Obviously the solution is for the two of you to beat up each other’s abusive father figures.
Becky can vouch for this theory, Amber helped take down hers and she couldn’t be happier about it, so apparently if someone does it on your behalf there’s no comedown.
Although if Blaine and/or Ross are still in a hospital, they are probably both still in Bloomington. Clint would presumably be in a hospital in Carmel, about 70 miles north. (It’s not like he’s coming to Bloomington unless it’s to humliate Ruth.)
Not amber, AG. And since those two don’t really talk to each other anymore, I’m not sure.
BBCC
Amber was objecting to drinking at Joyce’s party and did chide him for drinking – this was back when the split wasn’t as pronounced (it got markedly worse after Toedad) but yeah, this is a thing with Amber too.
Marsh Maryrose
Both Amber and Amazi-Girl are opposed to underaged drinking because it’s against the law. For both of them, it doesn’t seem to be about alcohol per se, but about drinking alcohol when it’s against the law.
Marsh Maryrose
[I forgot and broke the two-link rule, so my original response went into the moderator’s queue. Ignore this if you see it after my original post goes through.]
Both Amber and Amazi-Girl are opposed to underaged drinking because it’s against the law. For both of them, it doesn’t seem to be about alcohol per se, but about drinking alcohol when it’s against the law.
BBCC
Although I will say, Amber doesn’t seem opposed in principle to the point she’s not willing to be inconsistent, but it seems like she’s gone back on that since she’s decided AG’s more important.
thejeff
Though that was all immediately after she’d hassled Sal and her crew for underage drinking – which was just an excuse.
Part of her later opposition was her thinking Amazi-Girl at least had to be consistent and not being willing to admit that it was just an excuse to fight Sal.
Even if it’s totally irrational, it can feel to anybody who’s been alienated from normal life as if they’re out there alone. War vets included. “Wait, people have gone through this before? And…become okay????” is a huge and necessary breakthrough. And sometimes, it takes time.
Also, there aren’t actually a ton of therapists equipped to handle DID (or dissociation that could be easily mistaken for it) without making things worse. They exist, for sure, but it’s not one of the better understood mental illnesses out there.
Jenny Islander
As it happens…I had DID, or was dissociating as a result of [trigger warnings galore], and you’re right. I had an awesome therapist and a good solid support group, but none of them had a clue how to deal with somebody turning into somebody else right in front of them. What helped me the most was feeling safe. When I understood that there were names for what had happened to me [redacted because yep triggers], that I could freak out about what had happened to me without the other people in the room going “Ah! Weakness! Ha-ha!” and attacking/going “No! Your experiences are not real! You are crazy!” and attacking, and that I could tell on the people who had hurt me without the world caving in…then the dissociative periods became less and less frequent. I also learned how to name my emotions and the physical symptoms thereof, because the kind of person who turns somebody else’s childhood into a trigger warning doesn’t usually spend much time teaching that sort of thing, and also how to manage stress, ditto.
So I think Amber has a chance, if she finds a good therapist and sticks with it. It won’t be easy; it won’t be quick. But eventually she could look back from where she is and go, “Wow, I took so many tiny steps that I’m all the way up here?”
Jenny Islander
Note: At the time it was called MPD, and I got a tentative diagnosis from somebody who freely told me that she was flailing in the dark. As I have learned more on my own, I have concluded that somebody who is naturally able to enter a disengaged, dreamy state and is subjected to conditions that are inescapable and also full of existential horror (example: you’re still little enough that your parents are the center of your universe, but they keep hurting you) will develop alters as self-protection, but their selves will become a self again when they are in a better place. As I understand it–note that I haven’t kept up with the literature–there are people with DID who just have it, without any cause they can pinpoint, and they go on having it. That wasn’t my case.
Bathymetheus
Clearly, you have taken a great many steps. As a fellow human being, I am sad that you had such awful experiences as a child. But I am glad that you have managed to get where you are today. That journey cannot have been easy. Well done.
Jenny Islander
Eh. My attitude through the whole thing wasn’t “I will nobly remake myself, I will Rise Above.” It was “They want me to stop existing? Or remain dehumanized and helpless? EFF THAT.” Spite and stubbornness will take a person far. 🙂
Bathymetheus
Well, yes. But they don’t make it easy.
