tehri:

Thank you.

Thank you for writing Sansûkh. Thank you for portraying Thorin so well. Thank you for accurately portraying someone struggling with depression, anxiety, self-loathing and extremely likely PTSD.

Thank you for this.

Thank you for showing that it gets easier to live with it. Thank you for showing that despite the large amount of time he spent working on this, he is still not done. Thank you for showing that he has the support and love of so many. Thank you for showing that no one loves him any less for all his flaws.

Thank you for all of this.

It helps. You have no idea how much it helps to see someone actually portraying Thorin this way, to make him face his demons and not instantly defeat them. To make him very slowly, day by day, starting to learn to live with them and accept them as part of him, and to make him slowly figure out how to change himself and start to love himself.

It helps because depression and self-loathing have both been big parts of my life. It helps because you show that it DOES get better, for all that it takes time. It helps because you don’t say that it goes away instantly, that it’s a very long and slow process. Because god knows I’ve been frustrated beyond belief with myself and my inability to just walk away from my problems as neurotypicals seem to think that one should be able to.

Thank you.

I’m crying here. Proper real wet tears. 

Thank you, Teh. I can’t ever ever ever ever tell you how much this means to me. I can’t tell you how incredibly INCREDIBLY important this is to me, and how much it affects me down to my bones, to hear that you feel the same way and are struggling through the same shit. That because I wrote Thorin in this way – as a hero sure, BUT as a hero who lives and must come to terms with depression, phenomenal self-esteem and identity issues, anxiety, intrusive thoughts (and yeah definitely PTSD) – I have helped. 

Seriously, I am crying. Blotchy red-faced Dets with a runny nose. 

Thank you, most wonderful Hobbit Owl. Thank you so very, very much. *hugs for a zillion years*