Amazigirl doesn’t actually want the liver since she doesn’t drink, but she insisted on having it in the custody battle because she still cares for Amber and doesn’t want her to drink herself to death. She thinks if Amber has the liver less often, she won’t drink as much. Amazigirl is very optimistic.
I don’t think so; they go a long way back. People can be sarcastic with their long-term friends during a trying time without it meaning the end of a friendship.
Reltzik
I’m sarcastic roughly 120% of the time (usually in a cheerful and joking manner), so I certainly hope so.
I think it’s a matter of tone. If the sarcasm is done in a way to make it sound like a criticism of Amber, then that’s… well, not friendship-ending territory, but at least something to call out and take a few hours to either hash out or cool down.
If instead it’s acknowledging that Amber’s situation is not 100% rosy, then that’s fine. Recognizing and acknowledging that a friend’s got troubles when they’re deflecting or trying to paint it in a good light is fine.
I sincerely hope he isn’t done with her – dumping your lifelong best friend because she’s been struggling with a mental illness and didn’t tell you something she didn’t know would be pretty shitty. Especially when she already worries about people giving up on her and leaving…
Maddieface
She did know she wasn’t sharing memories anymore and while I don’t remember for certain it sounds like she didn’t tell him that.
Experience with both my own mental illness and that of friends and roommates has made me feel that you really need to communicate about your mental health issues with friends if you want them to be properly supportive. I’m not sure whether either of them consider this insufficient communication or not (maybe Amber genuinely didn’t feel this was important enough to mention) but I can see the possibility being there.
rose
yeah, but as someone with osdd its TERRIFYING to tell someone that you have a dissociative disorder, since they’re so heavily stigmatized and so many people just wont understand or believe you. most of the people I know with did/osdd don’t even understand/believe themselves a lot of the time. ambers reaction to realizing she no longer shared memories with amazigirl is 100% reasonable considering Ethan doesn’t even think of them as separate people
Shadow Dreamer
^ This. Amber doesn’t even have a diagnosis yet- she knows SOMETHING is wrong, but not a single useful tool for dealing with it, and frankly, if she *doesn’t* have some form of therapeutic trauma, I’ll eat all half dozen of my necklaces.
From Amber’s perspective, what’s going on is a flavor of terrifying that she is desperately- poorly- trying to cope with. Suddenly, her body is doing things, and *she has no clue what.* She’s missing chunks of time. Every deep seated, secret fear, that she’s going crazy, feels to her like it has just been confirmed.
This isn’t something she’s got years of experience dealing with. This isn’t something she’s talked with a therapist about, something she’s been taught coping methods to deal with. This is *new* to her, still- *Amazigirl*, by only a slight stretch, is still new to her- since as far as we know, Amazigirl didn’t come until she got to college, and they’re still in the *first semester*.
Hazel
Within half a year of my rad friend sitting me down and telling me about her DID I met three more lovely people with it (and one asshole but hey, 4/5 is a decent rate). I hope you make lots of cool friends who share your osdd/did and lots who don’t but understand and are supportive.
Some Ed
I’ve lost track of the number of people with DID I’ve met. (It’s probably still single digits. My difficulties are remembering for certain who actually came out to me and who I’ve armchair diagnosed but haven’t really talked to about it.)
Most of the people with DID that I’ve met have an asshole in there somewhere, who can front when needed. Which is very different from normal people, most of whom are assholes to people they don’t know well without even realizing it. And that doesn’t *even* get into their driving skills or lack thereof.
I don’t think any of the people I’ve met with DID are always assholes. It’s generally 1-2 personalities that make up less than 10%. At least one of those always fronted whenever dealing with me for some reason, but I spoke with enough of the other people around them to know it’s a me issue. (More generally, they dislike alpha geeks, due to having been abused by a number of them in the past. I try to not be an aggressively alpha geek, but as somebody who reads technical documentation for a spare time activity, I’m pretty clearly in alpha geek territory. Also, this was college, and I offered free help, and a lot of the people around them partook of it, so it was very clear to them that I was at least in some way an alpha geek.)
Hazel
By butthole I meant the person assaulted another person (who also has DID) many times.
Elisto
I can tell you from experience, it’s not just shitty, it’s incredibly traumatic. 2.5 years ago and I’m still recovering.
