it was a lot more than a hug: an (unintentional) short essay on mental health & steven worm
Iâve seen a lot of people saying things like âuGh thE eNdiNG sUcKEd geTtiNg a hUG doEsNâT sOLvE aLL yOuR pRoBLeMsâ. but in my opinion, thatâs exactly the point.Â
All throughout the second half of SUF, theyâre trying to show us that there is no one way to feel immediately better and have all of your problems solved. He goes to pretty much every source he can. The gems arenât necessarily seeing what heâs going through, Connie isnât going to solve this for him, his Dad is helping in an unhelpful way, so he goes to Jasper and that went haywire, so he goes to the diamonds and they just make it worse. And then what is he supposed to do?
Every single time Steven goes to a person to âhelpâ him, heâs going to them seeking help in order to fix it. and thereâs a big difference between the two.Â
I have anxiety, depression, and OCD, and often when Iâm panicking or having moments of high anxiety, I do what Steven did: I seek out people not to help me, but to fix it for me. I then react the same way Steven did - with anger - when people try to help instead of just fixing it.
Anxiety, depression, panic, none of those things can be completely and magically cured and rid of in the snap of a finger. But in the moment, for people like me, for a person like Steven, the thought of that feeling not being entirely solveable is petrifying.
 Itâs like if someone is drowning and splashing around: you canât get the life ring around them because of how much movement and commotion theyâre creating. But theyâre drowning, so you canât just tell them âHey, stop moving so I can help you!â From your perspective, youâre trying to help them by encouraging them to do something that will in turn allow you to help them. But to that person, if they stop flailing, theyâre going to sink even further, and that is terrifying, so much so that they canât even consider that you might be wanting to help them. All they can process is that you told them to stop doing the one thing that they donât want to do: sink. Even if theyâre sinking just for a moment, before you save them, that doesnât matter. That feeling of sinking is terrifying, so they end up splashing around more.Â
When Steven seems to be babbling on, almost comedically, in âEverything is Fineâ, trying to convince himself heâs fine, heâs gotten to a stage that I was in for a while, a sort of mania, where he is not only attempting to convince everyone around him that heâs fine, he has convinced himself that he is fine. This is a huge red flag for people with bipolar disorder or manic depression (NOT diagnosing Steven, I am not a professional, Iâve just experienced many of these things and been surrounded by people experiencing these things and professionals explaining them to me. Like I said, I was in the hospital for this, so). Everyone around him starts to see that he is, in fact, not fine, as theyâve already surmised. But the physical consequences of them not doing anything, not doing enough, are starting to manifest.
When he morphs into the Steven Worm, he has lost his sense of self. He doesnât know what to do with himself, he canât exist within himself with the world heâs created. He didnât tell the Gems about the hospital, he didnât tell his dad he was angry, he didnât actually tell Connie he needed her he just proposed. He doesnât know what to DO with all of this. So it explodes around him.
He canât control his feelings, himself anymore. He feels heâs lost control. For me, a human, this morphs into a panic attack. But for him, heâs a gem, he turns into Steven Worm.
Not even the diamonds, the most powerful beings in the entire Gem universe, are incapable of changing him. His emotions bring White Diamond to her knees. But what theyâre doing wrong here is theyâre trying to fix him!
When Connie bolts in on Lion and is making her (iconic) rallying cry, she never says they need to fix Steven or heal him; she says they need to help him. Because thatâs the only way he can get better.
When you go to the psychiatric hospital, you donât go to get fixed. Youâre in an environment where youâre made so youâre not a physical danger to yourself, and then you do a shit ton of work. You have therapy multiple times a day, every day, all week. You do work, they donât just fix it for you. And this is the solution that we need to see portrayed. This is the solution they did portray in SUF.
Mental health disorders canât be fixed. And Stevenâs problems werenât solved with a hug.Â
But we needed to see the hug. Because Steven needed to see the hug.
The hug wasnât just about hugging him. It was about literally forcing him to come face-to-face with the love and support he had been inadvertenly, and then intentionally, pushing away. It forced him to say, âOkay, this is who I am right now. And these people love me.â
I had to have the people in my life tell me over and over that they loved me when I went to the hospital. I had to have my doctors tell me that they cared for me, my therapist tell me that I wasnât talking too much, because I didnât believe them. I had convinced myself I wasnât worthy, I was a fraud, just like Steven. Sometimes you need that love in your face, surrounding you so that it is the only thing you can see, for you to be able to let it in.Â
The hug didnât fix everything! Thatâs the big thing. The hug was a pure, beautiful moment, but I donât believe it was meant to be a plot device to try to fix everything. Everyone was still emotional, he still destroyed things, he scared people, he scared himself. That wasnât all magically fixed because of the hug. But his resolve to do the work, get help, and accept what happened to him - that is what made him go from Worm Steven to Boy Steven.
And afterward, we seen Steven has grown. He hasnât morphed, his hair hasnât changed, heâs not pink. But heâs grown mentally. Heâs communicating more making plans, his disposition has changed. I donât like that they called what he had a meltdown (again, I vouch that it was a gem version of a panic attack), but YALL STEVEN HAS A THERAPIST NOW! Heâs is not only getting the help that he needs, he is showing that he is going to continue needing this help, and thatâs okay! Heâs making plans to visit people, to go see the world, on his own terms!Â
 Heâs scared and sad of leaving the gems, and itâs also time to leave the gems. Itâs time to move on, and be a new Steven.
Weâve seen a lot of Stevens the past few weeks. But Steven driving off past the Big Donut into the night was my favorite Steven. That was vulnerable Steven. That was Steven doing the work to be himself, to exist with his feelings and the ways he had acted, and the things he had gone through. That was my boy. Steven Universe.
When I saw my mom for the first time while I was in the hospital, the first thing she did was give me a big hug (I was a blubbering mess, of course). But it wasnât just that my mom was giving me a hug. She was telling me she was there for me, she loved me, she was telling me she would stay up on the phone with me as long as the doctors would let me, she would drive 3 Âœ hours from our home in Michigan to the hospital in Ohio at a moments notice (I went to school in Ohio and went to the hospital there too before coming home). That hug was her forcing me to see that she was there for me, even if I didnât believe it, or didnât want to believe it.
So yeah, Steven got a hug. But it was a lot more than a hug, okay? Take my word for it
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