Nina, who strives for perfection for the role of the white and black swan. but the main focus in this essay is to prove that Erica Nina’s mom is to blame for her daughter’s issue. Did Erica know that her daughter isn’t mentally healthy?

The character Nina is a perfectionist so this perfection that she leads towards can either help her or end her, perfectionism is unrelated to maladaptive in sports on account of dysfunctional characteristics such as higher competitive anxiety, the present article argues that. Overall, perfectionism was associated with lower anxiety, whereas striving for perfection was unrelated to stress and more towards, her influence of adverse reactions. perfectionism in Nina may prevent the very outcomes that it seeks to promote).However, perfectionism is multidimensional and multifaceted, and only some dimensions and facets are clearly negative, harmful, and maladaptive, while others may be positive, benign, and adaptively ). Moreover, research has suggested that two major dimensions of perfectionism be differentiated a dimension which has been described as positive, healthy, or adaptive perfectionism and a dimension which has been described as neurotic, unhealthy, or maladaptive perfectionism. The negative dimensions. This is seen in Nina multiple times when she’s performing or even by herself.

Nina’s illness that she faces is schizophrenia we see this on multiple occasions, when she’s on stage she has visual hallucinations; she considers a black-clad version of herself across the subway platform, and again in the maze of the hallways of Lincoln center, even the pink stuffed animals that adorn her bedroom that she shares with her mother they seem to come alive and mock her. She conjures up fantasies; this shown in the movie when she conjures up a lesbian fantasy love scene with Lily. According to psychiatrist Lamberti ‘People tend to be scared of things they don’t understand,’ he said. ‘If you have never treated or observed a person with psychosis, it’s upsetting.’

Psychosis is a loss of a contract with the reality that includes false beliefs or delusions, and hearing or seeing things that are not there just like the making out with Lily, the stuffed animals coming to life to mock her and so forth.

Factors that caused Ninas illness to get worse Nina’s home environment plays a vital role in why her condition gets worse she’s continuously, being controlled by her necrotic mother who knows of Ninas condition but doesn’t do anything about, she makes the situation worse by putting words into Nina’s head like ”you gotta be like me” constant strive for perfection. The home environment influences learning and behaviour. Another factor that caused Ninas illness to get worse is the sexual abuse from her director. Thomas efforts her to lose control and surrender to her sexuality; that’s what she does. Thomas encourages her ‘In four years, every time you dance, I see you obsess, getting each and every move perfectly right, but I never see you lose yourself,’ Thomas says. ‘All the discipline, for what?”I just want to be perfect,’ Nina whispers back.”Perfection is not just about control. It’s also about letting go,’ he says. ‘Surprise yourself so you can surprise the audience. Transcendence — and very few have it in them.’

‘I think I do,’ she says as she leans in closer toward him and bites his lip. The psychology of sexual assault it inflicts major and psychological and physiological trauma upon victims long term effects include anxiety, depression, phobic reactions to situations reminiscent of the sexual assault, sexual dysfunction, impaired social adjustment and diminished capacity to enjoy life.

Nina isn’t enjoying life what she endured every day is more like a nightmare that she can’t wakeup up from another factor that causes Nina’s illness to get worse is her work environment, it’s where she goes every day, where her constant competition Lily is where the fights to keep her role as the lead a scene in the movie where Nina is scared that Lily is out to get her, hurt her physically Nina says ”not her she wants to replace me.” The constant fear of being replaced is stuck in Nina’s head. Her work environment is where she gets sexually assaulted. It is a toxic environment for Nina in all cases.

Does the pressures of being the lead affect her mentally and physically? Yes Nina arrives for perfection on stage, this where she conjures hallucinations of herself being the black swan that she wants to be. Nina starts hurting herself self; she injures herself in the dressing room and danced two entire sections as the black swan and then white, which includes a costume change , she passes out/goes into shock from her self-inflicted knife wound.

Possible future outcomes

Nina’s relationship with her mother doesn’t become better in fact Nina, harms herself while she does her final performance, Nina stabs herself she doesn’t die in the end but more less a part of her does, more specifically, the frail innocence she had from being under control by her mother so long this scene represents Nina becoming a woman and breaking free from her mothers control. Erica always knew that Nina was a mentally unstable paranoid schizophrenic since the time when Nina was quite young. Sometimes in these situations, where a mother is caring for a mentally ill child the child’s life needs to be strictly regimented and controlled in order to maintain stability. This could be the reason why Erica feels the need to restrict Nina’s movements and social interactions. It explains why Erica is so protective over Nina as she receives her new, intense role as the white/black swan. Receiving the new role is a precipitating incident in Nina’s life that causes her to entirely lose her grip with reality and commence her final descent into madness.

Nina’s future outcomes with her mother wouldn’t be a good one unless she learns how to think for herself. Will Nina’s disorder get better there’s a high chance that it will on account of her death in the film she loses herself, because of her mother that’s the main reason she self inflicts on herself. Her relationship with her mother was a toxic one it would never be healthy since Nina is dead and even when she was alive her mother catches her doing acts like There is a scene with Nina in the tub and she is started when she goes under water and sees blood, and then opens her eyes to see her mom on top of her. but then gets out of the water and nobody is there. While all this was hallucination, in the fact that Nina never feels fully closed away from her mom. I also think it is important that her mom would be the person to show up when she starts masturbating in the tub. (I do realize, from my memory, that there were other faces that were looking at her in the water, but her mom’s was definitely the one she got out of the tub to. This gives the hint that Nina could have been molested by Erica growing up another reason why she kills herself.

In conclusion, Erica was the reason why Ninas illness got worse, on account of making her love the way she lived, Nina lived in constant fear of her controlling. Her mother made her do ballet because she did it when she was younger, she put Nina in that kinda of environment knowing of Ninas illness, There’s a high chance Erica might have molested Nina while growing up this maybe the reason why she’s timid towards men towards how she needs to look and eat.

Works Cited

1. Stoeber, Joachim & Otto, Kathleen & Pescheck, Eva & Becker, Claudia & Stoll, Oliver. (2007). Perfectionism and competitive anxiety in athletes: Differentiating striving for perfection and negative reactions to imperfection. Personality and Individual Differences. 42. 959-969. 10.1016/j.paid.2006.09.006.
2. Edelstein, D. (2010, December 3). ‘Black Swan’: A Largely Empty Sensation. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2010/12/03/131730846/-black-swan-a-largely-empty-sensation
3. Edelstein, D. (2010, December 3). ‘Black Swan’: A Largely Empty Sensation. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2010/12/03/131730846/-black-swan-a-largely-empty-sensation
4. Moscarello R. Psychological management of victims of sexual assault. Can J Psychiatry. 1990;35(1):25–30. doi:10.1177/070674379003500104
5. ‘Black Swan’: Psychiatrists Diagnose Ballerina’s Descent. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.google.ca/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/Health/Movies/black-swan-psychiatrists-diagnose-natalie-portmans-portrayal-psychosis/story?id=12436873
6. Graham, L. T., Gosling, S. D., & Travis, C. K. (n.d.). The Psychology of Home Environments: A Call for Research on Residential Space – Lindsay T. Graham, Samuel D. Gosling, Christopher K. Travis, 2015. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1745691615576761
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