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moments-on-film · 9 months

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Moments on Film: Carmy and “Just Keep Going”

“Just keep going” is a recurring mantra in The Bear. The first time we hear it, it’s Marcus telling Sydney as he helps her clean up the spilled veal stock in S1. Cousin Michelle says it to Carmy during their poignant scene at the Christmas dinner. Carmy says it to himself by replaying Michelle’s words in his head as he awaits the results of the fire suppression test. The last time we hear it, Carmy says it to Sydney to help her focus and calm down as she’s recovering from Marcus’s outburst in the S2 finale.

I think “just keep going” has been Carmen’s personal mantra his entire life. It has had to be. And while it may have served him well in years prior, I believe it has now, finally all caught up with him.

Because of Carmy’s traumatic and abusive upbringing, he has trained himself to never properly reflect on what just happened. How could he possibly? From what we have been shown so far, his mother is extremely abusive, controlling, manipulative, and threatening. In their brief scenes together, she called him by his brother’s name, threatened him to the point that I believe she physically abuses him, and in fact slapped his face while he was very sweetly comforting her and trying to calm her down. The look on his face after being slapped is gut wrenching, mainly because, as always, there’s so much in his expression—a world of hurt and emotions, and you know he will never tell anyone about what she just did. All he can do is repress his feelings, suppress the urge to react in any way, and literally just keep going. He has to. It’s how he has survived. And it’s killing him.

Gif source: @sarcasmcloud

We still don’t know what Carmy’s relationship with his dad was like. He says he “didn’t really know him well enough to miss him.” Is this true? Or did Carmy also have to survive physical and emotional abuse, in addition to neglect from him, starting at a very young age? Either way, he’s had to keep moving forward and not look back, likely afraid of what will happen if he stops and actually does. This is another reason why he’s always scanning people’s faces, body language and tone to see if they’re mad at him, and waiting for the other shoe to drop. He has been surrounded by erratic, unpredictable behavior. He has had to think ahead, plan his next move, anticipate people’s behavior, reactions and responses so he can be prepared. He has had to live a life of propulsion, never looking back. Staying still, reflecting on the abuse he has had to survive as well as the recent trauma of his brother’s suicide could potentially cause a complete and total nervous breakdown, so he pushes on.

In the flashback scene in New York, we get another, heartbreaking example of how “just keep going” is killing Carmy. His boss is an emotionally abusive tyrant, but for Carmy to call it out, first he would have to acknowledge it. To do that, he might also have to think about and acknowledge the abuse he’s suffered, likely from his dad, certainly his mom, possibly his “uncle” Lee, even his brother. He is not ready to reckon with any of the abusive behavior in those relationships, so he keeps his head down, and does anything he can to get through the day, even if that means vomiting his unspoken feelings out of his sick and exhausted body before every single shift.

Even before New York, which—ironically and devastatingly, was supposed to be a time where he could “decompress” and escape the trauma at home, he was doing anything and everything to stay ahead of slowing down and facing what he’s been through. For years he’s been putting one foot in front of the other, scared to look down, lest he fall off the tightrope.

Presumably since after high school, he’s been traveling around, and in constant motion. Numerous restaurants in California, Copenhagen, then New York. Carmy has so much unprocessed trauma from multiple sources that has never really dealt with, he’s literally been on the run. He has been distracting himself and filling the void by throwing himself into work, and in the words of cousin Michelle at Christmas dinner, he has, in fact, been, “running around like crazy.” He might change his location, but his unprocessed trauma follows him everywhere he goes, causing him paranoia, anger, shame, guilt, self loathing, dread and fear. It’s also made him sick.

The only way to escape is to never be idle for a second, which is why he’s in constant motion. Carmy as a character is rarely completely still. His hands are constantly moving, in S1 in particular he is perpetually running his hands through his hair, feeling his forehead, smoking, and fiddling with his spoon. He hands tremor and tremble when there’s nothing to occupy them. None of this is an issue when he’s scrubbing floors or furiously chopping vegetables. He can be so unsettled and it all stems from the need to stay in motion to distract himself.

Life in a kitchen can easily swallow someone’s entire life. There’s always so much to do—from the prep to the cooking, the tasting, managing staff, actual service, cleaning, ordering supplies, and doing it all over again to keep the place running. Orders come in that have to be filled. It’s relentless, and at the highest level, requires complete and utter focus to be completed successfully. Natalie correctly points out the toll the restaurant takes on Carmy in her first scene with him. “It’s eating you alive”, she tells him. And it is. In S1, Carmy talks about how much time they would spend cleaning at The French Laundry. It’s hard to let your mind wander when you’re in motion and just keep going, so that’s exactly what Carmen does.

The rare moments where Carmy does pause and rest, he has life threatening night terrors, crippling nightmares, and horrible anxiety. In a prior post I analyzed Carmy’s visibly elevated vital signs in S1 and S2. He is so repressed and stressed out it impacts his entire body. With no outlet, his unresolved trauma, undiagnosed PTSD and extreme anxiety manifests inwardly and makes him ill. His dangerously heightened pulse and heartbeat are often visible onscreen. He has trouble breathing. He’s constantly chewing tums or chugging Pepto Bismol to calm his stomach. One of the few items in his apartment visible to Sydney as she enters is a giant bottle of ibuprofen. As I mentioned before, he often looks sick. There’s so much tension coursing through his body sometimes he actually looks like he’s burning up with fever. He’s not taking care of himself. He’s not eating well, and he barely sleeps. His coat is too thin for the freezing Chicago weather, and that’s when he actually wears it to go outside. He blinks his eyes hard in stressful moments, which is a trauma response. The way his body reacts during his panic attacks is frightening. There have been several moments where he looked like he was going to collapse and have a heart attack.

He has been running around, over working himself, repressing his emotions and feelings, neglecting his own needs, health and happiness and in constant motion for probably the past decade. As I detailed in a prior post, Carmy is lost at the present because he’s never allowed himself to slow down and find out who he really is and what actually makes him happy. He’s been in complete and total survival mode.

There is no way he can keep up at the level he has been operating and not completely collapse at some point. I think that’s a huge reason, subconsciously, that he slipped into the relationship with Claire. Among other reasons, he is exhausted and it was a way out and seemingly a soft place to land. She is also probably the first person to physically touch him, maybe in years. Of course he wanted to lean into the potential comfort and care that he thought she might be able to provide. He needs touch and tenderness so desperately that he invited her to the restaurant, his sacred space, mere seconds after she stroked his face, a turning point in their “relationship.”

Claire initially allowed him just enough relief that he wasn’t about to explode. However, in the end, it proved to be such a distraction that it pulled him even further from reality, his duties, and people who he actually should have been spending time with, namely, Sydney. The lack of healthy balance caused him increased anxiety and much more harm than good. His panic attacks actually increased and got worse during his time with Claire. She also only served to unhealthily unearth the past he’s been running away from by bringing painful memories he’s tried to suppress screaming to the surface.

I am very worried about where a potential next season(s) will take Carmy, emotionally and physically. He is headed for a serious crash and burn if he thinks he can just ignore his numerous health problems and keep running from his past. He is only human. They will all catch up with him and I believe they already have.

I’m also worried because we know the writers like to do call backs and tie threads together. Plot points, relationships and lines are never wasted. I’ve said in my posts prior to S2 how badly I think Carmen needs to see a Doctor. The fact that Claire is one, but it never factored into S2 is so odd to me. This is what makes me think we perhaps have not seen the last of Claire.