It’s more just how Ethan handles these things, provided he handles them at all.
clif
To be fair, this is above Ethans pay grade.
Nono
I read that as Ethan’s gay parade for a second there.
HeySo
Above Ethan’s Gay Parade? Have they already started making the Amazi-Girl floats, then?
JaneDoe
No, no, no, it’s above the parade! It’s obviously an Amazi-girl balloon!
Shadow Dreamer
For once, I am in 100% agreement with you, Clif. This *is* above Ethan’s pay grade- and the responsible thing to do, here, would be to support Amber and help her get therapy, so that someone who’s pay grade it is can help her learn to cope.
Fogel
“to be fair” … yes. He should file a report with The Universe that Life is trying to assign him responsibility for things that he’s definitely not prepared to deal with. Definitely not fair.
DudeMyDadOwnsaDealership
So much is above Ethan’s pay grade…..That being said, with Blaine’s ability to dodge being associated with his criminal history by the public damaged more than ever before, I think it’s time Amber started searching for a credible psychiatrist or whatnot.
Continued self-medication is going to become less and less excusable from here on…
This doesn’t look like “I’m done with you.” It looks more like “I really, really don’t know how to handle what I just heard.”
Lee
I’m reading it that way, too. A sort of “that is a lot to unpack and I would love to help you deal with that right now, but Mike is in a coma and I’ve been kidnapped today so I DO NOT HAVE THE BRAIN POWER FOR THIS”.
Sarcasm is fine I suppose, but as potentially Amber’s only real support or a least the one of like two or three people she’s willing to acknowledge as support I like to hope Ethan has plans on talking to her about this very real and very serious issue. Mike’s in a coma and if things had went just a little differently he could be dead without Amber ever realizing it!
In the last 12 hours Ethan has just been kidnapped, watched a man get murdered, and found of his closest friend has been keeping some pretty important stuff from him while his other closest friend is in a coma in front of him. He needs support. Amber’s pain should not be his priority right now.
(And no, Amber really didn’t know about Mike yesterday because of the not sharing memories, but there has been plenty of stuff she has known and not shared with him. She is, of course, allowed to not share stuff with him, but he is allowed to feel angry about being shut out.)
Sirksome
I can understand that Ethan’s been through a lot. In fairness they all have but I get that right this instant may not be the best time to drop his only feelings and address Amber’s issues. My problem is his comment read more like frustrated dismissal than sarcasm but maybe that’s my problem. He can’t go back to letting Amber’s mental issues fester in the background though like he’s been doing up to this point. I know as her friend he can’t force he to do anything, but he also didn’t really try to talk to her too much about any of this either. Amber’s just been kind of coping with it all by herself. Credit to her for even being functional most of the time. It’s a complicated issue admittedly I’m just not sure Ethan has really done enough on his part, it felt more like the bare minimum. I won’t put it all on him, that’s not fair, but snarky comments like that don’t really help things when he hasn’t been doing much himself.
Hazel
In fairness, when Ethan has done/said something Amber didn’t like she hasn’t exactly acted…great.
Being the one person that another can trust to talk to about things can really, really suck. It can severely hurt their mental health. Amber has a loving mother, she has other friends, she has access to some mental health services. The kind of expectations you have for Ethan are past the bounds of a paid psychologist, let alone a friend who is dealing with his own stuff.
Also, Ethan’s family life was abusive too, even if it wasn’t as much as Amber’s.
Hazel
Amber needs help. But not at the expense of Ethan’s mental health.
Devin
For me it reads to me as frustration that Amber seems to be portraying her own issues as at some kind of resolution, which is clearly not the case to any outside observer, as well as with the expectation that she’ll likely just try to shoulder the burden on her own again, which has been her pattern. But there are a lot of potential ways this could go, and we can’t really be sure until we know what Ethan says next. Or possibly Amber.
I don’t know about that. Ross ended, rather conclusively.
DudeMyDadOwnsaDealership
Possibly over *actually following Blaine’s plan to the letter,* no less.
Seriously, it seemed like Blaine was blaming him for ‘ruining everything’ as part of his ‘Whenever his pride’s hurt/threatened, he lies’ quirk, and not because he actually mess up his one job. Ironic.