Jenny Islander
To return the focus to Amber, she needs:
1. A therapist who isn’t so naive, or so unable to deal with their own Issues, that they push family reconciliation/becoming the family “healer”/bothsiderism on every client
2. A therapist who doesn’t believe that the certificate on their wall means that they never have to do any research
3. To be well away from anybody who wants to use her as a straight man or disposable NPC in their personal Ain’t I Great Show, because if she manages to uncouple her self-hatred from attempting to parkour and fight people until she dies, it’ll latch onto a new form of self-abnegation
4. Somebody to remind her to eat, sleep, and exercise, because depression or mourning, call it what you will, is going to bite her hard as she Works On It
To be fair, she’s still pretty much a teenager. Like, you can’t really tell the difference between a high school senior and a 1st semester college freshman.
And like, I bet there aren’t too many therapists who’ve worked with a person quite like her.
Even adults not used to feeling understood can have that problem. KNOWING, on a rational level, that other people have been through the same kind of things you have is not the same as believing it
Even when it IS A teen being melodramatic, it isn’t always JUST that. Trust isn’t something that comes easy for everyone
Because they are unique. No one has a carbon-copy of someone else’s depression, and I wouldn’t be shocked if Amber’s been to some seriously bad counselors who thought it really was that plug-and-play.
It’d be so much easier if it really was one-size-fits-all treatment.
BBCC
From the sound of it, Blaine didn’t let her see a therapist before the divorce finalized and after that he was still in contact for about two years before he stopped talking to her for about three years, up until Freshman Family Weekend.
I’m guessing she’s depressive. Depression can do this thing where you feel broken beyond repair. Not even worth the effort to try. And since no one can truly see how broken you are, deep down, no one can help you.
Not sure if other mental problems can do the same thing. Thing is, you have to learn to ignore that creepy little voice in your head. It’s lying to you. Learning that is difficult though.
thejeff
Possible, but she hasn’t shown much beyond that: She definitely feels broken beyond repair. That she’s a monster.
The general assumption has been DID and PTSD.
ǝ snow ʍousɐ
She obviously has DID and PTSD; that doesn’t mean she’s not also depressed. She seems to have a very low sense of self-worth… this may be because of guilt from the PTSD, and it may have led to her dissociation: she probably felt that as AmaziGirl, she could be someone BETTER than Amber. AmaziGirl is the part of her that wanted to escape the feelings of culpability and inferiority in which Amber wallows.
thejeff
It doesn’t, but it doesn’t mean she is depressed either.
Low sense of self-worth isn’t depression and I’m not sure what other diagnostic signs we’ve seen.
Inahc
I’ve seen several signs of anxiety – like the “but then they’ll KNOW I like twinkies” thing. I haven’t seen that many signs of depression, but I suspect that if she was given a standard depression questionnaire, she’d get a moderately worrying score.
Inahc
oh, and there’s also the anger issues, that’s something most therapists should be able to help her with.
I’d argue that Amber is pretty special. At this point she would need a therapist who she would know in advance would not turn her information over to law enforcement. Laws vary and so do that status of therapist.
Not that no one can handle it. No one else. She is handling it and no one else could do better. She is a rock and island. It’s a garbage island but she’s claiming it.
When I client would tell me “You haven’t lived what I’ve lived through.”, my usual reply was “And that’s a good thing. I don’t have to have lived through your trauma. I just have to know what something different looks like.” With regard to Cliff’s comment: I can’t speak for all 50 but most states observe some variety of confidentiality with the limitations of the Tarasoff Act/Duty to Warn.
. . . .This was not going in the direction I was expecting. . but I wholly approve. Sadly I think that Sir might be so old that giving him the Blaine treatment might just end up making Ruth a murderer. Don’t get me wrong that old bastard looks wide and possibly muscular but still.
So. . .Bets on whether or not Ruth will manage to convince Amber to go and seek professional help by the end of this?
Maybe they get the opposite of a suicide pact like Ruth had with Billie. “We’ll both go to therapy together”, that sort of thing.
Amber’s biggest problem is that she feels alone. She feels like nobody else gets quite as “rabid” as she does. Ruth caught her off guard by agreeing that getting revenge is tempting. The ellipses before “father”? Ruth was probably thinking “grandfather”. Sure, she isn’t going to go to the lengths Amber did to let off steam, but she has a similar problem. If Amber feels less isolated, maybe she’ll find her life is worth fixing.
Useless Fact: At Petro’s, an order of Chips & Queso For Five is cheaper than two single orders of Chips & Queso.
I wonder if it’s the same for Mexo Loco (the food court expy franchise in this series).