Carmy physically exhibits crippling distress, and noticeably elevated vital signs, in the form of shallow breathing, rapid pulse, pounding heartbeat and a face that often looks flushed with fever. He actually had a “gnarly” panic attack while he was with Claire. He needs medical attention, but we were never shown her acknowledge this or make a recommendation about the help he needs, or give him tips to calm down, apart from essentially “just ignore your problems and they’ll go away.” This is all so strange to me because Carmy is not well, Claire’s an ER Doctor in residency, and she experienced him during a horrible panic attack. What is the first thing they do at the Emergency Room? Check your vital signs. Can’t she see he’s sick? Wouldn’t she want to help him, personally, not to mention professionally, to get treatment and ease his suffering? It doesn’t make any sense to me.

He has, however, found a new way to self soothe in his most painful moments to calm down his nervous system—with visions of the one thing that helps him stabilize and breathe, visions of Sydney.

I really hope that the next time Carmy and Claire see each other isn’t because he’s being brought to the Emergency Room where she’s a Doctor because of something terrible, like an illness, accident, or major health emergency. That said, I think he is on the brink of a crisis. A major health issue might be the only way for him to stop and actually slow down enough to rethink his life and how he’s been spending it these past years.

Season 2 ends with Carmy believing he needs to double down on his mantra and “just keep going”like he always has, push himself to the max, and sacrifice his entire existence to run the restaurant, but that is not sustainable. It is not service, it is servitude. I believe he is exhausted, burnt out and headed for disaster from living this way for the past decade. He’s a master at masking that he’s barely hanging on by a thread. This is a huge reason why Sydney is his lifeline. Unlike Claire, who’s supposedly “known” Carmy for years, within days Sydney accurately diagnosed Carmy’s problem (S1E2) “you need help”, she told him. She saw through what he was trying to hide, to what he needs most. She caught him before he fell and she’s been holding him this whole time. I honestly believe that by walking in the doors of The Beef, Sydney saved Carmen’s life, but neither one of them truly realizes it yet.

I really hope for the sake of Carmy’s physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health he will see that slowing down, coming to terms with the abuse and trauma he’s survived, taking care of himself, resting, and getting professional help is a life and death situation for him.

Carmen needs to realize that he hasn’t and isn’t living a full life with the mantra “just keep going.” It has worked so far as a survival tactic but he deserves and needs to live a life where he can be healthy, fulfilled and happy. A life where he’s not just going but growing. I hope he realizes this before it’s too late. For the sake of his health the stakes are extremely high and he has no time to lose. Every second counts, indeed.

©️moments-on-film 2023

#the bear #the bear fx #carmen berzatto #carmy berzatto #sydney adamu #syd adamu #carmy x sydney #syd x carmy #my thoughts #moments on film

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cpunkhobie · 11 months

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Pretty much the whole post comes from Ballad of a Rat Man because of course it does

#splinter # ‘huh I feel so attached to glory that I shall lie to my son and put his prized possession into a demolition derby simultaneously using it as #an excuse to hang out with my son I otherwise have a hard time connecting with. this is a totally normal thought process to have and does #not come from 100s of unprocessed traumas and emotions At Fucking All!' my baby girl GO TO THERAPY #…... I needa screenshot those tags and put them into an analysis one second (link)

Aight ok so I'm not going to talk about each individual trauma that lead to Splinter's thought process in this episode because that is a post for another day, but I do wanna focus on why Splinter and most parents don't process their trauma until after their kids' development years.

So the thing is that before his sons's were teenagers, despite all of his fucking trauma Splinter literally Wasn't In a Place to be able to process his trauma and raise 4 kids. That's not something you can do while having to be responsible for 4 other peoples lives, especially as a single parent. Your own emotional wellbeing and focus on general wellbeing is something you have to sacrifice in that situation. He physically does not have the time to process his emotions AND keep his sons alive and well when they are defenseless babies and young children who cannot safely think for themselves.*

That's also why his son's emotional developments are stunted, which is something that unfortunately was unavoidable given their situation. Something I've delved deeper into in this post(link). Because you can't neglect the emotional needs of yourself without also neglecting the emotional needs of others. Without an understanding of your own thought processes, unhealthy behaviors then get put onto, and in the case of parenting, echoed onto other people. And in parenting how much your kids copy you is something that can be both fascinating and painfully detrimental.

In Splinter's case repressing his own emotions to raise his sons taught his sons to also hide, repress, and isolate themselves and their feelings from others. Something that sews this blanket of distrust and suspicion across his entire family. And it sucks, because even if Splinter had gotten a chance to process this inherent distrust of others built into him by his family's generational trauma, there's a very slim chance that this emotional repression wouldn't have gotten passed down anyway.

Because again, this emotional neglect is something that was unavoidable. And that's the worst fucking part about it, the fact that no matter what the Hamato family is always set up to distrust each other. And like, god something about that just fucking gets to me man. Especially when you look at the Finale and movie because the whole thing really is just about trust.

"You said you wanted to hang out with us, you lied!" "I did not lie about wanting to hang out with you..." I just. Fuck dude, it's about integrity and it's about trust. And it's about half truths and fear.

Splinter lied to his son not because he didn't want to hang out with him, it's because he was terrified of further analyzing his feelings to find out what they really mean. How that lust for glory comes from a long history of never being able to live up to expectations, and then having that be used against you in an abusive relationship.

Big Mama's glorification of Yoshi in the Battle Nexus was never about glorifying him, it was about objectifying him. And using his insecurity as a power-move that makes sure he stays in her control even years later. It keeps him as her thing that she can use. Ough I could so go more into this but that's for a later date. More about this specifically here(link) and here(link).

Looking for a deeper understanding of his emotions would mean learning or teaching himself from scratch how to do something he hadn't done in years if ever.** It would mean really having to pick apart his trauma and thinking "where does this lust for glory come from." And the truth is that lust for bright glory comes from a dark, dark place. Lush with disappointments, inadequacies, and fucking abuse trauma. And that's terrifying so he lies. And what's the harm in that if it's an excuse to hang out with his son right? A son he already has a hard time connecting with for *gestures to the above* but also because his son is autistic.

It's about a fundamental misunderstanding of your family members but a lust to better connect and understand them. And that's what the Ballad of Rat Man is about, it's about choosing to connect with your family over hiding from your traumas. It's about the horrifying ideal of being known.

It's not just about Splinter seeing Donnie but it's also about Donnie seeing him. It's about seeing his dad in a way he hadn't seen him before, an at least insecure if not deeply hurt person . And it's about him finding understanding and connection and remorse with that. About understanding if not where that pain comes from, at least understanding that it's there; and that it's a pain they both share. It's about trust, and integrity. And kicking butt and taking names !!!!

And yeah I think that's it

*god I just needa cry abt this part for a bit. Like as a parent it's your job to teach your child how to think for themselves which is something that is so hard because it also admits having to let them go and that is so fucking hard both for the parent and the kid. God. The way I phrased that made me sound like a parent I'm literally a teenager

**the something I'm referring to being processing his emotions

#rottmnt analysis #rottmnt #jonah with a megaphone #rise tag #Donnie #splinter

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ectoplasmic-entity · 6 days

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Hi, hello, I was wondering if you could give us more of your own headcanons about Dan? I love seeing everyone's different variations of him and how they portray him !

Hey, hey! 👋

I've basically attached myself to Dan, for comfort reasons I think, it's just in recent years that I've started thinking more about his character. Specifically how The Ultimate Enemy frames him as being evil... just because.

