We Could Do So Much Better - Tumblr Posts
That's extremely cool please share if you want!
No I'm actually so serious, that's extremely important, love it so much when people do that.
I've seen people ponder about whether therapy would even help Jason at this point after everything he went through and like, I 100% understand, it's hard to comprehend such a tragic story, even telling it to other people it's like "and then his mom pulled a gun on him and then he died and then he woke up in his grave and then he got hit by the car and then" etc. etc. like the world is beating down on him with relentless obstinacy.
But I'll tell you what: people who seem like they're being beaten down on with relentless obstinacy, there's plenty of them. The theory makes it clear that having one disorder makes you more vulnerable to several other disorders, which make you more vulnerable to trauma, and the interaction between these make you more vulnerable to that one, etc etc. Aside from psychiatric disorders, having been victim of abuse leads to heightened risk of being abused again (check out Young's patterns theory), but also having low self-esteem make you at risk of high risk behaviours that make you at risk of neurological decline, somatic diseases, poverty, anxiety leads to chronic stress leads to etc., etc. etc. Patients with just one pathology they need to work on are rare, they come in with a laundry list of pathologies, issues, super complex history with many traumatic events... And then they turn to their support system, they develop coping mechanisms, they get therapy, they receive help from this or that structure, taking into account the many many failures of psychiatric and mental health institutions in my country, and they pull out resources from where you wouldn't believe it, and they take the tools they're given and make use of them in ways you couldn't possibly imagine, and they keep on impressing you with so much strength, creativity, ingeniosity and so many resources that no matter how many expectations you toss away, no matter how hopeful you become, you still get surprised by how genuinely resilient people are.
I don't believe for one second Jason is "beyond help". I think sometimes circumstances make it so that people, through no fault of their own (and mostly because the system sucks) don't get access to the help and resources they need, and circumstances lead them to be in a state of hopelessness at a moment where their resources aren't accessible, times where hopelessness feels like the only logical conclusion, there are a million ways the world will fail people with mental illnesses, but that does not mean for one second that they are beyond help. I don't think you could show me a single realistically written character, no matter the amount of tragic backstory you could think of, for which I would agree this character is beyond help.
So go on that rant. Write that fanfic, that "everybody goes to therapy" AU, that "that character survives" alternate ending, that "after the war" epilogue. Draw your favourite traumatized character smothered in therapy pets. Post that comic strip you doodled on post-it notes about that character developing a lovely new coping mechanism. Make that list of headcanons about that character's support system supporting them. Make that OC, reader-insert etc. you wanted to create to give your favourite traumatized character a support system. Write that original story you've been thinking about that begins with extreme angst and whump and ends with the found family and their many pets living happily in a big house by the beach. People will try and shove victim-blaming and hopelessness down your throat, will try to force morality in the equation like it has to do with anything, narratives of good victims that get to get better vs bad victims that are too evil to be offered or accept help, people who are so evil because they are hurt and so hurt because they are so evil that death is the only possible resolution for them, but they are wrong. Do not let them win. A person is only beyond help the moment they are dead, you are so much more resourceful than you think, and don't underestimate the human spirit.
The Jason Todd brainrot is real cause when I woke up today I spent an extra hour just lying in my bed and vividly daydreaming about Jason going to therapy