Current Complaint
The main character in the movie is called Anna, who suffers from abuse. The current complaint with Anna is the murder case she claims she witnessed, but everyone, including the authorities, is turning down her claims. Anna claims to have witnessed Neil killing his girlfriend, Lisa. Despite involving the FBI in the case, no one believes in Anna’s claims (Netflix, 2022). Due to the murder case that Anna claims to have witnessed, she continues with investigations to prove to the people doubting her that she was sure of what she said. However, her investigations are also turned down, which adds to Anna’s psychological problems. Although the authorities and people who knew Anna thought she was hallucinating about the murder scenes, it later turned out that they were true at the movie’s end.
History of Presenting Illness
The psychological ill-health of Anna began after her daughter, Elizabeth, was brutally killed and eaten by the killer. She has been unable to overcome the death of her daughter, who was murdered on a day when there was a heavy downpour. The death of Elizabeth came unexpectedly, and she was executed in a gruesome manner. Anna could not cope with the news of her daughter’s death, which affected her psychological well-being (Netflix, 2022). As a result, Anna develops a fear of rain and is characterized by frequent hallucinations that lead her to make wrong and poor decisions. She has also fallen into heavy drinking and even takes the drugs prescribed by her therapist alongside alcohol. Anna is overwhelmed by psychological problems and behaves in unusual and peculiar ways in all eight episodes.
Educational History
Although the episodes do not depict her educational background of Anna, she engages in activities that confirm that she is educated. For instance, her conversation with her therapist reveals that she is educated and can understand the psychological problems she is undergoing. Anna is outgoing and tries as much as possible to make friends with the people she meets. The episodes do not identify her level of education for Anna or any schools she might have attended (Netflix, 2022). However, the techniques she uses to investigate the murder of Lisa reveal that Anna has some basic knowledge about policing and how police operate. She can connect events well to try and identify the person who might have been behind the death of Lisa. However, her efforts are turned futile after the revelation that Emma, a nine-year-old girl, was behind all the murders in the eight episodes.
Occupational History
The episodes do not reveal the career or occupation that Anna might have been tied to in her life. The first episode’s opening portrays Anna as a distressed woman trying to recover from the loss of her daughter. Anna sits in the house, staring out the window, and thinks about the handsomeness of her neighbor (Netflix, 2022). She imagines falling in love with him and hallucinates having sex with him. Anna is not involved in any occupation, and her psychological condition cannot be managed by a person holding any job position or involved in the business. People diagnosed with mental health issues cannot run business activities effectively. Additionally, many businesses fear that Anna will reduce their productivity as she cannot perform simple tasks that form the backbone of a firm. Generally, Anna lacks an occupation due to her state and the risks businesses fear they might be involved by hiring her.
Social History
Although Anna wishes to have friends, especially the newcomers in the compound, her psychological condition detaches her from any healthy relationships with other people. Anna spends most of her days indoors, staring out the window. Due to her psychological condition, she becomes a drunkard and hallucinates about many things (Netflix, 2022). Her friends view her as a person who cannot think and make decisions by herself, which explains why the authorities ignore her claims of witnessing the murder through the opposite door. Anna’s social history and life deprive her of opportunities to engage with others. It is revealed in the episodes that she parted with her husband after the death of Elizabeth.
Family History
Anna was married to Douglas, but they divorced after the death of their only child, Elizabeth. On the day of Elizabeth’s death, Douglas took her for a walk, but unfortunately, she was attacked and killed. After the divorce, Anna stayed alone and had no close relationships with other family members or friends. She spends most of her time locked in the house, taking alcohol and contemplating non-existent issues. During the last episode, Anna reunites with her husband, and they sire another child.
Symptoms
The psychological problems of Anna are evident from the things she does, and the activities engage in in the neighborhood. The first symptom of psychological problems affecting Anna is the fear of rain. During the day Elizabeth was murdered, there was a heavy downpour, and since that day, Anna became fearful of rain and would faint whenever she was rained on (Netflix, 2022). Anna is affected by hallucinations that lead her to make poor decisions and imagine non-existent things. Anna takes the pills prescribed by her therapist alongside alcohol, which is a sign of a person being affected psychologically.