That hasn't sat quite right with me. When I look back at the episode now, Dan didn't seem all that interested in "world domination" and more so just fucking stuff up for the hell of it. The largest reason being unprocessed trauma from watching his family die. The emotional overload from Danny coupled with some of Vlad's worst characteristics was probably too much for Dan to handle (quick fyi, I consider Dan to be separate from Danny and Vlad, that he formed from their remains after a failed overshadowing attempt by Phantom).

Having literally no support system, Dan did the one thing he felt he could only do at this point, was lash out. A singular body with the budding powers of a teenage hybrid with the immense capabilities of a fully grown hybrid probably gave him a sense of control and the rush of getting his anger out. Everything around him, he was apathetic to, only that as long as the world knew he was angry (and hurting).

I wondered if in some way, Dan secretly wished someone knew why he was angry and hurting. And that they... would care. It's something he viciously represses when it crops up. Opening himself up to such painful emotions and memories is, unfortunately, still too much for him. So he doesn't bother, at least, until one day, those emotions will implode.

Dan's logic is that he has to be strong no matter what, and show no weakness. I think he mentioned it in the AGiT novel too.

I mentioned it a bit here as well.

Another little tidbit that came up recently is Dan's appearance changing somewhat due to so many years of mental and physical strain. Namely, his white hair getting a slightly darker tint to it.

#ask #anonymous #danny phantom #dan phantom #dark danny #headcanon #zone culture

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alchemyofmaya · 6 months

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Emotions are energy. Get up and move. Feel the feelings at the root. Where in your body does your anger show up? Where in your body do you hold years of repressed grief? When you feel joy, where in your body do you feel that sensation radiate?

Healing and elevating is not just a mental thing. You can’t think your problems away, and you can’t stay stuck dwelling on the past either.

Your thoughts hold you hostage to a story that you can rewrite at any moment, but since everything is energy (even your thoughts) you have to release the ‘pressure’ or the energetic charge.. from emotions we never processed (from trauma, unprocessed experiences etc etc) in our muscle memory, so when similar experiences occur that illicit similar emotions, causing the same emotional reactions to occur. This causes both mental/physiological effects of the initial trauma/situation (root cause) to be relived in the present moment — it’s like a whole system flare up, every single time.

To truly heal and be whole and be fully present in life now, as a balanced person, you have to feel and release it all. Let go of the narrative. And start a whole new book.

#mental health #energy healing and balancing #cathartic release #emotions are energy in motion #spirituality #ascension #enlightenment #the divine cosmic play of consciousness #christ consciousness #new earth #age of aquarius #new age #spiritual #writing #awakening #healing mind body and soul

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acourtofthought · 6 months

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Hi! A question, do you think something happened off screen between ACOWAR and ACOFAS that made Elain distance herself from Lucien, after she invites him to Velaris?

Anyway, love your blog☺️❤️

Thank you for your message!! ❤️

I think what happened with Elain is similar to what happened with Nesta.

During the war emotions were really low then really high. They were surrounded by death and devastation and realizing that they may not all make it out alive. That was followed by them winning the war coupled with what I'm guessing was a sense of elation.

That's not really a great time to be making decisions.

I don't think Nesta had fully come to terms with being made fae but when she thought the King was going to kill both she and Cassian, her unprocessed trauma wasn't the focus. All that mattered was saying her "truths". But once things settled after the war, all the feelings she had repressed came roaring back (not to mention coming to terms with the death of her father and her history with him) and she was no longer in a position to focus on what she felt for Cassian.

And with Elain, she was turned fae, was confused by her visions, was rejected by her fiance and then immediately witnessed her first war and had to stab a man (not to mention the loss of her father who she was extremely close to). Once she realized her friends and family were all alive at the end of ACOWAR, I think it was easy to focus on the good stuff, to show gratitude for the second chance they all were given and that good will extended to Lucien because in those moments, I don't think she was plagued by her trauma. So the Elain not struggling found it natural to invite Lucien to Velaris.

But once the initial "we won the war!" euphoria wore off and all the past hurt and trauma (along with new traumas) again became the focus, I think Elain retreated into herself and away from Lucien because she wasn't in a place to get to know him. Really, only 7 months had passed since she lost her entire life in the human lands, lost her father, lost her fiance, killed someone, found out she had powers, etc.

If your real life friend had a broken engagement, had her body violated and experienced the death of a parent, would you be encouraging her to jump into another lifelong commitment with someone else after less than a year?

So while it's a shame that Lucien was the collateral damage after having been given hope, it's really smart of Elain to focus on herself and discovering herself as she now is in this new world with everything that had happened. And if that means entertaining a little crush that's not all serious in the way a mating bond is, that's ok. If it means she's not ready to get to know Lucien because getting to know Lucien pretty much means getting to know your next possible husband, that's ok too.

Do I wish she would have been a little more open with Lucien? Definitely. But....it would be a strange story if the author had the two characters sit down and have a mature discussion about how they're not ready to get to know one another just yet. There's no angst or drama in that so it's understandable why SJM wrote both Elain and Nesta's characters pulling away with no explanation given. It creates more excitement when we're arguing back and forth over the "Will they? Won't they?" of Elucien without having any idea what it is she's thinking.

But just like Nesta finally processed her trauma in her book and accepted her mate, there's no reason to think we won't see the same for Elain in her book.

#pro elucien #elain archeron #lucien vanserra #acotar theory

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buck-yyyy · 2 years

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okay so i found this a couple days ago while reading tgf but i just gotta post it now:

he’s realized.

this is slightly contradicting to what he says (but he’s an unreliable narrator so i’m talking half of what he says with a grain of salt), but i will forever believe that his obsession with pippa was not love, but rather a combination of unprocessed trauma, trauma bonding, and repression.

the depiction of his total obsession with her is NOT a depiction of what unrequited love feels like. it was desperate, panicked, and laced with his hurt relating to the death of his mother.

he subconsciously replaced his idealized version of his mother with an idealized version of pippa.

remember from the beginning of the book, when theo’s dad makes him go to his mom’s apartment and starts talking about how he made mistakes in their marriage, but that theo’s mom wasn’t so great either, and how he gets kinda defensive?

he’s preoccupied by the painting, but the line ‘not trusting myself to reply’ implies that he knew that he’d say something he’d regret out of an emotional reaction.

obviously a large piece of that is knowing that his father is an aggressive drunk who treated his mother like shit, and clearly continues to do that even after her death. however, it also plays into the repeated idolization of his mother- and the only other character we see that with is pippa.

for the majority of the book, he has nothing negative to say about her, only mentioning her flaws as a way to convince himself that theo and theo alone was worthy of her love for loving her DESPITE her flaws.

he only mentions pippa or his mother’s flaws when it benefits his stance in a situation- his mother when he’s actively uncomfortable with his dad, pippa when he’s creating a version of himself that his her savior simply for loving her.

i think it’s interesting that only after reconnecting with kitsey does he start to recognize his obsession with pippa as something unhealthy- because that timeline also aligns with this quote, where he later realizes that his reintegration into the barbours was the beginning of his… recovery? that’s not the right word, perhaps new mindset? you know what i’m trying to say.

ignore my shitty underlining i can’t draw a straight line to save my damn life

theo isn’t narrating the story as it goes, he’s retelling it from the perspective of someone who has experienced everything he’s describing and is looking back.

so knowing that he only moved past his obsession with pippa AFTER being reintroduced to experiencing kindness and finding people he felt at home with, at the same time as realizing that his “love” for pippa was interlaced with trauma and grief for his mother, really implies that it was never love at all, but rather simply trauma bonding as a way to process the grief from losing his mother.