We’ve known for months (our time) about Amb’s DID, he’s had like 12 seconds to wrap his head around it while also having to deal with the trauma of a kidnapping and his other friend battling death.
After everything that’s happened to him in the last 24h (his time), I vote he’s allowed some defensive sarcasm.
When your mental health issues –and specifically, the mental health issues you have been refusing to manage– cause problems for other people, that privilege is kinda lost.
230 thoughts on “Kirkwood”
King Daniel
*LAUGH TRACK*
clif
Who’s Iris and why didn’t she get a tag?
Needfuldoer
She already left the room, so she didn’t get tagged.
Van Jealous
Iris lens something to the story line!
Deanatay
Iris kit all for that pun.
Demolition Fan
Will Iris shun all puns about mental stability, because of a fence?
Ana Chronistic
That Time When Half of Me Broke up with the Other Half of Me
Doctor_Who
They each get a kidney and lung, but will be having joint custody of the liver.
Knuf Wons
Joint custody exists where two bones meet.
abacuswizard
well played, you glorious maniac
Thanatos
Amazigirl doesn’t actually want the liver since she doesn’t drink, but she insisted on having it in the custody battle because she still cares for Amber and doesn’t want her to drink herself to death. She thinks if Amber has the liver less often, she won’t drink as much. Amazigirl is very optimistic.
Hex Hornet
Divvying up the video games after such a breakup has to be ‘problematic’.
ANeM
I’m really enjoying this new Amber based Sitcom:
Two and a Half Me.
Valerie
The half is ghost-Mike.
IVY-SAURUS
Does this mean that Amber is the Onceler?
Hex Hornet
Amber O’Malley.
Essence of normality and balance.
All Hail!
BBCC
WELL WHEN YA PUT IT THAT WAY.
Sirksome
Alls well that ends well?! Amber is still very much mentally unwell. Wake up, Ethan!
Yumi
I…I don’t think that Ethan’s last comment was sincere.
Dracke
he is being sarcastic..i think he is done with her
katerly
It’s reading that way to me as well. He seems to be getting to the end of his patience rope.
Meagan
I don’t think so; they go a long way back. People can be sarcastic with their long-term friends during a trying time without it meaning the end of a friendship.
Reltzik
I’m sarcastic roughly 120% of the time (usually in a cheerful and joking manner), so I certainly hope so.
I think it’s a matter of tone. If the sarcasm is done in a way to make it sound like a criticism of Amber, then that’s… well, not friendship-ending territory, but at least something to call out and take a few hours to either hash out or cool down.
If instead it’s acknowledging that Amber’s situation is not 100% rosy, then that’s fine. Recognizing and acknowledging that a friend’s got troubles when they’re deflecting or trying to paint it in a good light is fine.
Miri
I sincerely hope he isn’t done with her – dumping your lifelong best friend because she’s been struggling with a mental illness and didn’t tell you something she didn’t know would be pretty shitty. Especially when she already worries about people giving up on her and leaving…
Maddieface
She did know she wasn’t sharing memories anymore and while I don’t remember for certain it sounds like she didn’t tell him that.
Experience with both my own mental illness and that of friends and roommates has made me feel that you really need to communicate about your mental health issues with friends if you want them to be properly supportive. I’m not sure whether either of them consider this insufficient communication or not (maybe Amber genuinely didn’t feel this was important enough to mention) but I can see the possibility being there.
rose
yeah, but as someone with osdd its TERRIFYING to tell someone that you have a dissociative disorder, since they’re so heavily stigmatized and so many people just wont understand or believe you. most of the people I know with did/osdd don’t even understand/believe themselves a lot of the time. ambers reaction to realizing she no longer shared memories with amazigirl is 100% reasonable considering Ethan doesn’t even think of them as separate people
Shadow Dreamer
^ This. Amber doesn’t even have a diagnosis yet- she knows SOMETHING is wrong, but not a single useful tool for dealing with it, and frankly, if she *doesn’t* have some form of therapeutic trauma, I’ll eat all half dozen of my necklaces.
From Amber’s perspective, what’s going on is a flavor of terrifying that she is desperately- poorly- trying to cope with. Suddenly, her body is doing things, and *she has no clue what.* She’s missing chunks of time. Every deep seated, secret fear, that she’s going crazy, feels to her like it has just been confirmed.
