thinking about cassie and her guilt again, and how it only makes her life harder, and more often than not how she gets in her own way.
I feel like in the instance of Cassie and her addiction you hear a lot about how she was a wild child, and how the next step in that direction is that she did whatever she wanted and whatever felt good in the moment. I think that it would be within the realm of reason for her to overcorrect once she decides to get sober, to go to the very polar opposite of the spectrum and develop Major control issues. she holds herself with such rigid control in all aspects of her life: at work, with friends and family, with chad, and it works for the most part except she can't get close enough to anybody to form any real relationship, romantic or platonic, outside of the the one she has with her son. harrison is her world, and everything else has learned to come secondary to that, so---
she overcorrects. everything is secondary. for years, cassie's life consists of work and harrison and empty hours she loses to nothing and it's fine. it's all fine. everything is under control, she's sober, she's mastered the urges, and maybe she's a little distant and reserved in that little bit that matters the most but she has to be so reserved and disconnected because the alternative---harrison being taken from her again---is unimaginable. she can't let that happen again. the fact that she canonically relapsed after harrison was born just drives home this point. i like to think that he was taken away from her as an infant after she relapsed, and (my hcs about her postpartum depression aside) it's one of the very worst things to happen to her. she can never let that happen again. so she stays sober, stays separated emotionally, and controls it.
on the other side of that same coin, if she lets go for just a moment and slips, if she loses harrison again, what else does she have? she has no real friends, no significant other. maybe she's a workaholic, but that's a poor stand-in for human connection. she's repressed her emotions for so long it feels filthy to want something, to really, truly, burn with the force of wanting. in cassie's mind, she should be content with what she has. by looking at her past, she's lucky to be where she is, with her son and a stable living situation and a job that she excels at. she's lucky to have turned her life around and become a doctor. hell, she's lucky to be alive. so, in her mind, its ungrateful to take all of that for granted and let herself want something so unsafe, something more, i.e., victoria.
especially with the whole mentor/student dynamic, cassie's wanting isn't safe, it doesn't only exist in their bubble, but in the very busy hospital where anyone can see the fondness spelled out on her face at any given moment. its not just the law judging her then, or one single person like it is with chad---its the whole damn public. if she allows herself to want, she will be judged day in and day out by everyone she encounters.
and cassie does not like attention. to her, attention has always been bad, very rarely good. and when its bad attention, it means something is going to be taken away from her. she develops an irrational fear of too much attention, and that informs a lot of her decision making once she's sober and building her life back up.
i think there's also some sort of undiagnosed, under the radar mental illness somewhere in her psyche. the addiction didn't come from nowhere, and maybe this is one of the places. maybe cassie's addiction came about because she truly wanted something: to not feel the pain. in the wake of her past destruction, she's able to see that wanting to take away the pain did this to her and everyone in her vicinity. she thinks that if this all was caused by the crime of wanting, then she'll just not want. she'll bury the urge until it's small and manageable. she can go along with her life and take what she can get. until one day that way of thinking doesn't work anymore. and, despite it all, she wants, and tortures herself with the guilt over it, because---it's all tied into the same things, isn't it? cassie has been conditioned to think that her wanting leads to horrible consequences, so what would make this situation, which is arguably worse, any different?
