#eddie is not necessarily responding to chris’s wants but what he believes are chris’s needs

[eddiegettingshot]

the thing frequently cited as eddie’s Mistake in s5 is “quitting his job without talking to chris” which i really struggle to understand because on one level i don’t think a parent is obligated to talk to their 10 year old child about a career decision and i also don’t think a 10 year old child can be expected to provide reasonable insight on the best approach to their own trauma. and on another level i think this implies that if eddie had talked to chris then he would have Known he didn’t Have to quit his job and could have never been miserable at dispatch … but like. eddie was not fit for active duty. he was right to quit his job! there was a reason bobby didn’t let him come back. his Mistake was using christopher’s supposed needs as his motivation and as an easy excuse to continue repressing his trauma and burgeoning anxieties and to continue marching forward without closely examining what he was trying to get away from. there is a world in which eddie quitting firefighting and being miserable at dispatch for the rest of his days COULD have been the answer and a genuine sacrifice he chose to make as a parent, but that’s not what he was doing—he was convincing himself he was making a genuine sacrifice when what he was actually doing was trying to keep a lid on all the boxes holding his issues.

i also struggle with the idea that the mistake eddie is making Now is “moving to el paso without talking to chris” for similar reasons. like, i don’t think a 14 year old is equipped to make decisions like that, even if they’re for his own sake, or for dealing with his own trauma. there is a world in which eddie packs up and moves to el paso because genuinely, it is better for chris, it’s where chris is thriving, and he’d be well within his right to do so even if it theoretically blocks chris from returning to life in LA—it’s not a mistake for eddie to make the unequivocal decision about where they live lol. the actual problem is that he’s once again using chris thriving in a different environment as an excuse to repress the fact that the reason he’s taking this drastic decision he doesn’t want to take is because he doesn’t trust himself. probably chris IS having a good time in texas. but eddie doesn’t want to think about the wounds that lead him to believe he can’t give chris what he needs, or that lead him to actually hurt chris, so instead he is making another ingenuine sacrifice to avoid feeling things he thinks he doesn’t deserve to feel, or shouldn’t be feeling. of course we know that LA is his home and staying in el paso isn’t going to end up being the right decision, but it’s not the wrong decision because they shouldn’t move away ever or should never be sad ever and eddie should know that, it’s the wrong decision because he’s not being honest with himself about why he’s making it… which was also the case in s5.