Some hard words.
Thought about having Amanda butt heads here and insist, as she has before, that she's right and everyone else is stupid. But Amanda's not made of stone, and she's shown before a glimmer of awareness in what her actions are resulting in.
Amanda’s not made of stone, she’s also not quite sober, and is getting tag-team parent-ed for the first time. And they aren’t yelling at her, or threatening her, or hitting her.
They’re talking to her. And treating her like she’s a real person. Hopefully this is a strong turning point for her and a lot of good ends up coming from this.
You know whats right, Amanda! We believe in you!
But water dripping on a stone, little be little will wear it away.
I kinda feel like Amanda is also, deep down, sub-consciously realizing that treating people bad makes her feel the same way she felt before with the family that ‘gave her back.’ I know she’s likely not getting it on a surface level, but her heart is saying, “when I’m mean to people, they hurt- like I hurt. I don’t want them to feel like that.”
Something about the way she’s softening here… Reminds me of when I softened.
You ever look up the documentary “Child of Rage”? Fascinating stuff. The girl (Beth) had been abused as a baby, and had no emotional connection to anyone, no empathy — she talked without emotion about wanting to hurt her parents, hurt or kill her baby brother.
The therapist who worked with her ended up training her to develop a sense of empathy as “When I hurt someone else, that hurts me too.” I forget the details but it totally worked, and she became a normal adult with a normal life, something that did not seem possible for a kid that close to psychopath (I believe the actual diagnosis wasn’t psychopath, but “reactive attachment disorder” or something like that).
That is the best news I’ve heard in months.
A genuine and heartfelt “d’aww” for Tilly.
As in a “DUH!” for idiots or an “Daw…awww” for lil’ kittens?
Live, learn, and love.
Here’s the core of Amanda, she doesn’t know when to stop fighting. Every day has been either her attacking or being attacked. This is what she knows, this is her one job. If you stay angry long enough it becomes you. And she’s pretty close to that turn back point. We can see while drunk she doesn’t want to be angry, like when she was complaining that all she is is a bad girl and Lilian disagreed. That wasn’t boasting, that was begging for help.
Todd and Andi are doing the right thing here. In fact, Andi is doing all right in the defuse aspect. Mind you, she sucks under pressure, and I think Amanda overwhelms her, but when defusing a child, she does great. Then again, if she’s been friends with Todd as long as she has, I suspect she’s had practice.
Everything when it comes to fixing Amanda’s issues comes down to timing and pressure. You need to know when to push, when to pull back. I wish I had someone when I was begging for help that could have helped me. So instead, I’ll root for Amanda to at least not go down the same road I have.
May I root for you?
Never type when you’re tired. At least I got the jist of what I was saying down. With what I meant being that no turn back point, and Andi has been friends with Todd for as long as I think she has.
Thank you Khlovia, but it’s pretty much too late for me. I’m trying to open more to people, trust them more, trust them at all but it’s not easy. My mom is just now finding out some of the crap that went on under her nose because I was holding back. I’m just now an angry, bitter middle aged man.
Middle-aged just means you have half your life left to live. I believe you can be more than just an angry, bitter old man. It might take 10 years of constantly redirecting your thoughts to a different route, but it’s still possible for you.
*offers a cyber-hug*
My father discovered at age 60 what damage his wife, my maternal donator of genetic material, had been doing to him and all of us.
He’s fought hard, but he has learned to trust and open himself again. It is not easy, but it is not impossible, no matter the when.
I’m 34 myself and still unfolding day by day. It’s only too late if you let yourself believe that – I know you can find a path forward, slow though it may be.
My best wishes to you – I may be a stranger on the internet, but I’m rooting for you.
Sugar, I have a coupla decades on you, and I’m voting with Eve Matteo and Leoness. Three against one. We win.
I do remember being your age, you young whippersnapper, and thinking *my life is over, I’ve lost too much, I’ve taken too much damage, it’s too late to fix*, but I now know how wrong I was. And this despite the fact that I keep figuring out new complications and implications of various aspects of my childhood, and therefore keep getting mad all over again.
My dog tends to agree with you as well.
