could you elaborate on andrew's refusal/inability to feel anything and what that means to his relationship with neil and aaron and the others
Sorry salamai this is all over the place. Its v messy and I’ll make a separate post another time about aaron/andrew and andrew/s-h. This turned more into just a general Andrew meta pre-tfc oops. I just had to get all my feelings out okay. Obvious trigger warnings for child abuse mentions, its abt Andrew so basically a whole caution warning tbh.
Andrew’s grown upin the foster system since he was a baby okay
its canon that he’s been to twelve different foster houses, then going to juvie around thirteen.
imagine when Andrew was a kid, kids need a lot of emotionalsupport growing up. Andrew never had that. not until Cass, that’s whyshe meant so much to him.
okay so backtracking a bit—the emotional support Andrew wassupposed to get as a kid didn’t happen.
the abuse he endured at the hands of foster familieshappened pretty early on in his life. We know Andrew was seven when the sexualabuse happened.
and what about the emotional abuse? The emotional neglecthe went through. Even physical if he did something one of the foster parents didn’tlike?
just imagine Andrew being disappointed over and overagain. No one was keeping their promises, the people who were supposed toprotect him kept abusing him. His real mother put him in foster care when hewas a baby, she gave up on him that early.
don’t get mestarted on, “he said he would stop if I said it.” - “i was seven, i believed him.”
lets not talk about Andrew suppressing his emotions as akid because it could get him hit, because he might make someone angry. Andrewsilencing himself at an early age bc it was safer. Moving from foster home to foster home with new expectations because maybe, just maybe? This one would be different?And it wasn’t, it wasn’t any different. In some places, it was even worse.
So by the time things got real bad he wasn’t evensuppressing his emotions anymore, they just weren’t really there? His trauma blurredthe lines of feeling. He couldn’t control his circumstances and the actions ofthe people around him.
but he could control himself. And if he couldn’t feel then what was keepinghim alive? Cue the Spears, the self harming.
Andrew, after years of abuse and disappointment andjust. Hopelessness that anything would ever change. He meets Cass.
Cass makes him feel like he matters, like he could besomebodies son, something he probably stopped wanting years ago after thethings his abusers have said and done to him.
And then Cass’ son comes in and ruins everything.
he’s ruined Andrew’s one chance of actually maybe beinghappy. When Andrew opened himself up once again to something.
But Andrew stays and he almost kills himself doing it. Bc Cass gave him love, she gave him a home. but her son made it hollow (cred @nora). He stopped expecting. He let things run its course bc she was all he had.
and then he heard he had a brother. A twin.
and then he got himself into juvie so he could protect Aaron from his abuser. But by then, it was too late for Andrew? Like, he’s beenthrough so much, he doesn’t know how to act with knowing he has a brother? abrother? How do brothers act towards one another? Andrew doesn’t know. And Andrewdoesn’t believe in family. But theres this kid, that looks like him, thatshares the same blood with him. And it gives Andrew a reason to leave Cass’ place. He didn’t leave for himself but to protect his brother from ever meetinghim there and getting hurt.
Let’s talk after juvie. Andrew lives with Aaron and Tilda, we know what happens, we know what Andrew does and i think this part from TKM between Andrew and Matt is really interesting when you take all this into account when its once again about Andrew protecting Aaron.
“don’t even try to justify it. you don’t return a punch with a broken neck.” “where you come from, maybe not,”“the real world?”
“don’t - a privileged child like you has never seen the real world. don’t speak of it like you understand.”
Ok so this is where i actually answer the ask.
refusal/inability to feel anything-
Andrew’s been through trauma heaped upon trauma right. He knows feeling doesn’t get him anywhere.
I believe he tried to make himself stop caring when he was younger and then that morphed into him actually not caring and not even pretending he doesn’t care. he just cant.
when caring about something usually meant caring about himself and we know Andrew holds his own life with little regard.
but there are a few things that Andrew does care about. his promises, Aaron and Nicky and then Neil.
his meds fucked with him, made him feel things, made him manic. that’s why he thought Neil must be a side affect of the drugs..because off them he didn’t feel anything, but he was wrong.
obviously with Andrew being apathetic, it wasn’t easy on his relationships with anyone. Nicky and Aaron think he’s soulless until that day at Nicky’s parent’s place their thoughts start to change and they begin to see Andrew as a person, one that’s been hurt badly. The foxes all think of him as this psychotic ‘monster’.
It’s simple really, when bad things keep happening to you over and over, parts of you start dying inside until its hard to care at all.Andrew isn’t mentally healthy, his apathy and carelessness for his own life can also be considered part of his depression.But he’s still here, and he’s still waking up and breathing everyday and I’m so proud.
