Video Analysis Essay on Independent Lens | Me Facing Life: Cyntoia's Story

Introduction

The video clip "Independent Lens | Me Facing Life: Cyntoia's Story | Clip 3 | PBS" revolves around the story of Cyntoia Brown, a young woman that was convicted of murder when she was a teenager at just sixteen years old. Born on the 29th January 1988, Cyntoia grew up in and lived through a disturbing series of circumstances that led her to the levels she reached and ended up being convicted for murder and robbery, and being sentenced to 51 years to life. Since she was a teen, she began getting from trouble to trouble, and each time graduating in the level of seriousness. From analyzing her clip up until her conviction, it is clear that she suffers from one or more mental conditions. This might have been occasioned by the difficult childhood she came through. Other than the cases and problems she has with her personal life, Cyntonia has a likable personality and at the end is remorseful of her actions even though she can't take anything back as it is too late.

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The events surrounding Cyntoia take place in Tennessee, the United States at the victim's house, where Cyntoia ends up shooting the victim Mr. Allen after a romping session gone bad. Cyntoia is haunted by a wide array of psychological trauma and PTSD arising from past experiences from her childhood until the, Having been sexually abused several times at such a tender age, it is no wonder she suffers from paranoid personality disorders as well as anxiety that make her hate and fear men and get aggressive when they feel threatened. This was probably the reason she ended up killing Mr. Allen. The main cause for her condition, however, goes back many generations behind her.

Cyntoia's maternal family, her biological background is marred with a wide array of psychological disorders passing down from one generation to the next and with the troubles getting worse with time, up until Cyntoia. Cyntoia's mother has personality disorders including bipolar disorders, manic depressive, suicidal thoughts, and also suffers from homicidal thoughts sometimes. These are as a result of traumas that she suffered in the past. Her entire family has been subjecting of some form of psychological disorders as we see from her brothers to her father who committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. Also, she reveals that she rarely gets along with her mother, Cyntoia's grandmother, who herself was a victim of gender-based violence when her husband was still alive. All these boil down to arrays and arrays of untreated psychological disorders that eventually culminate in the conviction of Cyntoia with the murder of Mr. Allen.

Cyntoia, on the other hand, suffers from disorders ranging from anxiety, Developmental Trauma Disorder among others. She also displays signs of paranoid personality disorder through her actions at night; she killed the victim, Mr. Allen. Even though she displays symptoms of these disorders, her education is limited in capacity to the extent that she does not realize she could be sick by any means. Her assets, however, include her likable personality as well as the honesty she displays in the events that occurred during the night of the murder as well as the events that happened in her life before, including sexual abuses and rather unpleasant events that she has been through. Furthermore, she possesses the strength of will on a high level.