#this show is doing an amazing representation of how untreated trauma can manifest itself

[ahsokazworld]

Yes!

And what you said in the tags about Simone leaving so swiftly, and immediately creating a distance between her and Tai (before she knew about Biscuit), bugged me a little aswell. Because they have made Simone this helpful, kind, supportive, caring person. It wouldn't make sense to then just leave when your wife is essentially having a bit of a breakdown. But I also thought about it a little and the conversation in the car after they took Sammy to therapy, where Simone says to Tai she's very closed off to help, Simone is clearly very frustrated about it. It indicated to me that Simone has over the years tried to get Tai help and has singaled 'hey my wife is not as OK after that major trauma event as she appears to be'. And I mean how can you not after being together for 15 years, sometimes the person you're with will start to notice the subconscious stuff you do to manage your stress or whatever that you yourself don't necessarily see and then wil start to see how frequently you do it. Because I highly doubt sleepwalking is her only coping method.

When Tai reacted the way she did on that bed instead of accepting the caring supportive help Simone was offering, Simone was done. She made a decision, this marriage is over, I can't live with someone who is like this anymore, I need to protect our child. If there was any residual doubt in her mind, which is fair, that all went out of the window the moment she saw that dogs head.

Wish we got more of them, though, but hey, I want better for Simone. And that is right now, definitely not Tai.

(And as much as I like the reunion and the AMAZING chemistry between adult Tai and Van, these two should also not be together, GET SOME ACTUAL THERAPY PLEASE)

hi novel! do you have any meta / thoughts on taissa’s relationships with simone and sammy? I really want them to go into that more, similar to the shauna-jeff-callie storyline in s2

Simone and Sammy are what should have been. The life Taissa would have led if they’d never crashed. Even if it wasn’t Simone, even if it was Van, the idea of the perfect happy family is what matters. I think it matters that she’s the only one we see have a warm moment with her parents before the crash; that would shape her whole outlook. Grow up, go to good schools, get a great job, marry a beautiful woman, build a life that makes sense. And we know from Tai telling Shauna about her dream life: this is exactly the path she takes. Shauna’s dreams change utterly as soon as they crash; Tai, the bastion of repression, doesn’t change hers at all. She comes home, and she’s different, she’s traumatized, she has lost and hurt and has all these horrible dark secrets—but she believes if she just works hard enough, she can overwrite the shadows with the light of a life she’s wanted all along.

The problem with this as it applies to Simone and Sammy is they’re not plans, they’re not dreams, they’re people—and to have the meaningful, wonderful relationships that make that Perfect Life, she needs to be able to communicate with them as such. And she doesn’t. She doesn’t let herself. She won’t explain anything of what she went through to her wife; even when push comes to panicked shove, she just demands Simone leave her alone. She doesn’t even feel that “it” factor when it comes to Simone, because she can’t let herself. She’s forever tied intensity of feeling to a loss of control, a loss of who she was “meant to be” before the accident.

Her family, her job, all of it is emblematic of Before Tai. The Tai who didn’t have a sleepwalking problem, who never watched her girlfriend get nearly mauled to death, who never ate her friends to stay alive, who never gave into the hunt. It can’t ever be healthy, for her or for Simone and Sammy, until she accepts that Before Tai is gone. She’s been stitched together with the Taissa who survived the wilderness. And accepting that runs contrary to the perfect life she’s tried so hard to create. She can fall back into old habits with her old friends and old love, but the new version of her? That Taissa isn’t allowed those behavior patterns.

It’s really interesting looking at her family vs Shauna’s, because 1) they’re the only two of the core six to build a traditional family post-rescue, and 2) Shauna tries to play the same game—except the “dream life” she’s living isn’t Shauna’s at all. It’s Jackie’s. Or what she feels she stole from Jackie. And because of that, because Jeff and Callie were never Shauna’s dream, I think it makes it a little easier to let them into the darkness. Tai won’t let herself do that, because it’d be admitting a kind of defeat, and that really isn’t Tai’s style.