#healing isn't linear and if you expect yourself or others to deal with trauma in an easy fashion you are sadly mistaken :(

[once-in-a-blood-moon]

Something about the way people talk about Solomon's dismissal of his vulnerability rubs me the wrong way. (I don't have any specific examples, I'm just gonna hope you know what I'm talking about lol.)

I've never seen anything inherently mean, but I have seen comments that seemingly take offense to his "just kiddings" when he expresses his feelings, whether it's romantically or talking about past hardships... And I couldn't pinpoint what it was that confused me about the fandom's responses to that until now.

What Solomon is going through in moments like those is a trauma response. And yes, while trauma responses aren't always beneficial and can sometimes be hurtful to others or the person responding that way themselves, reacting with "negativity" to said responses just makes it worse.

Solomon has an avoidant attachment style, which means he struggles with opening up and being genuine in his feelings even if he wants to. I, myself, am the same way. More often than not, I also follow up a heavier topic with "I'm sorries" or "just kiddings." The thing about this, is it's not meant to be malicious. So, when I see people taking Solomon's comments as if it's a slight to them, I just...??

I can almost guarantee that if those comments where said to him right after he'd attempted to open up, even if it had good intentions, it'd probably make him want to close back up completely. Because there's no patience to his avoidance, no acceptance to why he behaves that way. There's just this perception of not being understood or that his feelings/thoughts aren't safe. It just feels like he's not allowed any grace.

[exuberantocean]

You know, I think some of the problem that people have with the last few episodes of Doctor Who is in black and white thinking regarding mental health and trauma.

Like, this idea that you're either mentally ill & miserable or not mentally ill & happy.

And the truth is, most mentally ill people are capable of being truly happy (major depression being an exception to this). You can be as traumatized as fuck and still have happy moments, good days, etc.

But, more over, recovery and healing from trauma doesn't look like a return to your pre-trauma self. That shit still hurts. You're still fundamentally changed by it.

14 back at Donna's is in the process of healing. He's giving himself the space to recover. He's having good days filled with support. And he's also likely doing a lot of work. For a person who spent his whole life embodying the fight or flight response, just learning to not, is a fucking big deal. And as a whole, it's good. And it will get progressively better. And he'll be happy yeah, but that's not a cheap happiness. That's showing up every day, fighting back all sort of inner demons and saying no, I get to be this. And that doesn't even get into the whole "allowing yourself to be vulnerable and let others help" thing that is definitely happening.

And 15 is "post therapy". That doesn't mean their hurt's gone. That doesn't mean the trauma doesn't exist or he's returned to a pre-trauma state. And baby, healing is a lifelong process so it doesn't even mean that this healing has even stopped with 14. It's all still there. It's early days with 15, so I can't say where they're going to go with 15, only what it means to have worked through your trauma somewhat and what that could mean for 15

What it does mean is that he's learning to talk about it. "I'm adopted" is exactly the kind of thing someone would say. It's too big sometimes to say it all at once. In "The Body Keeps Score" (which is a book about trauma) it discusses how trauma effects the brain in ways that make it neurologically hard to talk about the trauma but most of us slowly learn how. This is 15, slowly taking steps to proactive talk about it. Yes, it's almost laughably understated but my God it's a huge fucking step for the Doctor who as early as the episode before (a la DT) couldn't even discuss it with Donna and reacted as he did when the not!Donna forced the conversation.

15 could have experienced "rehab" and still feel pain from their past. 14 can be happy and still be struggling and working through shit. And to be honest, the dichotomy between "fixed" 15 and 14 isn't a dichotomy at all but a spectrum.

And, as a final note, progress is not linear. I would expect 15 to have their moments of regressing, but that doesn't mean progress hasn't happened or that the overall trajectory has been lost.

[agirldying]

*Possible Tw for mentions of abuse and Sa, adding a warning just in case*

Hey Bun,

I wanted to talk to you or I guess maybe ask for your opinion on this. Do you think it's possible I'm actually going backwards in my healing?

It's a weird question but I will give you some background. I know you're probably familiar with my situation and a few weeks ago we had like a big response as to what my abuse actually was. After that I felt like I could really start accepting it because you gave me a name for it and that helped honestly to realize how serious what happened to me was.

For a few weeks I felt like I was dealing with the grief well and like actually addressing my feelings about it. I really felt like I was healing like a little bit. But now over the last two weeks I've been starting to like avoid it if that makes any sense.

Like I recently got a new job and im moving this week into a new apartment and I've just been like ignoring any thoughts I have about it. It's almost like I'm pretending it didn't happen. Like I don't want to call myself a survivor now. I don't want to admit I was abused. I don't want to think about getting hit. I don't want to call it trafficking. I don't want to think about what happened.

It's almost like when Ive been having flashbacks since I started working two weeks ago I see them and my brain is like "that's not me" like they aren't my memories and it didn't happen to me. It's like I'm trying to tell myself that it happened to someone else and that's not me. What is this?

I guess I'm just asking like is this regression in my healing? Is my personality splitting? Could I be dissociating from it because it's just too much for me to function normally? Honestly and truly I'm not sure what is happening.

It's just so strange because sometimes I will feel the anger or the pain or feel upset when I have the flashbacks and it's like I acknowledge the feeling and my brain just turns it off immediately, then I have those " it's not me" thoughts.

Sorry if this is a lot or if it's very confusing but I feel like something strange is going on and I don't really understand it so I was just wondering what you think about it.

Thank you so much for reading and as always I appreciate you so much Bun.

- DW 🍂

Hi DW 🍂,

Healing isn't linear, so it's expected to have some backwards steps.

It makes sense why you may be avoiding confronting your trauma and current situation because they're quite daunting and come with a lot of emotional... I don't want to use the word baggage but maybe weight? They're hard things to come to terms with so it's understandable why it can be hard to constantly accept.

It sounds like there are various changes in your life that perhaps make it easier to feel like you can put your experiences in the past and store it away like it didn't happen, even though it hasn't been completely processed.

Personally I feel this connecting with the year after I'd gotten out of my abusive situation - I went from long hair to short (cut off 10 inches of hair or so) and donated it. I remember the new look being this sort of pathway to feeling like I could pretend to be an entirely new person, free of trauma, unburdened (that being said I also remember having like 10 anxiety attacks in that month alone).

I also need to just say that I completely relate to almost othering yourself and being like "the person who endured that is not me". Personally I recognize that to be a dissociative symptom as I actively believe that I am a completely separate person from the girl who once inhabited this body (see my username). I have actually changed my name irl to reflect the fact that I am someone else now, and my deadname is triggering knowing what happened to her. Basically I'm saying all of this to kind of just show that this is just another way that dissociation can present, and this is one of the many elements of dissociative identity. Like, I will use first person when talking about the trauma, but that's more for convenience than actually identifying with those memories.

So yeah ultimately this sounds like some dissociation is coming up for you surrounding your sense of self and identity as you're navigating recovery.

I hope I could help and provide some insight. As you know, please feel free to send more asks my way if you need to chat or if you want to add onto this.