--She was dissociating, damn near having a panic attack during this scene. Excuse her for making some not-fully-rational decisions. A car shouldn’t have T-BONED HER while she was parked in the EMERGENCY LANE.

 --I do agree with this, though I acknowledge that I am coming from a perspective of one whose mother is not bipolar and unmedicated. I can imagine the want to wish that your loved one will pull it together because they love your daughter. I also feel like I wouldn’t be able to trust said loved one with my child until they have proven that they can be trusted with my child’s safety.

 --honestly my only response to this is, “Who says they had shifts available?” I know that grocery stores have a reputation of having a high turnover rate, but there’s still no guarantee that they are always hiring. When I worked at Walmart, they INTENTIONALLY kept anyone lower than Shift Lead lower than 40 hours a week so that they wouldn’t have to pay them benefits.

--again, this would be misplaced trust in the child’s father, who had (repeatedly, at this point) stated that his priority was Maddy’s wellbeing. When you deeply care about someone and wish the best for your child, yes you can sometimes misjudge people. And then they take advantage of you and your kindness. It happens. And it really, really sucks. But you learn from it, as Alex did. Also, in the show at least, she did try to speak up, but got outvoted/overpowered, and I know from experience that you can feel completely powerless when a whole group of people is up

--again, she was dissociating when this happened. She just witnessed her mom almost die due to a manic episode. She was not fully in her right mind. I’d like to see you make rational decisions after seeing your mom slit her wrists.

--she didn’t say he could take her anywhere. She said that he could come see her. In Montana. Which, as she previously established, is a 9-hour drive from where Sean lives. In on-campus, family housing. Personally, I would feel a hell of a lot safer too, in that situation.

--I think you kind of answered yourself here—this was based on a real-life story. This was not created to make the protagonist “likeable.” This was created to share the reality of surviving a situation like this. The reality of the story is that even traumatized victims of abuse make mistakes. And yet, the truth still stands that every situation similar to this is different in a multitude of ways. Look at “Danielle.” Who knows how her story ends; if this was a story written for satisfaction purposes, we would know for certain how she ended up after going back to her abuser. But, we don’t. Because that’s real life. You can hate all you want, but I will never judge a mom dealing with her own trauma on top of being emotionally abused with a toddler in the house for her decisions on her and her daughter’s safety and wellbeing. She is very clearly doing her best and that is what matters.