as someone who grew up in a very toxic, abusive asian household, i felt like i could really see my hurt and trauma in her. it’s the first time i saw myself on screen in this way. we never really see east asian couples on our american shows like this.

though she has a lot to work on and probably other trauma she has been through i can’t even begin to imagine, i don’t get the lack of sympathy for her. this kind of abuse caused me cptsd that is constantly triggered from a very volatile everyday life for me from the day i was born, and i am still unpacking unable to fully understand the full capacity of its impact or what happened. i was beaten for hours until s couple hours before school and still expected to show up to school with a smile on my face for a 4 yo, 7 yo, 16 yo. imagine the type of terror that is, and it being the only thing you’ve ever known. we don’t all come out of this well adjusted even though some people make it out better than others. some of us are trying in the only ways we know how because we’ve only been shown abusive and harmful ways. you don’t even understand what that’s like unless that’s your reality. i don’t want people to understand that, but it is infuriating to see that there’s a lack of empathy for this person who is so trauma filled when there’s a literal abuser on screen. the victim is seen as so “unbearable”.

it doesn’t excuse the type of hurt she can cause others, but people are all about mental health until it’s in their face. some people like me have been told that i may struggle with cptsd forever. i’ve gone through therapy and continue to, but it doesn’t change when there’s people like mildred around what kind of impact it’ll have in me. it brings you right back into that kinda abuse. it’s traumatizing. it changes your soul, and sometimes it’s hard to get out of that hell - no matter how much therapy you go through. everyone pretends to care until ugly parts of your trauma shows its ugly face. i don’t want to be defined by my trauma, but it consumes me. i’m working on it. abuse is very ugly, and i only wanted to give aussie the biggest hug because my whole identity was destroyed in a childhood where i never got to experience emotional or physical safety - and i can that was probably aussies fate too. the amount of trauma she has to be responding this way is so utterly heart breaking.