Talk:Finn Collins/@comment-25176701-20141206142712/@comment-24.99.67.19-20141207023657

I apologize that my posts tend to be rather long. I just want to add one more thing, which requires me to be a bit personal.

Some years ago, I woke up one morning and I started to cry and couldn't stop all day long. If you have a stomach ache,you take an antiacid. If you have a runny nose, you take an antihistamine. I had no remedy for this, however, and I felt completely helpless and hopeless. And I hod no idea what was wrong with me.

I eventually called my doctor who told me that I was depressed and put me in touch with a psychiatrist. It took months of psychotherapy and medication before I was fully restored to mental health. I had to learn what aspects of my life were making me sick and how to cope with them. The strange thing is that until things had reached this peak, I didn;t even realize that I was ill. Other people thought something was wrong because they had been asking me if I were okay. But I didn't even see the breakdown coming.

Now I'm not an expert on PTSD, but I imagine that both have one major thing in common. Just like the flu or cancer interrupt the normal function of the body, these disorders interrupt the normal function of the brain. It's the most complex organ of the body and the one we undertand the least.

But here's the point. I didn't choose to get mentally sick any more than someone chooses to get cancer. And once the disorder had set in, I couldn't just make myself well. I couldn't will myself to stop crying or to feel better. I was at the mercy of whatever was malfunctioning in my head. So I imagine that this was true of Finn. He didn't walk away because his mind wasn't functioning logically. The brain governs behavior, and if the brain isn't operating properly, then a person isn't going to behave normally. And with PTSD, that behavior can be very erratic and dangerous.

Finn was too confused to apologize right away. He didn't even understand why Clarke couldn't look at him. In his mind,  he was just doing what was necessary to save Clarke and his friends. It took him a little time to realize exactly what he had done, and he still couldn't sort out why. All he could think was that it was an accident because he knew he didn't mean to do something like that. And once he let himself face it, I think the tears spoke volumes about how he felt and how sorry he was.. And I'm sure that's not the end of his misery.

So what do you do? Punishing him isn't going to help him get well. It's not going to teach him that you have to pay a price for doing evil deeds because he wasn't evil in the first place. So all you're doing is punishing him for getting sick from other people's violent and cruel acts that shocked his brain so badly that it malfunctioned. Again, there is no easy or perfect answer.

You know one thing that makes me mad? How the hell do the grounders get off on demanding blood for blood. They invaded the 100's camp and tried to slaughter everybody in it. It's true that the 100 had arms, but it was never going to be a fair fight. There were over 300 well trained, experienced warriors against less than a hundred inexperienced and untrained teenagers who were armed with defective rifles and little ammunition. If it weren't for Clarke's quick thinking and Raven's know how, THEY would have all been "massacred". And now they want Finn to pay for their turning him into a killer? Please! Finn was the instrument, but the grounders were the true perpetrator of that massacre.

PS,  I had no intentions of implying that you weren't smart enough to recognize PTSD. Actually, it was Rothenberg who made that statement about trusting the audience to figure things out. If the writers were always spelling things out, they might be insulting their audience or becoming preachy. So they give us enough to let us read between the lines.

Peace to you, too.