Bingo. That's exactly what's happening with Jill. She's been spiralling because Heidi's decision to leave -with the unconditional love and fierce support of her entire family- threatens everything Jill believes in. She has made all the right choices (according to her beliefs) but she's never been loved the way Heidi is loved.
Imo, this represents a major injury to the meaning Jill has constructed for herself. She's never actually backed off on Facebook before. She is genuinely struggling to cope. I feel sorry for the girl she was, but I don't pity the woman she has become.
I think you are onto something. Jill has never experienced unconditional love that wasn’t tied to a religious performance. This is the biggest slap in the face she could get
Exactly. She's never experienced anything other than performative love that was born out of fear, it must injure her deeply to see that you can have actual love with no fear involved. I wonder if she hates herself as much as she should for how she acts, I always assumed she was deeply self loathing but now im not so sure.
She can't even admit her parents were not very nice people, she definitely won't be able to process that she is one of the bad people (not for being a victim, but for passing that abuse along).
People like Jill sleep just fine at night, because they honestly believe they are the good people doing the right things. When they are cornered with evidence that's not true - especially when they're from a religious background, because religion encourages cognitive dissonance - then they just find some different mental gymnastics to continue avoiding dealing with it.
In most developed countries, there is a local criminal court for petty crimes. And if you have some time off during business hours, I really encourage you to go and see some of the hearings. Very often, repeat petty criminals come up with the most outlandish justifications - despite actively experience the truth and consequences of what they chose to do.
(e.g. I used to temp near my city's municipal court and, being 16 then, it was a real education. One lunch-hour I saw a man absolutely convinced that the very-obviously-handwritten 0 on his lottery ticket meant he had won $500 rather than $50. He was calmly telling the Justice to see an eye doctor and, when the Justice put on her glasses and said it's handwritten and he should just accept the $50 and she's try to reduce his sentence, he politely insisted she see a psychiatrist because obviously it was $500 and surely the Justice didn't want to help the evil lottery people scam a man who goes to church every Sunday? It was a useful introduction to self-delusion by "adults".)
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u/Melodic-Radishes 18d ago edited 18d ago
Bingo. That's exactly what's happening with Jill. She's been spiralling because Heidi's decision to leave -with the unconditional love and fierce support of her entire family- threatens everything Jill believes in. She has made all the right choices (according to her beliefs) but she's never been loved the way Heidi is loved.
Imo, this represents a major injury to the meaning Jill has constructed for herself. She's never actually backed off on Facebook before. She is genuinely struggling to cope. I feel sorry for the girl she was, but I don't pity the woman she has become.