It ain’t easy not being angry let me tell you. I’m trying to stop the rage, I really am guys. The gal I’ve been talking to is with you guys too. So I have Green Lanterns on all sides fighting this Red Lantern. 😀
🙂 🙂 🙂
*Snort* Middle aged? Middle aged? You wanna rethink that, GN? *hugs* I’m here for ya too, anytime you wanna talk.
I wanted to add in my rootings for you as well, Gallows. I know from myself that anger about the past isn’t always a thing that goes away. Sometimes it just winds down to a low manageable simmer.
Her cheeks look kind of green. Is she going to throw up?
Ha! Just what I was thinking! But with a sound track, I was thinking, “when you feel like a broken down fellow, and you’re lookling gamboge in the gills, …”
Gamboge is a shade of orange, not green.
Yeah that was my first thought… The point Andi and Todd are making are great, but that kid is about to blow… That and I have done a lot of stupid things after drinking too much and not really remembered it, I think she needs this conversation later.
She’s been green the whole time she’s been at the coffee shop. Not saying she won’t blow chow, but it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily imminent.
Poor baby. They’re not even bothering with why it happened. Sure it doesn’t excuse it but it explains enough. Heather told Selkie something that Amanda should have when she was ready. She broke a huge promise.
I hope she doesn’t puke. :/ Getting sick in a public place is no fun.
They heard Heather’s apology so I assume they put 2 and 2 together on the why front.
Aiigh….. Has NOBODY else noticed that Selkie is wearing her pink mittens while she eats Panini meat? There is going to be a lot of fuzz stuck to the meat and there is going to be one heck of a nasty laundry item to be washed.
But I guess because of her tendency to get chilled and go torpid, Todd is probably aware of this and has approved of it. The things parents have to accept as routine….
I say ditch the mittens and buy new ones.
If her mittens are made out of that nylon canvas my later winter mittens were made out of, there will be no fuzz in her food and it won’t be that hard to wash off.
Well done Todd and Andi. I can tell that both of them are speaking from personal experience about each of their lines, and it makes it all the more real.
Also, well done Amanda, for actually listening to them and realizing that your actions are making things worse for yourself.
Here’s for everyone’s personal growth.
If she was nice, she’d have more friends, and friends are coooo-ooool!
…Sorry, I had to.
I just say that the other day and this made me laugh until it hurt.
And… meanwhile, Selkie is enjoying her meat seasoned with a generous helping of schadenfreude. She doesn’t really get the significance of what’s happening here. How could she? She’s only eight. She’s also, by nature, a predator. She’s only thinking, “Yay, the bully is getting bawled out by her Mom AND my Dad!” To her, it’s very simple: good guys vs. bad guys, and the good guys are now winning… it’s about the same as Truck getting his come-uppance.
Given her history, this is totally excusable. All the same, looking at the kind of story Dave tends to tell, I would guess that sooner or later there is going to be a situation where she’ll have to learn more empathy!
I think Selkie is more emphatic than most, her later treatment of Truck (when he tried to apologize) I see as outright heroic, especially coming from a kid.
especially even AFTER she was one of his major targets as well…
Man, that was a good read! Went through the whole archives in less than a day…And wasted some of my working hours reading as well. A really good show!
This might be a good place to ask people, actually. Anyone else know any comics, literature or whatever, with a similar feel, or a focus on adoption? This comic, as well as the Laska and Me stories have made me interested in stories of that type, and I’d love to find more, but it’s proven to be pretty difficult.
Awwww, the magic of friendship. This was very well done on Todd’s and Andi’s part. It really does come down to logic. If you act violently, people usually won’t want to hang out with you (at least not the kind of people most would want company with). They are presenting it as serious as it is, but they also are letting her come to the conclusion herself—which really empowers Amanda if she makes the right choice to stay on a good path on her own…for her own sake versus being worried about her parents punishing her or not loving her.
Amanda’s not made of stone, even if Amanda is stubborn she seems to also be well aware that she’s flawed (actually to the point of self-hate in her vulnerable moments)
Amanda may need to be reminded about this particular lesson-later, when she’s sober and can think-but even this moment of her mommy and daddy scolding her because they actually CARE about Amanda and her future, might stay with her a little bit and it’s a step in the right direction
*sigh* Selkie…
Augh.
This is just… not looking good to me. Like, yeah, it’s probably effective short-term in getting Amanda to apologize, but will it really help mend the relationships? “Do you want to be a girl without friends” my ass. Having no friends is better than sticking with someone just for that reason, and I’m saying that as someone who’s got extensive experience with both.
