Welcome to the nonsense

he was inviting her to cry to him the same way that mags had for him, the same way katniss does in mockingjay

and boy, was i wrong...

the finale of YOU s5 was perfect. it surpassed my expectations for a great ending bc it went beyond the show's assumed formula and became a self-aware, raw and surprisingly feminist meta commentary on the show itself, joe goldberg, his victims and the real world realities of the victim/predator dynamics.

throughout the season, i wondered what was the point of introducing a character like louise. was it to show once again that joe will always find a flaw in his "soulmate" and continue the pattern of his predatory behavior?

yes, but more importantly, it all clicked and made sense when the finale revealed the point of louise to be about HER, not joe.

louise is not a random chick whose life and story is split in "before joe and after joe". she is an echo of beck. through louise we see that beck was not just a tragic heroine in joe's story, she was someone who left an impact on people in her life such as louise.

she is not the perfect victim or heroine. she has some moments of internalized misogyny, thinking that she is smarter than those women who fall for toxic men. she believes that she can fix joe. she fantasizes about being saved and dominated by him, giving him control to build her up bc she does not know who she is and has self-esteem issues, struggling to love herself without a lover's validation.

in some sense, she represents joe's perfect victim; in some sense, she represents the audiences who romanticize him. and she is the one who snaps out and sees herself clearly, thus seeing joe as he truly is and becoming his ultimate reckoning.

and with her, we see joe as he is as well. a pathetic misogynist with mommy issues who does not accept anything he deems selfish in women he preys upon. a predator who kills his prey once she does not reflect the image of himself to him he wants to see. someone who does not take accountability for harming others, always making excuses for himself. his mask is finally off, he is naked.

once louise confronts him and takes her voice back, demanding joe to admit the truth, the story takes off the romantic lenses that reminded more or less intact throughout the show and turns into a pure horror of brutality and violence.

but joe can not kill louise. metaphorically, it's bc he does not have power over her anymore, she found her own power in herself. power that is found through self-acceptance and love for all the victims who were silenced by joe. she declares that she is not bronte built in his fantasy, she is louise.

i actually teared up when louise had a vision of beck autographing her books and then it cut to an older lady, showing the lifetime that was taken away from her.

no

Im not gonna shut up about it actually - you season 5 spoilers so if you're not insane and didn't consume that season at the speed of delirium scroll now

The Hyperactivity in Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is NOT about being physically hyperactive, it's about having a "hyperactive central nervous system" because it's a form of inheritable dysautonomia. The problem with disautonomia, especially the ADHD kind, is that it makes boredom flag to your nervous system as a THREAT, triggering hyperactive and maladaptive central nervous system processes like fight or flight.

But dysautonomia kills you that way. Literally, part of the reason our average life spand increase on stimulents is that it helps manage risk-taking impulsivity that can get us killed by accident, but the other part is that stimulents can regulate a hyperactive CNS such that it is functionally (while impacted by the stimulent) NOT dysregulated anymore. And PHYSIOLOGICALLY that is essential because the physical outcomes of dysautonomia can reduce your life span by YEARS if not decades through self-perpetuating hypervigelence, endocrine disruption, and adrenal fatigue.

So when the ADHD brain goes stimulation-seeking and a doctor tells you to practice mindfulness, it feels like being told "hey go stand in a functioning boiler until you can stop thinking" rather than WHAT IT IS which is the process of re-teaching your body what is and isn't safe.

Standing outside making mindful, non-interpretive/moralized observation of the world helps your brain and body re-acclimate to the idea that absence of that frantic "busy" feeling isn't a threat or a risk to your safety, and gradually reduces the level of distress that just hanging out somewhere triggers for you.

Learning WHY this stuff was being suggested and understanding what it was actually supposed to do went a long way towards changing my relationship with my ADHD. I am FAR more functional now, far less prone to shame spirals and rejection sensitivity, hell, I can **sit physically still for near on an hour at a time** now without feeling like I'm going to crawl out of my skin.

So yeah. Go outside. Let the world narrow around you and take deep breaths until it stops feeling claustrophobic or like you need to climb walls. Learn how to let little sensations become big ones like the way the heat of the sun on your skin starts as a gentle warming and be omes a unique collection of sensory moments depending on how it lands on you. Listen for sounds under sounds and let them fade in and out as you move your focus from one sound to the next. Enjoy. Move on. Rinse and repeat.