See, Walky wouldn’t be failing math if the problems were stuff like “How to economically acquire the most Mexican food”.
Dude would invent a new form of calculus that only applies within the walls of a Taco Bell, and somehow allows him to get 550 chulupas for three cents and a paperclip.
Somebody did math to show that one large pizza contains more pie than two mediums, so there’s that.
Also, where I am, Petro is a gas station/truckstop chain. Sometimes those places have good food, but I’m suspicious of gas station nachos.
217 thoughts on “Equipped”
Doctor_Who
Obviously the solution is for the two of you to beat up each other’s abusive father figures.
Becky can vouch for this theory, Amber helped take down hers and she couldn’t be happier about it, so apparently if someone does it on your behalf there’s no comedown.
Stephen Bierce
Throw Momma From The Train, remade.
ProfessorDetective
Yeah, ‘Strangers on a Train’ it!
Mollyscribbles
Sounds good, and they can emotionally support each other after! That . . . seems like it hurts more than the bruised knuckles.
StClair
This is a good plan and nothing bad can possibly come from it.
Beef
I don’t have the best memory but I think she could’ve been a lot happier about it
Ana Chronistic
well, looks like Blaine’s getting a roommate at the hospital
“he’s not there anymore!”
…he WILL BE
Doctor_Who
Ross might still be there.
Arawn
Ross should be transferred to prison soon hopefully!
AntJ
Blaine can be his cellmate
Marsh Maryrose
“To Sir, with Fists”
Although if Blaine and/or Ross are still in a hospital, they are probably both still in Bloomington. Clint would presumably be in a hospital in Carmel, about 70 miles north. (It’s not like he’s coming to Bloomington unless it’s to humliate Ruth.)
Norah
I think we already saw Blaine out of the hospital in the Faz arc.
thejeff
He’s out. Though still banged up, IIRC.
BBCC
It was pretty cathartic on this end too not gonna lie.
I wanted a celebratory drink when I first saw it, but maybe some variety of pop would work better for these two.
Ninjabuttocks
A nice cold non alcoholic sangria, perhaps?
AntJ
Amber is highly opposed to alcohol, too; she chided Danny for getting drunk at Joyce’s party.
BBCC
I was thinking more ‘I’m concerned Amber will develop another unhealthy coping mechanism’ but that’s a good point. Definitely pop for these two.
Inahc
Grape juice. 🙂
Inahc
er, wait, my brain’s stuck on joyce.
Alanari
Not amber, AG. And since those two don’t really talk to each other anymore, I’m not sure.
BBCC
Amber was objecting to drinking at Joyce’s party and did chide him for drinking – this was back when the split wasn’t as pronounced (it got markedly worse after Toedad) but yeah, this is a thing with Amber too.
Marsh Maryrose
Both Amber and Amazi-Girl are opposed to underaged drinking because it’s against the law. For both of them, it doesn’t seem to be about alcohol per se, but about drinking alcohol when it’s against the law.
Marsh Maryrose
[I forgot and broke the two-link rule, so my original response went into the moderator’s queue. Ignore this if you see it after my original post goes through.]
Both Amber and Amazi-Girl are opposed to underaged drinking because it’s against the law. For both of them, it doesn’t seem to be about alcohol per se, but about drinking alcohol when it’s against the law.
BBCC
Although I will say, Amber doesn’t seem opposed in principle to the point she’s not willing to be inconsistent, but it seems like she’s gone back on that since she’s decided AG’s more important.
thejeff
Though that was all immediately after she’d hassled Sal and her crew for underage drinking – which was just an excuse.
Part of her later opposition was her thinking Amazi-Girl at least had to be consistent and not being willing to admit that it was just an excuse to fight Sal.
Matty
Oh the old “nobody can handle me so may as well not even try” story
Sambo
Such teen angst bullsh*t. There are psychologists who deal with war vets – as if that’s not as traumatizing as what Amber did.
Jenny Islander
Even if it’s totally irrational, it can feel to anybody who’s been alienated from normal life as if they’re out there alone. War vets included. “Wait, people have gone through this before? And…become okay????” is a huge and necessary breakthrough. And sometimes, it takes time.
BBCC
Also, there aren’t actually a ton of therapists equipped to handle DID (or dissociation that could be easily mistaken for it) without making things worse. They exist, for sure, but it’s not one of the better understood mental illnesses out there.