#the goldfinch #theodore decker #theo decker #can you tell i’m proud of this analysis?

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ask-ursa-tonypeter · 15 days

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[fic: db] hi Ursa! Let me start of by saying I’m obsessed also also you talked about how both Cured-Tony and Peter’s tendency to push down any of the residual incestual desires but since they’re super not emotionally great and broken, what circumstances do you think are needed for them to lean more into this? Is there any other way for Peter to heal and maybe get some happiness after the fact that involves a good fuck? My pessimistic little heart says no but I’m hopeful! - des

[[🐻ursa interlude🐻

WELL for all that Peter is trying to repress it he is also an impulsive teenager coping badly with trauma so I think there's every possibility that it wouldn't stay under wraps (even if a few years down the line) either because he would tearfully and/or angrily admit it to Tony as essentially an act of emotional self-harm (expecting Tony to be disgusted/confirm all his bad feelings about himself etc.,) or he would spiral in his need to recontextualize the experience to the point of legit just actually asking Tony to fuck him sweet and tender again but without any subterfuge being involved this time, sldkfj.

As far as a healing/happy outcome from any of the scenarios where Tony goes through with it… ehhh!! I think "stable" is the best they could do under those circumstances, where they kind of just make a life together built on this premise that they went through something unbelievably fucked up together that no one else would ever be able to understand/that they wouldn't even be able to talk about with another person.

It wouldn't be healthy, and there would always be this undercurrent of mutual shame and codependency involved, but it would be something… reliable and "comfortable" and genuinely loving? If built on a foundation of unprocessed trauma and quiet unhappiness with themselves.

I'm sorry everything with these two is also such a bummer lmao I promise if I ever think of a way to write a happily-ever-after sequel I will do it]]

#fic: double blind #meta #ursa interlude:#also thank youuuu 💖

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sokkastyles · 2 years

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Since I've seen some debate about Azula being able to produce lightning and that conflicting with what Iroh says about how you have to have peace of mind to make it work:

The thing about Azula that I think a lot of people don't get is that she compartmentalizes a lot of her emotions, because she sees them as weaknesses. She has no problem shooting lightning at her brother because she is not conflicted about killing him. She's got just as much rage as Zuko, but she only lets it out at certain moments. You see glimpses of it when she screams at Iroh not to interrupt her, or when she threatens her soldiers when they question her, but then it's gone just as quickly as it appears. And the thing is, someone like that is often more dangerous because their emotions are unpredictable. Azula has even more unprocessed trauma than Zuko, she's just good at repressing it.

And by the end of the series, Zuko has dealt with a lot of his anger whereas Azula has not, and is feeling the effects of having repressed her emotions for so long. Zuko is very controlled in the last agni kai, whereas we see Azula losing control and becoming more disheveled and angry because she knows she's losing, and she's never learned to cope with any kind of failure, the way Zuko was met with failure again and again and had to learn to pick himself up.

I have a theory that the reason Azula did not try to shoot lightning at Zuko before he goaded her into it is because she no longer had the peace of mind for it. She's not as confident in her ability to beat Zuko, and she's started to realize that the identity she built about herself in relation to her father and Zuko ("you can't treat me like Zuko!") is false.

So when Zuko goads her, Azula knows that she can't shoot at her brother, but she also can't admit her own weakness, so she aims at someone she is not conflicted about: Katara.

After that, and after Zuko gets hit, we no longer see her worried like she was when she was fighting Zuko. She goes into full cackling villain mode while shooting lightning at Katara. She embraces the "monster," because if she's a monster she doesn't have to care.

Then, of course, when Katara defeats her, and she is captured, all that repressed emotion comes crashing down on her.

#azula #zuko #katara #lightning bending #the final agni kai

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d0llyxtears · 1 year

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My parents are so dismissive and invalidating…. Especially about my trauma

“ if you constantly dwell on it you’ll never get better “

“ I’ve had a bad life to but I don’t go moping about it all the time “

“ you actually need to try to get better “

“ I feel like a bad mom /I’ve feel like I’ve failed because you’re so sad “

“ you need to let it go/let go of your anger “

“ you need to forgive him “

“ let’s talk about it later/we’ll talk about it tomorrow “

“ stop being a victim “

“ you need to forget about that “

“ stop thinking about it all the time “

“ was it really that bad “

“ I don’t think adhd is a disability “

“ you need to start helping yourself “

“ school sucked for me too you know “

“ school is hard for everyone/ everyone goes through hardships “

“ think of the positives “

I starting to really hate my parents… all the dismissive comments, all the invalidation… all the not acknowledging my pain and just wanting me to “ get over it “ “ get better “ already

I’m so fucking tried of it all …. They rushing me through my healing process, telling me to get over my trauma from my brother ( and also including my trauma from being emotionally abused in a psychiatric hospital.. multiple times and my trauma from bullying/public humiliation in school) , think adhd isnt a disability that causes significant distress in people if untreated/under treated … aka ME …..

They don’t understand that Im mentally stuck In my trauma… those memories haunt me everyday .. I haven’t left those moments…. Im still there!!!

I just wish they’d understand!!! Im trying to get through it but its hard because I have so much repressed trauma that has gone unprocessed/untreated for YEARS …… so sorry that Im even more difficult to deal with now …. Sorry that my pain and hurt is such an inconvenience to you !!

I hate them … they’re so cruel!!! You think YOU don’t want to deal with my emotions and problems IMAGINE ME , IMAGINE HOW TIRED I AM BEING THE PERSON FEELING AND EXPERIENCING THEM ALL

GOD I HATE THEM !!!!!

It’s so awful….. why can’t I just feel validated and safe and … why can’t someone just see my pain , acknowledge it !!

#tw vent #actually traumatized #emotionally abused #bad parents #invalidation #negative tw #tw implied abuse #actually cptsd #actuallyabused #actuallymentallyill #actually adhd

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libbee · 2 years

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8th house in astrology and the Babadook movie

In the movie "Babadook" the lady main character is mother to a son whom she despises. She has repressed trauma and complex that manifest in the form of mental illnesses and emotional pain. She gradually has a mental breakdown and a psychological rebirth. The children book that she draws could be her intuitive mind perceiving the glimpses and visions of the future. The Babadook is her shadow self that she has drawn and that she can see. The "ghost" is the emotional dysfunction, complexes, paranoia and psychosis. When she confronts the Babadook, we see a light flashed upon her and the Babadook screams at her. After this, she becomes a new mother who loves and cares for her son. She keeps Babadook downstairs in basement and feeds her earthworm. Earthworm seems to be the disgusting, ugly and scary revelations of the shadow that we hate to see in ourselves but we only find them when we dig deeper. When I saw this movie, the first thing that hit me was "8th house theme!".

In spiritual and healing community, we are taught that after healing our trauma, we are full of love and life. We are extra positive and happy people spreading joy and laughter in the world. This is false. This is delusional expectation. We never get rid of the trauma, we learn to tame the trauma and keep feeding it. Trauma becomes the source of self reflection. Self reflection never ends. The shadow is a part of you. The trauma is a part of you. This movie shows that even after psychological rebirth, mom still harbours her shadow but does not fear it. This is integration of the shadow.

