Lauren apologising to her mom in 4x05 reminds me of her breakdown in season 1 before she went to rehab. She told Iggy that she could’ve saved her sister and her mom if she hadn’t left them by moving so far away for college. “I was all they had.” Because her dad died, and her sister was just a kid, and her mom was an alcoholic who couldn’t take care of them, so Lauren had to be the adult.
It breaks my heart that Lauren took on the role of protector from such a young age. She tried to help her mom’s alcoholism, in the best way a seven year old knows how. She protected her little sister as best she could for as long as she could; probably raised her more than their mom ever did. And while her dad took care of them financially, it seems he was pretty absent a lot of the time. So she took it upon herself to look after her mom and sister, because who else was gonna do it? By the time Lauren’s dad died when she was only 16 (trauma in and of itself) she’d already internalised that it was her job to look after them. But Lauren was just a kid herself, that never should’ve been her responsibility. And the guilt that she internalised when she chose to put herself first never should’ve been hers to bear. She saved herself by moving away for college, but she blamed herself for not saving Vanessa or her mom.
And I’m sure she knows, logically, that none of it is her fault. It’s not her fault her mom didn’t get better, and it’s not her fault that Vanessa ended up fighting her own battles with addiction. But because Lauren internalised this belief from such a young age that it was her job to look after them, I think there’s always gonna be a part of Lauren that carries this guilt for not doing more to save them. It’s part of the reason why she keeps giving her mom chance after chance to start again, to make up for the past. She said it herself, she used to cycle through feeling angry at her mom, to pitying her and feeling sorry for her. Despite everything, despite all the hurt, Lauren can never fully turn her back on her mom. She wants to believe there’s still a chance for them to repair things. When she had her surgery in season 2 she was so hopeful that her mom would turn up for her, and she was let down yet again. So she put her guard back up and when she came to find Lauren later in the season Lauren initially wanted nothing to do with her. But she gave in, heard her out, and even after Lauren learned that her mom doesn’t remember the awful things she put her through, she still decided to put that aside and try to make new memories with her.
4x05 is similar in that sense. When she thinks her mom is just looking for drugs she wants nothing to do with her, because this is the worst version of her mom. But when she finds out that her mom wasn’t lying about the pain, and has been living with endometriosis for decades and no doctor ever helped her, Lauren let’s her guard down again. As a doctor, she’s sorry that it took so long for anyone to take her pain seriously. As a daughter, she’s sorry that she didn’t believe her mom and assumed the worst of her. But her apology, well it feels bigger than Jeanie actually deserves. Because, sure, Lauren was right to apologise for the way she treated her on that particular day. But Lauren didn’t react the way she did for no reason. Jeanie IS an addict, and her addiction impacted Lauren’s childhood profoundly. As much as Lauren can be sympathetic to her mom’s pain, it doesn’t negate the pain she went through because of her. But it’s just so like Lauren to retreat back to the place of guilt that she didn’t do more to help her mom. It makes me so sad, especially because Jeanie was actually very cruel to Lauren in this episode. The things she said about her “it’s not gonna make a difference […] you’re gonna be over her by Christmas. she’s just nasty inside, she’s cold, I guess you’re just next in line to figure that out.” I mean, that was such a horrible thing to say about her daughter. And the ease at which those things came out of her mouth, that definitely wasn’t the first time she’s said such things about Lauren. It makes me wonder how many times Lauren’s heard her mom put her down like that. And yet, we didn’t touch on that at all. There was no apology from Jeanie for the things she said. They easily could’ve both apologised for the way they treated each other that day, but instead it was all put on Lauren. I didn’t like that, I think that deserved more attention because those feelings run deep on both sides and I desperately want the show to explore their dynamic across multiple episodes; not just once every other season.