Jenny Islander
As it happens…I had DID, or was dissociating as a result of [trigger warnings galore], and you’re right. I had an awesome therapist and a good solid support group, but none of them had a clue how to deal with somebody turning into somebody else right in front of them. What helped me the most was feeling safe. When I understood that there were names for what had happened to me [redacted because yep triggers], that I could freak out about what had happened to me without the other people in the room going “Ah! Weakness! Ha-ha!” and attacking/going “No! Your experiences are not real! You are crazy!” and attacking, and that I could tell on the people who had hurt me without the world caving in…then the dissociative periods became less and less frequent. I also learned how to name my emotions and the physical symptoms thereof, because the kind of person who turns somebody else’s childhood into a trigger warning doesn’t usually spend much time teaching that sort of thing, and also how to manage stress, ditto.
So I think Amber has a chance, if she finds a good therapist and sticks with it. It won’t be easy; it won’t be quick. But eventually she could look back from where she is and go, “Wow, I took so many tiny steps that I’m all the way up here?”
Jenny Islander
Note: At the time it was called MPD, and I got a tentative diagnosis from somebody who freely told me that she was flailing in the dark. As I have learned more on my own, I have concluded that somebody who is naturally able to enter a disengaged, dreamy state and is subjected to conditions that are inescapable and also full of existential horror (example: you’re still little enough that your parents are the center of your universe, but they keep hurting you) will develop alters as self-protection, but their selves will become a self again when they are in a better place. As I understand it–note that I haven’t kept up with the literature–there are people with DID who just have it, without any cause they can pinpoint, and they go on having it. That wasn’t my case.
Bathymetheus
Clearly, you have taken a great many steps. As a fellow human being, I am sad that you had such awful experiences as a child. But I am glad that you have managed to get where you are today. That journey cannot have been easy. Well done.
Jenny Islander
Eh. My attitude through the whole thing wasn’t “I will nobly remake myself, I will Rise Above.” It was “They want me to stop existing? Or remain dehumanized and helpless? EFF THAT.” Spite and stubbornness will take a person far. 🙂
Bathymetheus
Well, yes. But they don’t make it easy.
Jenny Islander
To return the focus to Amber, she needs:
1. A therapist who isn’t so naive, or so unable to deal with their own Issues, that they push family reconciliation/becoming the family “healer”/bothsiderism on every client
2. A therapist who doesn’t believe that the certificate on their wall means that they never have to do any research
3. To be well away from anybody who wants to use her as a straight man or disposable NPC in their personal Ain’t I Great Show, because if she manages to uncouple her self-hatred from attempting to parkour and fight people until she dies, it’ll latch onto a new form of self-abnegation
4. Somebody to remind her to eat, sleep, and exercise, because depression or mourning, call it what you will, is going to bite her hard as she Works On It
GenJen
To be fair, she’s still pretty much a teenager. Like, you can’t really tell the difference between a high school senior and a 1st semester college freshman.
And like, I bet there aren’t too many therapists who’ve worked with a person quite like her.
butts
hey
hey, amber
hey amber you’re not that special
HEY AMBER YOU’RE NOT THAT SPECIAL
GO TO THERAPY
Cass
Yeah, panel one had me going “Amber, hon, you aren’t that special.”
But it’s the way of angsty kids (and a good number of adults who don’t grow out of it) to think their issues are totally unique.
Fart Captor
Even adults not used to feeling understood can have that problem. KNOWING, on a rational level, that other people have been through the same kind of things you have is not the same as believing it
Even when it IS A teen being melodramatic, it isn’t always JUST that. Trust isn’t something that comes easy for everyone
DailyBrad
Because they are unique. No one has a carbon-copy of someone else’s depression, and I wouldn’t be shocked if Amber’s been to some seriously bad counselors who thought it really was that plug-and-play.
It’d be so much easier if it really was one-size-fits-all treatment.
BBCC
From the sound of it, Blaine didn’t let her see a therapist before the divorce finalized and after that he was still in contact for about two years before he stopped talking to her for about three years, up until Freshman Family Weekend.
Alanari
I’m guessing she’s depressive. Depression can do this thing where you feel broken beyond repair. Not even worth the effort to try. And since no one can truly see how broken you are, deep down, no one can help you.
Not sure if other mental problems can do the same thing. Thing is, you have to learn to ignore that creepy little voice in your head. It’s lying to you. Learning that is difficult though.
thejeff
Possible, but she hasn’t shown much beyond that: She definitely feels broken beyond repair. That she’s a monster.
The general assumption has been DID and PTSD.