Description of Substance Use History
The episodes explain that mixing alcohol with her potent prescription causes Anna’s hallucinations. However, the seventh and last episode of Woman in the House states that Anna is out of wine and that she never takes medication between her imprisonment and the events of the end. The first time Anna takes alcohol is after her daughter’s burial (Netflix, 2022). She is traumatized by the death of her only daughter, and after psychological problems overwhelm her, she opts to drink alcohol. She is often drunk and spends most of her time inside the house. Anna is not depicted to have used any other drug or substance besides alcohol.
Progression of Use from Onset
Anna became addicted to alcohol and could drink several bottles daily. Despite the warnings from her therapist, Anna could not stop taking alcohol and even went ahead to take it alongside the medications her therapist gave her. Due to taking the medicines and alcohol, Anna frequently developed hallucinations that led her to make unclear and dangerous decisions. Alcohol was the only comfort for Anna because it made her pass away and forget about her daughter (Netflix, 2022). She was also lonely after parting with her husband and failing to establish healthy relationships with her neighbors. Therefore, Anna kept drinking throughout the episodes until she reunited with Douglas and sire another child.
Polysubstance Use
Unintentional polysubstance usage happens when a person ingests drugs that have been unknowingly cut or mixed with other substances, such as fentanyl. Polysubstance use negatively affects Anna’s psychological well-being because she becomes unable to coordinate her thoughts and decisions (Netflix, 2022). Anna occasionally took the drugs prescribed by her therapists alongside alcohol. She mixes the pills with alcohol and takes them, which makes her pass away and hallucinate about non-existence things. At one point, Anna is warned by her therapist to stop taking the pills with alcohol, but she turns the warning down. Instead, she increases the amount of alcohol she takes alongside the pills. As a result, she sometimes becomes more psychologically affected and uncontrollable.
Treatment History
After identifying that she is suffering from psychological problems, Anna seeks healthcare services from a therapist. Surprisingly, the therapist Anna seeks services from is her husband, Douglas. Douglas takes Anna through counseling and prescribes some drugs intended to relieve her mental health condition and help her regain normalcy. The loss of her daughter, Elizabeth, weighed heavily on Anna, and she needed a therapist’s intervention to help her improve her mental health (Netflix, 2022). Anna had not undergone mental health treatment before. The services of a therapist only became vital after she lost her daughter and became traumatized. Anna is prescribed pills but abuses them by taking an overdose and taking them alongside alcohol. These pills are presumed to be Clozapine as they possess addictive substance that often leads to their users being dependable on them.
Co-Occurring Symptoms
Anna had several co-occurring symptoms that explain the persistence of psychological conditions. First, Anna would always turn to drink alcohol whenever the thoughts of her daughter’s death flashed through her mind. Alcohol was the only consolation for her anger and sadness following the gruesome murder of her only daughter. Secondly, Anna showed evident signs of withdrawal from friends and neighbors (Netflix, 2022). She spent most of her time locked in the house and detached from conversations. Instead, she delighted in being alone and taking alcohol throughout the day. She only imagined falling in love with Neil and having sex with him, but that never happened. Her personality completely changed, and she engaged in activities that would easily endanger her life, for instance, investigating the cause of her death of Lisa.
Analysis of Behavioral Patterns
The death of Elizabeth, Anna’s only daughter, was the cause of the psychological problems she encountered in the eight episodes. Anna loved her daughter so much and delighted in spending time with her. However, she was gruesomely murdered and eaten, which affected Anna psychologically. The loss of a close family relative like a parent or child can adversely affect a person’s psychological well-being. Her psychological issues made it difficult for her to associate with other people effectively. She even developed a fear of rain because the day Elizabeth was murdered, it was raining heavily. Anna turns into alcohol and drinks several bottles of alcohol in a day. When a person becomes psychologically affected, they can quickly turn to alcohol and substance use. Instead, their psychological well-being becomes more deteriorated due to taking drugs and engaging in anti-social practices. Anna becomes anti-social and engages in activities that can easily endanger her life, like investigating the cause of death of the various people in the movie and confronting the people she thought were the murderers.
Reference
Netflix. (2022). [Netflix]. The Woman in the House across the Street from the Girl in the Window. YouTube. Web.