Just… eugh.
The narrative will probably present them as right, too.
(I feel like at least part of my emotional reaction comes from how Andi and Todd don’t bend down to talk to Amanda and instead tower over her. It’s just… not good)
This isn’t a case of Heather not being good company and Amanda would be better off without her, if she keeps up acting the way she has she’ll chase away everyone and will end up miserable.
I think this is more of a case of, this is a serious talk, and there might be the idea that they don’t want to get in Amanda’s face at this point, hence the fact that they aren’t bending down to talk. Also, as Mikael pointed out, it is the context of the talk, and not so much the words.
The context is that Amanda is actively pushing people away, and that does need to stop.
Not making friends for friends sake, and actively pushing people away who do have a sincere desire to be your friend are two different animals. In the first case, yes they would be wrong to suggest that she should just be friends with people just to have friends. In the second, they are right in that if she keeps pushing everyone away, that she will be a girl without friends.
Also, Amanda isn’t daddy’s little cheerleader anymore, huh, Todd? Guess you shouldn’t have assumed that she was all sugar and rainbows and happy inside just because of how she LOOKED, perhaps?
You know what they say about assumptions Todd, they only make you look like an ass. And you know, what he says really rubs me the wrong way. “Is that who you want to be? A kid without any friends?” That seems like a really shallow way to phrase that. At the very least I hope he follows up with something along the lines of them needing to have a serious talk about this in private later and letting her know she isn’t in trouble.
Time and time again the adults are missing the fact that AMANDA NEED HELP AND UNDERSTANDING.
You can’t explain things to her in such a way. She needs to understand what she’s doing and what people have done to her or SHE WON’T GET IT. We’ve seen before how she feels about being pegged as, ‘the bad kid’ and talking to her this way is just solidifying that statement in her brain. People shame this poor traumatized child as a bad seed and malicious bully without trying to actively get to the root of the problem. Continue to shame her and treat her as something and she’s gonna turn into that something…
I think Todd only phrased it that way because he’s been in Amanda’s place. He remembers exactly what it feels like, and he KNOWS that isn’t who she wants to be. He knows her answer is going to be “No.”
I don’t see him shaming her at all. I see him pointing out the consequences of her current behaviour. He’s not saying she’s a bad seed, at all. He’s not implying she can’t change what she does. On the contrary, he’s leading her to realize that she herself has very good reasons to want to change – which implies that he knows for sure it’s possible. And he does know… because HE changed.
don’t forget that TODD does NOT KNOW about Amanda’s history AT ALL!!!, ONLY what he’s heard from Selkie herself (she’s a bully for no apparent reason), Possibly a bit more from the School during the times he’s had to go there to interact with them over the T-shirt and Truck incidents, and finally, anything that happened off-camera during that one night playing games with Andi and his parents… so basically, it’s not much for him to go on, since all the child abuse from the Sanderson’s was still under Orphanage vs. Prospective Adoptor secrecy, and i’m pretty sure that Andi hasn’t worked up enough courage to even tell him about it yet (i’m not sure, but i don’t remember that topic coming up even at the Aquarium where he was FURIOUS at her… it was fury over the fact the Amanda was ALIVE, NOT that she was abused…). so, nope… he ain’t got a clue… so yeah, i guess he can be forgiven that fact that he’s not playing at 100% when it comes to what he “should be” saying/meaning for maximum effect, but i also think that once he finds out about the Sanderson’s, that his stance WILL change, and hopefully towards more along the lines where Spring Pop wants them to go… i dunno’, we’ll see when we see i guess…
complete and utter nonsense logic I hear all the time. “They did something bad but now that they have said sorry YOU MUST MUST MUST ACCEPT IT OR ELSE!!!!”
I always told my kids that if you do something bad you have to apologize but they do not have to accept it.
Sure Amanda hit the other girl, them pounded her so bad that she is now a cripple and can never recover.
Heather has demonstrated that she can’t be trusted with a secret.
life goes on unless we go out of our way to prevent it
Forgiving is good, adjusting expectations is almost unavoidable (though it is remarkable how many people will say sorry then expect to be treated as though they never did anything wrong)
mending fences is the better way togo