This isn’t something she’s got years of experience dealing with. This isn’t something she’s talked with a therapist about, something she’s been taught coping methods to deal with. This is *new* to her, still- *Amazigirl*, by only a slight stretch, is still new to her- since as far as we know, Amazigirl didn’t come until she got to college, and they’re still in the *first semester*.
Hazel
Within half a year of my rad friend sitting me down and telling me about her DID I met three more lovely people with it (and one asshole but hey, 4/5 is a decent rate). I hope you make lots of cool friends who share your osdd/did and lots who don’t but understand and are supportive.
Some Ed
I’ve lost track of the number of people with DID I’ve met. (It’s probably still single digits. My difficulties are remembering for certain who actually came out to me and who I’ve armchair diagnosed but haven’t really talked to about it.)
Most of the people with DID that I’ve met have an asshole in there somewhere, who can front when needed. Which is very different from normal people, most of whom are assholes to people they don’t know well without even realizing it. And that doesn’t *even* get into their driving skills or lack thereof.
I don’t think any of the people I’ve met with DID are always assholes. It’s generally 1-2 personalities that make up less than 10%. At least one of those always fronted whenever dealing with me for some reason, but I spoke with enough of the other people around them to know it’s a me issue. (More generally, they dislike alpha geeks, due to having been abused by a number of them in the past. I try to not be an aggressively alpha geek, but as somebody who reads technical documentation for a spare time activity, I’m pretty clearly in alpha geek territory. Also, this was college, and I offered free help, and a lot of the people around them partook of it, so it was very clear to them that I was at least in some way an alpha geek.)
Hazel
By butthole I meant the person assaulted another person (who also has DID) many times.
Elisto
I can tell you from experience, it’s not just shitty, it’s incredibly traumatic. 2.5 years ago and I’m still recovering.
I don't know my name anymore.
…..what implies that?
DailyBrad
It’s more just how Ethan handles these things, provided he handles them at all.
clif
To be fair, this is above Ethans pay grade.
Nono
I read that as Ethan’s gay parade for a second there.
HeySo
Above Ethan’s Gay Parade? Have they already started making the Amazi-Girl floats, then?
JaneDoe
No, no, no, it’s above the parade! It’s obviously an Amazi-girl balloon!
Shadow Dreamer
For once, I am in 100% agreement with you, Clif. This *is* above Ethan’s pay grade- and the responsible thing to do, here, would be to support Amber and help her get therapy, so that someone who’s pay grade it is can help her learn to cope.
Fogel
“to be fair” … yes. He should file a report with The Universe that Life is trying to assign him responsibility for things that he’s definitely not prepared to deal with. Definitely not fair.
DudeMyDadOwnsaDealership
So much is above Ethan’s pay grade…..That being said, with Blaine’s ability to dodge being associated with his criminal history by the public damaged more than ever before, I think it’s time Amber started searching for a credible psychiatrist or whatnot.
Continued self-medication is going to become less and less excusable from here on…
Norah
I don’t think he’s done with her so much as he’s angry that she doesn’t get help.
clif
Yes, just look at Ethan seething with anger.
Um, not seeing it. Ethan only gets angry about important things. Things like people getting Transformers wrong.
Chris
This doesn’t look like “I’m done with you.” It looks more like “I really, really don’t know how to handle what I just heard.”
Lee
I’m reading it that way, too. A sort of “that is a lot to unpack and I would love to help you deal with that right now, but Mike is in a coma and I’ve been kidnapped today so I DO NOT HAVE THE BRAIN POWER FOR THIS”.
Bunny
That was sarcasm. I think we are about to see Ethan lose his shit.
Miri
Either that or Mr Non-Confrontational is aware that this isn’t really OK but is going to let it slide and quietly worry about Amber twice as much…
Sirksome
Sarcasm is fine I suppose, but as potentially Amber’s only real support or a least the one of like two or three people she’s willing to acknowledge as support I like to hope Ethan has plans on talking to her about this very real and very serious issue. Mike’s in a coma and if things had went just a little differently he could be dead without Amber ever realizing it!
