Welcome to our log of Diane’s video diaries. Diane makes these diaries to connect with her online friends in an honest, but highly constrained manner. (Please see World Wide Web.) Although we did not directly recommend this form of therapeutic release to Diane, we believe that it is heavily influenced by our therapy work with Diane. These diaries clearly demonstrate the great progress our treatment is making toward bringing Diane to a more stable mental state.
First Ever Vlog Diary
This diary was Diane's first attempt to connect to her online friends through a more intimate form of communication. In doing so, Diane took a tremendous first step toward reaching out from her isolated state. As you can see, this step was both tentative and shaky. It is clear that Diane wants approval from those watching the video; however, she is still extremely afraid of being judged or even ridiculed for her actions. Diane’s anxiety about the viewer’s negative perceptions is most clear in two areas of the diary. First, in her plea for the viewers to not leave if she does anything stupid. Second, during the long pauses where she is clearly dealing with some internal struggle of what to say based on her fears of what people will think. Despite these high anxiety moments, Diane successfully finishes and posts her first online Diary.
Background Music
In Diane’s second video blog, it is clear that she is attempting to generate what she understands to be “quality video entertainment” by adding background music to her vlog. Moviemakers frequently use background music to enhance the emotional timbre of the dramatic action in one or multiple scenes. To keep herself entertained at home, Diane frequently watches movies, primarily romantic comedies. The influence of movie soundtracks over Diane’s perception of “good video work” is clearly demonstrated here, though, it ultimately fails.
Diane also reveals her interest in numerology. She has a particular fascination with the numbers 7 and 13. (Discussed in more detail in the Notable Habits section, numbers.) In revealing this interest, Diane seems to be testing her self-confidence and comfort level with the vlog. She reaches a climactic moment of vulnerability when she reveals that she “would probably be dead” if her full name came to 13 letters. (It only comes to 12). Diane’s courage to reveal such inner thoughts is an enormous leap in the right direction.
How I Learned to Edit
Further pushing the theme established in Diane’s second vlog, Diane continues to explore different moviemaking techniques to create more entertaining diaries for her viewers. This decision is partially influenced by her first two vlogs. After watching her first two postings, Diane announces that she needs to find a way to polish her diary. It is clear to us in the way that Diane speaks of these first two vlogs that she is afraid she revealed too much information. She feels that the vlogs displayed certain aspects of her troubled persona that she does not want others to know about, in fear of rejection. Instead of quitting the vlog, (which we feared she may do) Diane decides to learn how to edit video. In this way, she can better control the viewers’ perceptions of her. It is clear that Diane is very excited about this newfound form of control both in the way she speaks about it and in her playful, almost flirtatious use of it in the vlog.