You have to constantly knock the doors of the shadow and not fear what you see in there. The process of healing is messy and destructive. There is no healing without self destruction. It can be an isolated process. It can be a scary process. When we heal ourselves, we feel the emotions in our body. Moon in 8th house natives have the ability to feel intensely. The intensity is akin to bugs crawling under your skin. The ecstasy, the sadness, the anger, the rage, every feeling can drive you crazy. Some of these people mistakenly call themselves an "empath" but they are just hypersensitive people with low self esteem and unprocessed trauma.

8th house in astrology is the door to death and rebirth. Most important is to not fear death. To not fear confronting the unknown, the unseen, the unheard. In physical world, it is dematerialization. In psychological world, it is the making unconcious conscious. The 8th house is a scary house. It is the house we dont want to enter. This house has potential to bring greatest misfortunes. conversely, this house can also bring unparalleled fortune.

The 8th house native must not fear letting go of the past self. They must not fear transformation. These natives have the most trauma and are the most affected by it as well. A lot of people face trauma but remain unaffected or show little effects but these natives are deeply impacted by trauma. They are never the same after each trauma. They are the ones who run therapy centers and pay psychiatrist salaries.

8th house natives often have complex traumas going on in their lives. Mental health issues, parental mental health issues, relationship issues, career issues--they have all of it going on at once. Many of these natives turn to philosophy to face life. In this world of billions of humans and billions of animal species and what not, these natives feel incredibly alone, lost and confused. The world is quite too materialistic for their taste. People are too superficial. Like in Babadook, all side characters do not and cannot relate to the life of the mom because they are living such different life themes.

In this movie, mom is annoyed at her son. She hates him. Not just because he reminds her of her deceased husband but also because she projects her own negative traits on his son. Her son is the annoying, codependent, irritating, clingy, needy inner child that she is. After her husband's gone, she finds herself desperate for her rock figure. This often happens to venus in 8th house girls before they learn to have self esteem and self concept.

Sudden departure of a loved one is such an 8th house event. It transforms your life. It changes everything overnight. It happens suddenly and out of nowhere. Your lifestyle changes, for good or for worse.

The mom is a nurse in the movie and works at a hospital. This is also an 8th house theme. Anything to do with misery, death and loneliness is 8th house place. She has a colleague who likely hits upon her and brings her flower. She remains indifferent to his advances but he doesn't explicitly show romantic interest. He sympathizes with her. This is probably what we all need during healing process. Just someone to be there, to listen, to validate, to acknowledge, to care.

Mom is not a sociopath. She shows remorse for yelling at her child. She is just grieving. Grief is an emotion closely tied to 8th house too. 8th house always makes you lose something or someone. You never really overcome that emotion. This emotion is your Babadook.

#astro observations #astrology observations #astrology #astro community #shadow self #astroblr #occult #8th house #scorpio woman #moon #astrology and mental illness #dark astrology

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denimbex1986 · 2 months

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'3.5 Stars

An intimate portrait of a love-hungry, troubled, lonely soul emerges from Andrew Haigh's enigmatic psychological drama. All of Us Strangers tells viewers that unprocessed trauma and repressed feelings will eventually find their way out.

How long can we suppress the grief and maintain the appearance that everything is fine? How does a repressed feeling or secret affect us and what effect can the creative process have on all of these?

Screenwriter Adam (Andrew Scott) lives in an East London tower block. He is working on new material, for which he goes back to his childhood memories, including his great trauma, the loss of his parents. This process starts something in him, with the old memories and trauma coming to the surface, he loses touch with reality.

It begins a journey between the present, the past and the imagination.

Andrew Haigh's protagonist is the embodiment of the lonely and alienated modern man who has to deal with years of pain. In one of the film's storylines, Adam returns to the family home, the home of his mother and father (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell) in the London suburb of Sanderstead, where he finds them as he remembers them. After that, Adam returns to them several times, but the purpose of his visits is not only the connection, but also an unfulfilled confession, the man's coming out. Haigh delicately touches on the exciting premise of Taichi Yamada's 1987 novel Strangers , while reshaping the underlying work in his own language.

In the dreamlike fabric of All of Us Strangers, not only the boundaries of fantasy and reality are blurred, but also the time planes of different ages.

We meet the parents' selves from the 80s in the family home, where time has stopped, and Adam, who stands out in a dual role, appears both as an adult and as a child. Although he hides from his parents in an adult body and tells about his current life, at night, when he can't sleep, he escapes into the bed between them like a small child. The meetings with the parents are full of emotional scenes, but the dynamics of the storyline sometimes become predictable, so the mystery disappears.

Another thread of the story revolves around a romance between Adam and his neighbor Harry (Paul Mescal). An intimate, emotional, deep relationship develops in the trauma-filled, haunting story. The two lonely men are similar in many ways, for example in finding a partner after a long time.

They are not only lovers, but also soul mates: Harry is a sure point in Adam's life, who strengthens the man in himself.

Although their relationship seems real, Harry's existence - as well as that of his parents - is questioned at one point. His character can represent many things alongside Adam: he can be the rational half of the protagonist, who pulls him out into reality at the right moment, but at the same time he can also be a wishful dream as a male image and a symbol of the relationship. Adam's empty life and troubled inner world are suddenly filled with desire and love thanks to his partner Harry and his parents.

Thus, in addition to the psychological film, we also see a family and a romantic drama unfolding in parallel.

This diversity is also reflected in the visual world. Cold colors, an empty environment (in Adam's current home, for example) and ethereal music are more typical of the present. The counterpoint to this is the parents' house, which is more characterized by warm colors and a sense of nostalgia. The childhood house is also interesting because the British writer-director filmed these scenes in his own childhood home.

A cruel confrontation with reality is the conclusion of the film, which does not hold any resolution, but rather points out the seriousness of Adam's condition. It can be interpreted as an unfulfilled love story, a cry for help from a broken mind, or a transcendent love story.

He uses a similar narrative style to portray the inner world of his protagonist in Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Lost Girl , in which a beach vacation takes a dark turn when Leda (Olivia Colman) begins to be haunted by her troubled past after witnessing the disappearance of a little girl on the beach. In the end, he finds the child, but the despair of the young mother deeply upsets him. If

All of Us Strangers tells about the loss of parents from a child's point of view,

then this film approaches the topic from the parent's side with the twist that in this case Leda struggles with remorse for having left her family alone for years as a mother.

Also tells an intimate yet mysterious parent-child relationship pieced together from memory fragments Charlotte Wells Once upon a summer - oh. The film is a melancholic, at the same time happy, yet full of tensions and internal conflicts fabric, in which we get to know the burdened, mentally challenging life of the father (Paul Mescal) through his daughter's retrospective. As in the case of Maggie Gyllenhaal's film, parents need help here too.

Moreover, you don't have to look long into Haigh's work to find similar themes.

His first feature film, The Weekend , is also about two gay men whose relationship starts as a one-night stand, but soon develops into much more. The film also deals with the relationship between young men and their parents.

Haigh likes to play with time planes and fantasy in his new film. This also appears symbolically in his film 45 Years , whose heroes are sent back to the past by an unexpected, disturbing news. While the husband is haunted by memories of a buried relationship, the wife immerses herself in her fantasy. The sensitive story similarly revolves around the themes of grief, forgetting, forgiveness and love.

It is typical of recent years that many psychological films are made,

which focus on the parent-child relationship or the relationship between lovers, and show the internal struggles of their characters in their thematic or narrative style. Andrew Haigh's film introduces an important theme into this trend with the warmth of its protagonist and by flying the man back to his parents' house in the 80s, who feels that he needs his parents' acceptance to move forward.

Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal complement each other very well, their characters make a sensitive couple who know each other's emotions. We have also seen them in similar roles in their previous works: for example, Andrew Scott plays a gay character rejected by his parents in the film Pride , and Mescal also immerses himself in a very intimate relationship in Normal People .

All of Us Strangers is a strange mix , in which love and idyllic family moments swirl,

however, the slowly flowing story turns into a nightmare instead of a happy fantasy. A reflection of the inner world of a desperate person, a continuous game of stretching the boundaries of fantasy and reality. It's a stirring journey that draws you in, and with its choice of topics, raises important questions, but at the same time, the mystique is left out of its nightmarish world.'

#Pride #Normal People #Andrew Scott #Paul Mescal #Andrew Haigh #Claire Foy #Jamie Bell #All of Us Strangers #Strangers #Taichi Yamada

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itgirlwritingsonthewall · 6 months

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BDE: Big Disgust Energy-How Feeling Disgust for 3 mins Transformed My Friendship Dynamics

Last week I was fortunate enough to do prioritize some self-reflection on my shadow-based relationship with someone I've known for nearly a decade. One of the feelings I hadn't acknowledged that I felt when I thought about our dynamic was disgust. Terrible I know. Self-judging and judging- yup, we're still doing that. But hear me out. Under every judgment is a feeling, and I'm all about feeling and processing the feelings now.

What is this disgust about and why was it now just showing up in this space? Previously, when being triggered, what was coming up was aversion, criticism and a desire to create distance or at least minimize the impact of this individual's energy/influence on my overall state. Mostly, I felt baffled, some blame and definitely torn. What is the role of this person who I keep in my life? They represent so many of my future fears- being older, still trapped, dense, oblivious and impervious to anything getting better- all judgements and fears I had about my current and future self. In fact, I had been noticing these potential future me's since I was 28. Women in their mid-forties who were angry, hardened, struggling financially and in these seemingly dead-end/going no where-ish relationships with mamas boys. Hard- pass.

Yet, here I am, 43, and yeah. Girl, same. My future I was trying so hard to prevent, is staring me in the face.

So, how does one unharden? What leads one to a hard life and to be a difficult person to get along with besides life experiences riddled with disappointments and left turns? Feeling the hard feelings. Feeling and processing the experiences that harden, that cause you to have resentments, bitterness and put you in your head. Fun fact: we end up in our head sometimes because our bodies are too hardened with unprocessed traumas and experiences (energies and feelings) that have been in the que for decades (or longer) waiting with their number to be called to their place in line to be seen by you- the only only person qualified to do the inside job servicing their need- to be experienced.

So, what happened after these 3 minutes. At first, nothing. But then I started to interact with one friend and then the next. Some friends I knew for 4 years, others 7 or 8. And conversation after conversation was them opening up to me about their life. One was having relationship communication trouble. Another was dealing with a business partner betrayal. Another pregnancy nausea and advocating to her boss for more rights for women to have PTO. Another shared her nearly 100 times she almost walked away from her marriage. Another shared their pet loss grief lasted for 6 years. Was there no room for this sharing on their part before? Had my trauma taken up all the space in the conversation before? Was I a conversation ball-hog? Did I pre-claim the conversation space with my energy? Isn't that ugh, selfish?

Yes, AND, what if my being real with this primary emotion, just freed up enough space for people to feel welcome, invited and safe. When one has a visceral emotion like disgust - they have buried and repressed, maybe that energy took up just enough space and dictated just enough of the dynamic for no one else to broach vulnerable sharing. What if I was too fragile to for those around me to be real with? Perhaps, because I was real with this real feeling, others felt my post-bravery bravado and took a lap around the track with going there with me, as I had gone there with myself- KNOWING on some level that the road within me was paved, so they could just come along for the shared victory lap of their own. I wonder what invitation you can be to more of yourself, more connection, more depth, more subtly when you allow yourself to be with yourself. For me, last week, it was 3 minutes of being with disgust. This week, I'm open to see what comes up.

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my-chemical-wheaties · 7 months

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Just a Brief Rant

TW: Mental illness, trauma, and abuse.

I don't normally like to get too gloomy on my blog here, but I feel like I just need to vent a little bit.

Lately, I feel incredibly numb. Like I'm a passenger to my own life, rather than an active participant. I feel like part of it is because I didn't really feel like I could take much initiative in my life growing up because I came from an emotionally abusive household that sucked out any semblance of confidence that I could have possibly had from me like a vampire, but I think another part of it is because I have a lot of unprocessed trauma still from being a victim of said emotional (And sometimes physical) abuse. I had to flee from my parents' house in the middle of the night last year after my dad physically assaulted me and now that I haven't lived with my parents for over a year now (And haven't had any contact with him for just as long), I feel like there is a lot of repressed trauma that's coming out in full force that's hard for me to deal with. I initially started out with an overly anxious, emotionally overwhelmed mind, and now it feels like I just don't feel emotions at all. I keep gaslighting myself and minimizing what I think and feel and it's like a switch flipped and made my brain do a 180.

It doesn't help that my sleep schedule is absolutely fucked because I have insomnia (Which was definitely caused by another traumatic experience in my life that I don't want to get into now) and that I haven't been eating properly for the past few months because I have body image issues (Which I suspect are subconsciously my way of trying to take some sort of control over my life because I feel like I've never really had it).

I don't know what to do to stop feeling numb. I don't know how to be normal, ever. Normal probably went out the door years ago, anyways. Writing this makes me want to cry right now, but I can't. Literally all I do lately is exist and I hate it.

One of the ways in which my dad would emotionally abuse my mom and I was by yelling at, insulting, and belittling us for expressing any sort of emotion whatsoever, especially if it was an emotional response or opinion that he disagreed with. I feel like with how numb I've become; he got what he wanted. And that's what makes my current situation worse.

#mental health #trauma #ptsd #depression #venting #feeling numb #help #personal rant #sorry

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thecpdiary · 2 years

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Unprocessed Trauma

Unprocessed trauma and grief comes in many forms and one size doesn’t fit all. As a child, I lived with trauma around a disability I didn’t know I had.

It would go on to take me 56 years to work through my own trauma. Since trauma is an emotional response caused by either a single incident or a series of traumatic emotional or psychological events that causes stressed, I have experienced trauma.

Any distressing event can be traumatic, and depending on how someone copes that can be traumatic. I became aware from a very early age that everyone was in mental and emotional denial of my disability. That continued to cause me trauma.

Although I struggled mentally and emotionally, I remained present and that saved me from mental health issue. Somehow, I didn’t allow what was being ignored, to cloud my judgment.

But trauma can become problematic if it’s left, and whatever you’re dealing with isn’t dealt with. Unprocessed trauma from childhood, if not dealt with, can result in mental health issues as you try to navigate life.

Long term reactions to trauma include, mood swings, flashbacks, physical symptoms, relationship challenges and are normal responses to traumatic events. Each of us get to make a choice, we get to make a decision to deal with unprocessed trauma.

There is no getting away that we have all dealt with unprocessed trauma in the pandemic. From catching Covid, to long Covid, to watching a loved one struggle, to losing a loved one. To having to deal with pain, to carry on. Unprocessed trauma isn’t something that just comes from childhood.

As I continued to make myself aware, I would walk myself through my situation, waiting in the wings until I was ready to take control. What you see through my writing is me taking back control and you can too through my literature.

As I finish up on my blog I would ask that you deal with trauma. You will feel so much better about you, about your life, about your loved ones. I have seen first hand what happens, when we fail to deal with trauma and struggle to maintain to mentally and emotionally live our lives.

