#*mental illness

I think that for him it's related to an unstable childhood and early life trauma, like many (but obviously not all) people with BPD. He ends up with an all-consuming fear of abandonment. He has difficulty forming relationships and has that all-or-nothing approach, adoration or detestation. Maeglin latches on to Idril like a drowning man, with all the intense desperation of someone terrified of abandonment and starving for love. Of course he's confused about whether he's romantically attracted to her.

He puts her on an unhealthy and unrealistic pedestal. He idolises Idril, and she recoils from the intensity of it. She rejects him. It's devastating.

He struggles with a lack of social skills. Because of that, he never really finds a place in Gondolin. His inability to form healthy stable bonds only worsens the already crushing feelings of worthlessness. Maeglin doesn't understand his emotional instability, and neither does anyone around him. He lashes out without meaning to. His repressed anger and trauma burst out at the smallest triggers. He becomes self-destructive, impulsive. He's overwhelmed with misery.

So he retreats into his mines in the mountains. He completely isolates himself, all alone where he can't hurt anyone and they can't hurt him.

Although I love Kate just as much as the fandom does, I feel that she fits very easily into an image American society has created in recent years about The Mentally Ill Teenager (TM) and that she fits that image to a T.

And while there’s nothing inherently wrong with fitting into this mold, as a fellow mentally ill person what I find problematic with this narrative is that it leaves no room for the mentally ill teenager who actively -- and at times violently -- fights against their own victimization, who is both the abuser and the abused, who usually ends up coping with their symptoms in self-destructive ways and who’s messy and rebellious and makes mistakes because they’re still trying to figure out who they are as a mentally disabled person living in an ableist world.

I, for one, do not think it a coincidence that everyone adores Kate, the young mentally ill girl from a strict Christian family who has done nothing overly excessive throughout the course of the game to fight back against the wave after wave of people who continue to victimize her while she continues to attempt to receive justice for what has happened to her. Again, there‘s nothing wrong with this narrative and I’m sure that many people would argue that this would be the “right” way of dealing with a situation like this, but that in itself is the problem -- there really is no “right” or “ideal” way to deal with and recover from mental trauma and as a result I believe that people need to be more accepting of different mentally ill narratives, especially when dealing with a subject as varied and extensive as mental illness.

I understand and agree that both Chloe and Nathan have done terrible things and should be held accountable for what they’ve done despite being mentally ill (I personally headcanon Chloe as being mentally ill but I’m sure you can argue against this) and that violence and mental illness do not go hand in hand, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re both still teenagers who are attempting to live their lives to the best of their abilities all while not getting the adequate care they need. Not everyone reacts to mental illness/trauma in the same way so why is it expected that everyone should recover from it in the same way as well?

I was going through a bad anxiety/OCD moment, but listening to Daft Punk is making me feel better.