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I agree with this thread and just wann wanna add some thoughts about “Dean thrives on trauma.” Dean’s entire life has been defined, motivated, and guided by trauma. Even before he experienced the huge trauma of losing his mother violently, Dean was subject to his parents’ https://twitter.com/dotthinging/status/1293146722332540929
Tumultuous marriage. We learned that in his flashbacks. A four year old comforting his mother because of his father’s behavior is experiencing trauma. Then of course he experienced Mary’s death and John’s subsequent descent into unstable violence. Dean’s entire life was uprooted
And he spent the rest of it being exposed to horrors and terror and things that would break most people. This was his life. His every day life. Trauma. And he learned how to live in that trauma because he had to. He learned how to navigate it and move in it the same way regular
Kids learn how to navigate and move through regular life. But for Dean that trauma is whats familiar. It’s what he knows. He “thrives” on it because it’s what life is to him. It is of course extremely unhealthy and this deep seated damage to his psyche has irrevocably changed
That little boy into a man who does indeed “thrive” on trauma because he doesn’t know anything else. Look at his year of normalcy with Lisa. He was unsettled the whole time. He was never comfortable or relaxed. Because to him normalcy is foreign and dangerous. He doesn’t know how
To navigate that life. It’s unfamiliar and it’s mundane predictablity feels off kilter and vaguely threatening to him. He is always vigilant for how it’s going to pull the rug out from under him. Because he expects trauma. His mind and body expect it and he has not ever worked
Through how to let those expectations go. So yes he “thrives” on it. Because he’s been built that way and he’s never really had a chance to unpack it from his psyche. He “thrives” on it because it’s really all he’s ever known.
