#tw: negative outlook on seeking help for mental illness.

[mad-hunts]

20. what is something your muse wants to tell others, but is too afraid to? 

hey, @absensia! thank you very much for the ask (: it means a lot to me that you'd drop one in my inbox, if i'm being honest!! but of course... i'm incredibly grateful for everyone's submissions in regards to the prompts i posted for barton! alright, so my answer to this one is probably going to be long like the last, so please bear with me while i pour out all of my thoughts as to what i believe barton has wanted to tell people for years. and that is that he might need help — which, considering how much blood he has gotten on his hands + the very poor state of his mind, isn't that unreasonable at all. though barton doesn't want to bring this up to anyone for a multitude of reasons; one of which is because he fears he'll be seen as weak and because he's pretty much convinced himself internally that he doesn't deserve it. though i feel as if most of the time, barton not only feels this irrational as well as powerful hatred towards everyone else, but towards himself, too. which are both dangerous mindsets to be in within their own right.

when you feel like you are completely unlovable but are also so chronically lonely at the same time that you will quite literally seek people out who you know hate your guts, because in a way, seeing them almost validates what you feel about yourself + you also feel so lonely sometimes that you feel like you're going insane ( or more than he already was before anyhow ) ; in barton's opinion, that is probably one of the very definitions of ' something's wrong. ' especially since this has led him down some pretty dark paths before: both with things like self-medicating using alcohol and getting into this relationship with someone that he knows is bad news, but who he believes he belongs with on some degree. this is because they're both terrible, and they feed into each other's desire to receive their own extremely unhealthy idea's of what love is. an idea that love is inherently violent when that is anything but what love actually is.

and barton knows that it's wrong deep in the back of his mind because he is at his absolute worst when he's with this person, but like i mentioned previously, he doesn't believe he deserves any better than them so he hasn't told anyone about what he's been feeling. however, when you disassociate like barton does sometimes in which you genuinely do not remember what the hell happened for a certain amount of time, since your brain is struggling so hard to cope with all of these bad feelings you're feeling and terrible things you're exposing it to that it feels the need to tuck it away somewhere... you should absolutely seek help as he has subtly alluded to how he often feels a few times around his kids, and they were probably the most concerned about him that they've ever been.

but the problem remains that the action of actually reaching out to people feels impossible for barton. both in the way that he wouldn't even know where to begin explaining his feelings into words, on account of them feeling so complex that he feels like he can't even name them a majority of the time, as well as that he was taught that seeking help was something to look down upon by wesley. this is also attributable to the desire that barton feels to appear like he's perfect all the time, as i had highlighted in one of my previous posts on here. and acknowledging that you are actively struggling goes against that, along with the fact that talking to someone is a sign of confidence in yourself. which barton is actually lacking in despite appearances.

though anyhow, i know that this was probably an awfully heavy thing to have to read through, and i'm sorry for that in advance. but barton, kind of like real people, are not the sum of their parts — so i felt like it was important to explain how he feels wholly and without things being sugarcoated / left out. i hope you liked this answer anyhow, though, and are having a great day so far! thanks again for the ask.