If not dealt with, trauma will either stay or come back. It is important to make sure you deal with unprocessed trauma, and/or any repressed emotions. Talk about how you feel.

If you fancy grabbing a copy of my books, so that you can deal with your own mental and emotional health, or you simply want more info, you can buy my books from Amazon, or through the following link https://linktr.ee/Ilana_Estelle

For more inspirational, life-changing blogs, please check out my site https://www.thecpdiary.com

#thecpdiary #blog #UnprocessedTrauma #ChildhoodTrauma #FailingToDealWithTrauma #UnresolvedTrauma #Covid19Trauma #CovidMentalHealth #MentalHealth #DealWithTrauma #Spirituality #Healing #andMe #@RedDoorBooks

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redphlox · 3 years

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Dabi's fear of feelings and connections

Dabi is a walking contradiction; he says he doesn't care about anyone, but his flames, which are linked to his emotions, demonstrate otherwise when Twice is killed. Dabi brushes off the news that Natsuo could have died because of him but still refers to him affectionately as Natsu-kun. Touya went around calling Endeavor out for neglecting his children but still trained to regain his approval and attention anyway. He lashed out at baby Shouto, admitted Shouto had done nothing wrong, and then attacked him again years later. He cries blood while thinking about his family but doesn't go home to them or change his actions which hurt them even more. Dabi wants to destroy hero society for a better future but it's obvious he doesn't plan to live long enough to see that future.

The gaps between his actions and his words are a result of dissociation and repression. It's not that Dabi is emotionless. Actually, he feels too much and he's afraid of his feelings because they've done nothing but hurt him emotionally and physically. He literally almost burned to death the one time he had a burst of emotion on Sekoto Peak and in order to prevent a repeat of that, he operates under the flawed notion that safety lies in repressing his feelings and pushing people away. He lies to himself and others and therefore cannot reconcile with his true self and can’t trust others.

In this meta I'll discuss how Dabi deals with his unprocessed feelings of betrayal and neglect by denying himself connections with both his inner wounded child and those around him. I'll also address a few misconceptions surrounding Dabi because dismantling them is key to understanding him. Contrary to popular belief, he does not want to kill his father, he never wanted to be a hero for his own sake, and he doesn't hate Shouto or his family. At its core, Touya's hurt stems from discovering that his relationship with his father wasn't based on unconditional love. This realization destroyed his sense of self so much it caused him to start fearing his own feelings and being close to others because of the link between his emotions and his self-destructive quirk.

To understand Dabi we have to understand Touya. In 291 we see through Endeavor's flashback that Touya was eager to train under him and carry his legacy. It's implied by the fact they’re working on ultimate moves that not only is Touya a willing, eager participant but that the two have been training together for quite some time. In 301 we learn that after Touya's quirk started hurting him Endeavor not only abandoned the training regime but also abandoned Touya both emotionally and physically. Instead of using the time he spent training Touya to help Touya find a new hobby or purpose in life, or just hanging out with his kid, Endeavor chooses to remove himself from Touya’s life. When Touya confronts him about the change of routine, Endeavor is seen putting on his jacket and leaving the home, his body turned away from his son.

Maybe Endeavor had errands to run, but my point is that he was in Touya’s life one minute and then gone the next. Touya says so himself: why did Endeavor change his mind all of a sudden? The abrupt change in attitude was jarring for a 4-5 year old to handle. To Touya, training = love, so he felt compelled to keep training and demonstrate his worthiness despite the fact that his quirk was hurting him. To Touya, the pain was worth it if it meant hanging out with his dad again.

But why? Well, Touya was Endeavor's #1 fan, genuinely so. His admiration and fondness for his father was genuine, and he didn't question the triumphant look on Endeavor's face when Touya said he wanted to learn the ultimate move. Before his quirk started burning him, Touya had no idea he was born for his father's ulterior motives. He had no reason to question his father's attention. Touya lived under the impression his bond with his dad was genuine and special, and he probably felt lucky that his father was willing to share something so important to him (heroism). Even after the training stops and Endeavor stops paying attention to Touya, Touya still wears his merch and vies for his attention. Most kids see their parents as larger than life and Touya was no exception. Keigo Takami admired Endeavor the hero, and Touya Todoroki admired his father who just so happened to be the hero Endeavor. Since being a hero was such a big deal for Endeavor, it was a big deal for Touya.

But that's where Touya's story becomes tragic. His father is a flawed, flawed man with many insecurities and fallacies that he pushes onto his family. I’ll get to those in a moment, but as intelligent and observant Touya is to catch on that Endeavor never set out to marry to become a father, he is too young to separate himself from his father’s expectations. Touya realizes he was born for a purpose and Touya will be damned if he doesn't fulfill that purpose even if he knows it's wrong. His father's ‘love’ meant that much to him. For Touya, it's not about becoming a hero for the glory. It was about his relationship with his father because, as I mentioned earlier, Touya was his #1 fan in the sense that he loved Enji just for being his dad. There were no conditions tied to that. “You are my dad, and I love you.”

But that wasn’t a sentiment that Touya felt in return, and that hurt Touya. He internalized he wasn't good enough, that something about him was inherently wrong. But more than that, his world came tumbling down - he felt betrayed and lied to: his father didn't love him like Touya needed him to, and this truth destroyed him. Their relationship was a lie, a farce, and it hurt so much Touya became obsessed with not hurting anymore because he couldn’t get away from it.

Touya’s motivation to become a hero didn't rise from being inspired by All Might like Shouto. Touya’s thought process wasn’t "I want to be a hero to help others or be like All Might" like Deku. No, Touya only wanted to be a hero because he wanted his father to be proud of him for surpassing All Might. Notice that Touya's obsession with beating All Might slowly diminishes from “I can surpass All Might” to “I can surpass All Might like Shouto, too” to just “look at me, Endeavor.” It was never about being a hero per say, but about his relationship with his father. Touya realized that Endeavor isn't his father first, but a hero, and he understands that he has to be a hero too to fit into his father's world. Even upon realizing that his father was using him, Touya still wanted to be part of his life, still wanted that bond. Touya, in his desperation to be loved and accepted again, could look past his father's selfishness as long as he regained that approval. Touya could pretend the relationship was real as long as he stopped feeling so unlovable.

This is unhealthy thinking, of course. Even if Touya somehow managed to regain Endeavor's approval, the relationship would still be one-sided and dissatisfying because he wouldn't be able to ignore the truth. But, this is how he rationalized his insistence to keep training in his 4-5 year old mind and this line of thought stuck with him as he grew up just as those feelings of inadequacy never left him.

This is precisely why Natsuo's drowsy "can't you go talk to our sister?" hurt so much. Touya was already emotionally fragile, and hearing that felt like being rejected all over again when it was actually Natsuo just trying to sleep. Touya was hypersensitive to any words or actions that could be interpreted as dismissive. His trauma wouldn't listen to logic that Natsuo was 8 and too young to understand, that he was tired - no, Touya's brain said, you're being rejected again! This is also why he also stormed away crying from Fuyumi after she expressed her concern for him.

In Touya’s mind, why couldn't anyone just agree with him that he was good enough? He heard "your dad's right and you're not good enough so why try" not "I care about you, your father is wrong, and I don't want you to keep getting hurt" whenever Rei tried to get him to stop training because that's the message he got from his father, too. Nevermind that it infuriated Touya that his mother could stand there and preach to him when, from his perspective, she couldn’t take her own advice. All Endeavor ever did was teach him to turn up the heat, so why should it matter that doing just so hurts him? Touya didn't understand NOT training his quirk because he had been taught that raising his firepower was ideal in all situations. Those two statements didn't make sense to a 4-5 year old, a 13 year old, and it still doesn’t make sense as a 24 year old.