ǝ snow ʍousɐ
She obviously has DID and PTSD; that doesn’t mean she’s not also depressed. She seems to have a very low sense of self-worth… this may be because of guilt from the PTSD, and it may have led to her dissociation: she probably felt that as AmaziGirl, she could be someone BETTER than Amber. AmaziGirl is the part of her that wanted to escape the feelings of culpability and inferiority in which Amber wallows.
thejeff
It doesn’t, but it doesn’t mean she is depressed either.
Low sense of self-worth isn’t depression and I’m not sure what other diagnostic signs we’ve seen.
Inahc
I’ve seen several signs of anxiety – like the “but then they’ll KNOW I like twinkies” thing. I haven’t seen that many signs of depression, but I suspect that if she was given a standard depression questionnaire, she’d get a moderately worrying score.
Inahc
oh, and there’s also the anger issues, that’s something most therapists should be able to help her with.
Clif
I’d argue that Amber is pretty special. At this point she would need a therapist who she would know in advance would not turn her information over to law enforcement. Laws vary and so do that status of therapist.
hof1991
Not that no one can handle it. No one else. She is handling it and no one else could do better. She is a rock and island. It’s a garbage island but she’s claiming it.
Mgnostic
When I client would tell me “You haven’t lived what I’ve lived through.”, my usual reply was “And that’s a good thing. I don’t have to have lived through your trauma. I just have to know what something different looks like.” With regard to Cliff’s comment: I can’t speak for all 50 but most states observe some variety of confidentiality with the limitations of the Tarasoff Act/Duty to Warn.
William Leonard Reese Jr.
. . . .This was not going in the direction I was expecting. . but I wholly approve. Sadly I think that Sir might be so old that giving him the Blaine treatment might just end up making Ruth a murderer. Don’t get me wrong that old bastard looks wide and possibly muscular but still.
So. . .Bets on whether or not Ruth will manage to convince Amber to go and seek professional help by the end of this?
Doctor_Who
He already uses a cane, so he doesn’t need both femurs.
Andy
Hell, he’s probably rich enough healthcare isn’t a worry for him. Let’s see how he handles a wheelchair. Who needs femurs, amirite?
Doctor_Who
“Hell, he’s probably
richCanadian enough healthcare isn’t a worry for him.”Fixed that for you.
Rabid Rabbit
He’s not Canadian. His not being Canadian is the whole reason Ruth ended up where she is.
Doctor_Who
Oh yeah, I forgot.
AntJ
Maybe they get the opposite of a suicide pact like Ruth had with Billie. “We’ll both go to therapy together”, that sort of thing.
Amber’s biggest problem is that she feels alone. She feels like nobody else gets quite as “rabid” as she does. Ruth caught her off guard by agreeing that getting revenge is tempting. The ellipses before “father”? Ruth was probably thinking “grandfather”. Sure, she isn’t going to go to the lengths Amber did to let off steam, but she has a similar problem. If Amber feels less isolated, maybe she’ll find her life is worth fixing.
BBCC
In real life, murder is bad.
In fiction? Take that cane and beat him with it, Ruth.
AntJ
Those eyebrows in panel 7. Ruth finally got through to Amber.
timemonkey
The trick is to just not stop so it never catches up with you!
Mollyscribbles
Yeah, but after an hour or so you’d lose feeling in your fists.
Catman
Great! No recoil!
Stephen Bierce
Useless Fact: At Petro’s, an order of Chips & Queso For Five is cheaper than two single orders of Chips & Queso.
I wonder if it’s the same for Mexo Loco (the food court expy franchise in this series).
Doctor_Who
See, Walky wouldn’t be failing math if the problems were stuff like “How to economically acquire the most Mexican food”.
Dude would invent a new form of calculus that only applies within the walls of a Taco Bell, and somehow allows him to get 550 chulupas for three cents and a paperclip.
thejeff
A bistromath variant?
Liquid Len
You can power starships with that!
DSL
Somebody did math to show that one large pizza contains more pie than two mediums, so there’s that.
Also, where I am, Petro is a gas station/truckstop chain. Sometimes those places have good food, but I’m suspicious of gas station nachos.
Stephen Bierce
Yes, Petro’s has some locations in truck stops, but mainly they’re in mall food courts.
Vabolo
‘Cause I’ve an abusive father
You’ve an abusive father
We should fight eachother’s fathers
Fight eachother’s daaads~
timemonkey
Ruth’s father is dead.
Kyrik Michalowski