Hazel
In the last 12 hours Ethan has just been kidnapped, watched a man get murdered, and found of his closest friend has been keeping some pretty important stuff from him while his other closest friend is in a coma in front of him. He needs support. Amber’s pain should not be his priority right now.
(And no, Amber really didn’t know about Mike yesterday because of the not sharing memories, but there has been plenty of stuff she has known and not shared with him. She is, of course, allowed to not share stuff with him, but he is allowed to feel angry about being shut out.)
Sirksome
I can understand that Ethan’s been through a lot. In fairness they all have but I get that right this instant may not be the best time to drop his only feelings and address Amber’s issues. My problem is his comment read more like frustrated dismissal than sarcasm but maybe that’s my problem. He can’t go back to letting Amber’s mental issues fester in the background though like he’s been doing up to this point. I know as her friend he can’t force he to do anything, but he also didn’t really try to talk to her too much about any of this either. Amber’s just been kind of coping with it all by herself. Credit to her for even being functional most of the time. It’s a complicated issue admittedly I’m just not sure Ethan has really done enough on his part, it felt more like the bare minimum. I won’t put it all on him, that’s not fair, but snarky comments like that don’t really help things when he hasn’t been doing much himself.
Hazel
In fairness, when Ethan has done/said something Amber didn’t like she hasn’t exactly acted…great.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-9-comic/01-flyin-to-the-red/bumped/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/promised/
And he has left her openings to talk to him too-
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/goodness/
Being the one person that another can trust to talk to about things can really, really suck. It can severely hurt their mental health. Amber has a loving mother, she has other friends, she has access to some mental health services. The kind of expectations you have for Ethan are past the bounds of a paid psychologist, let alone a friend who is dealing with his own stuff.
Also, Ethan’s family life was abusive too, even if it wasn’t as much as Amber’s.
Hazel
Amber needs help. But not at the expense of Ethan’s mental health.
Devin
For me it reads to me as frustration that Amber seems to be portraying her own issues as at some kind of resolution, which is clearly not the case to any outside observer, as well as with the expectation that she’ll likely just try to shoulder the burden on her own again, which has been her pattern. But there are a lot of potential ways this could go, and we can’t really be sure until we know what Ethan says next. Or possibly Amber.
UniqueSnowflake2
All’s well that ends.
Chris
I don’t know about that. Ross ended, rather conclusively.
DudeMyDadOwnsaDealership
Possibly over *actually following Blaine’s plan to the letter,* no less.
Seriously, it seemed like Blaine was blaming him for ‘ruining everything’ as part of his ‘Whenever his pride’s hurt/threatened, he lies’ quirk, and not because he actually mess up his one job. Ironic.
NelC
“Nothing ever ends, Adrian.”
Strangeshapes
That’s why there are no happy endings.
https://vimeo.com/92054249
Jamie
Stories versus Reality, in a nutshell.
Pylgrim
This. That is uncharacteristically uncharitable of him. Amber is basically describing how broken her psyche is and he’s being sarcastic.
SillyGoose
We’ve known for months (our time) about Amb’s DID, he’s had like 12 seconds to wrap his head around it while also having to deal with the trauma of a kidnapping and his other friend battling death.
After everything that’s happened to him in the last 24h (his time), I vote he’s allowed some defensive sarcasm.
JetstreamGW
Don’t whine about other people’s mental issues, Ethan 😛
abysswatcher1993
This is going to harm their friendship more than it was, with Ethan not trusting Amber, and Amber feeling more guilty than before.
RedCat
I think he’s just overwhelmed.
He Who Abides
^A million times this.
JohnInCA
When your mental health issues –and specifically, the mental health issues you have been refusing to manage– cause problems for other people, that privilege is kinda lost.
Stephen Bierce
“Fifty percent of the game is half mental.”
Robbie
TELL HER TO GET MENTAL HEALTH CARE
Newllend(henryvolt)
Are you kidding in this economy? Nah man we’re going to the local campus psychiatrist or counselor whatever.
Rose by Any Other Name
I mean, what you are describing is mental health care.
Robbie didn’t specify the quality level of the mental health care, just that there be mental health care.
Kella
Also, have you ever tried to find a counselor that treats dissociative disorders? Cause… there aren’t a lot of them.
Shadow Dreamer
*bitter, hysterical laughter*
/You can fucking say that again./
Kravis