To take Endeavor's lack of self awareness a step further, because it's important to understand Endeavor to fully understand Dabi, Endeavor has yet to realize his own inherent worth. He doesn't have to prove anything to his family, especially his kids. They love him unconditionally, without special reason aside from the fact that he's theirs and he's himself. However, Endeavor is so obsessed with proving himself that he doesn't realize he never had to, and he projects this onto his children. They must prove themselves by winning the genetic lottery, by being useful to his plans, by surpassing All Might.

The irony that to be a great father he doesn't have to be a hero at all is ugly because Endeavor has no identity outside of being a hero. Endeavor has said before he wants to be a good hero and father to make Shouto proud, but he fails to realize he already had this in Touya all those years ago and it still left him unsatisfied. The issue isn’t his role as a hero, it’s his inner self. In 301 Endeavor literally reaches out to Touya to talk him out of training and hurting himself, and Touya allows his father to touch his shoulders because he wants a bond with his father - any bond. Shouto, on the other hand, wouldn't allow Endeavor to touch him in 167 and slaps his hand away because he doesn’t want Endeavor’s approval. Endeavor doesn't realize Natsuo carries deep abandonment and neglect issues because he wanted to be accepted by his father too (light novel #5) but was ignored. Endeavor doesn't realize he was always good enough by default and that by projecting onto his kids and trying to be the top hero he’s doing the opposite of what he wants. He just keeps pushing away his family.

It’s important to point out Endeavor’s illogical thinking because Touya learned some of these same ideas. Touya repeatedly tries to prove himself without realizing that he was always good enough by default. The problem wasn’t his quirk or his body, but his father’s flawed thinking and self-worth issues. Now as an adult, Dabi is selfish because he's Endeavor's son and emobidies his most negative characteristics. Dabi thinks of his flames as Endeavor's, and he thinks of himself as an extension of Endeavor because that's how Endeavor set him up for life. Touya has no identity to fall back on after his father casts him aside. He was supposed to be Endeavor 2.0, but now that title is Shouto’s. Dabi doesn’t hate Shouto as a person, but he has tricked himself into believing Shouto is their father’s puppet. Shouto is a doll being used by their father with no self agency, and Dabi is going to break all of Endeavor’s toys. It’s nothing personal against Shouto, it’s just Shouto’s bad luck that he happens to be Endeavor’s masterpiece. This is why Dabi doesn’t hurt Shouto when they first meet at the training camp, and why Dabi stops attacking Shouto after Endeavor passes out - it’s not about Shouto. It’s about Endeavor, and breaking Endeavor. Touya is still there trying to be part of his father’s world, only this time not as a hero but as a villain who will end his own suffering. He doesn't want Endeavor to die, he just wants him to suffer, to ruin his dreams. Dabi thinks of it as justice.

But because Touya is still there, there is still that goodness in him, too. His connection to Fuyumi and Natsuo is still there, repressed and compartmentalized. It’s why he calls them affectionately as Fuyumi-chan and Natsu-kun. Touya’s pain is so great he has decided he’d rather end it than to carry on and look elsewhere. He's stuck, rightfully so. He recognizes his mother is a flawed person and ultimately doesn’t blame her for being a victim - she could have done more for her son, but he still sees her and his other siblings, even Shouto, as people who fell victim to Endeavor’s abuse who don't challenge their situation. Dabi sees himself as someone who does stand up to the abuse but doesn’t realize he still wants his father’s attention. He's always wanted it. That's why he went around at 13 condemning his father's treatment of his children but still trained to prove himself. This is part of the reason he became a villain.

Not to mention that Dabi literally can't cry. He has no way to release those emotions, so instead of trying to let them out, he pushes them down. But that doesn't work and is detrimental in the long run. In 290-294 we saw Dabi's flames burn so hot during his confrontation with Endeavor and revealing himself as Touya that his burns have spread. Dabi is afraid of his feelings because of their connection to his flames, but he also uses his feelings to his advantage. He wants to go out in an inferno along with Shouto just to hurt Endeavor and put an end to his own suffering and Endeavor's career. This is why Dabi doesn't bother calming himself down or denying that he never forgot how he was treated when he lived at home. Dabi became emotional in that battlefield, smiling maniacally instead of crying because he physically can't cry. In his mind, if his feelings are going to destroy him, he might as well use them to prove a point. After all, he has experience being used. It's why he was born.

I'm not saying any of these actions or thoughts are healthy or correct or condoned, by the way. Trauma responses don't make logical sense and usually aren't healthy. Knowing how the mind responds to trauma, it's understandable that Touya still wanted his father's attention even if it was abusive. In fact, this is how children often respond to abuse. Their caretaker/parent is all they know and they cling to these figures. Often times when authorities try to remove a child from their abusive parents, the child doesn't want to go because this parent is all they know and they do feel like they love their parent/caretaker. I’m not saying the authorities got involved in this case, because obviously they didn’t, but this same mentality of abused children can be applied to Touya. Touya, in his four year old mind, probably convinced himself that if he was good enough everything would go back to how it used to be.

So, to sum up Dabi’s character, of course he doesn't make any sense. He’s still that hurt 4-5 year old who is trying to protect himself from ever getting hurt like that again while still wanting his father’s validation. Of course he doesn’t want to get close to anyone, not even the League. He doesn't want to be vulnerable or let people in or form connections because the last time that happened he was let down, forsaken, and it hurt so much it literally made him lose control of his quirk to the point he almost died. When Twice is killed, Dabi consoles himself by saying he didn't care anyway, all to prevent another emotional fire. Dabi is a master of compartmentalizing and boxing away his feelings - this is probably why, 310 chapters into BNHA, we have yet to have a few chapters in his POV or his backstory. He's disconnected from himself. He knows his plot to get justice will hurt his siblings and mother and to live with himself and move forward he represses those feelings.

Because of his father not showing up on Sekoto peak, Dabi has to live with physical disabilities due to his scars and memories of burning alive. He doesn't want to go through that again so he lies to himself that he doesn't care about anyone or anything. He denies that he's still in pain while simultaneously seeking validation of his pain. He acts like he doesn't care about his family but still calls them affectionate names. He acts like he hates Endeavor and calls him by his name but still wants his attention. He decided long ago that he would die destroying Endeavor's career because that was the thing Endeavor cares about most of all in this life. It's a "you hurt me so I'll hurt you" mentality. He has tricked himself into thinking this is justice, failing to realize this won't make him feel better if he doesn't die by his own hand along the way.

Dabi is full of resentment and spite, both of which take root from feelings of abandonment, betrayal, and the loss of a purpose and the realization that he wasn't born to be loved for who he was but as a tool for his father. The first betrayal he suffered was in the form of realizing his father didn't love him genuinely, and this was identity-breaking for him. He never recovered from it. The second betrayal, the reinforcer, was his father not showing up to Sekoto Peak. Since then, Dabi is reliving his trauma over and over again the more he uses his quirk and the more he faces Endeavor. To be saved, Dabi needs to accept that he is loved unconditionally and needs to be validated that he was right to feel thrown aside and used.

#dabi #touya todoroki #toya todoroki #shouto todoroki #shoto todoroki #bnha #bnha meta #my meta #endeavor

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