#but if being with ray takes patience then babe i've got it

[icouldhyperfixatehim]

emotionally overwhelmed by ray's rehab entrance scene (who? me? i know right how weird and out of character for me to be doolally over a fictional happenstance with a broken character) and finding it so refreshing that, other than once by sand, there hasn't been an insistence that ray get help "for himself". that at his intake interview, he's given the option to be undertaking this scary vulnerable thing for somebody else's sake. because there is someone who loves him who wants him to do this, and that's reason enough. because he's hard to love! he knows he's nobody's fair weather forever, he's a broken, dysfunctional person, and he's hard to love, it requires patience to be with him, and he doesn't have that patience. ray's on the list of people for whom ray is hard to love, how is he meant to do something as hard as giving up drinking for himself? ray can't give up drinking for ray, ray's not worth that struggle.

but sand...

do it for yourself doesn't get it done for everybody. sometimes do it for yourself just makes it that much harder because "yourself" isn't a person you think is worth fighting for. but for a person you love? who against all odds and reason loves you? yeah maybe it can be done. and at the end of it all it doesn't matter why you do it - quitting drinking, not killing yourself, whatever it is - it matters that you DO it. and i found it really powerful to see that portrayed, when so many depictions will stress that the only way to truly recover is to do it for you. with support, yes, but not with someone else being your "reason" because that's "dependent" or "not healthy". when really, in practice, i don't care why you're still here. i care that you're still here, however you manage it.