Do you think Aziraphale has been verbally, emotionally and psychologically abused by Heaven as well?
I will answer this question like one asked in good faith even though my gut is telling me there's a 50/50 chance it is very much not one.
There are two parts to his answer, or rather one question is actually two.
Firstly, we have to talk about whether heaven is abusive, what that abuse looks like, and how it differs from hell.
Secondly, how did the results of question one affect Aziraphale, if it is different from what the other angels in heaven face, and what additional trauma might he have experienced due to being on earth.
I could write a 10k meta post about this and go into the finest detail, but I will just try and stick to the main points for now. It's still going to be way too long because I am so fucking tired of people accusing me of 'hating' Aziraphale or harassing me on my posts or in my inbox.
Is heaven abusive? Yes, and it applies to both heaven as an institution and the Archangels running it.
Getting to know Muriel and what their life looks like was extremely helpful in properly defining this, because they showed us that although the Archangels tend to travel and work as a group, most of the angels are incredibly isolated.
The result is complete emotional neglect, which not only impairs your ability to form and maintain healthy relationships with other people, it also stops your from learning emotional regulation and how to behave and feel as a part of (angelic) society. We see the consequences of that in Muriel, who comes across as overly naive, socially awkward, and out of touch with not just people but themselves.
When your entire life has been shrunk down to what happens inside your own head, suddenly being confronted with having to live outside of your mind is jarring, overwhelming, and foreign.
How do you talk to people when no one ever taught you how to do that? How do you behave around someone after a lifetime of being alone? How do your regulate your responses to their behaviour?
Who are you when there is someone else to perceive you?
Figuring that out is complicated and it takes time, and while most of the angels are only distantly aware of how humans live and what kind of interactions some of the other angels might have, the effects of that neglect stay the same whether they are aware of it or not.
Muriel shows us that angels are not born/made as a blank slate, and neither are humans for that matter. Tabula rasa as a philosophical belief is one thing, but reality is very, very different.
Angels also appear to have the same inherent need for connection, for a caretaker that loves them unconditionally, for someone to help them figure out how to be, and that provides a safe space to make mistakes. Without some or all of that, you grow up into a disregulated, socially awkward if not inept person who does not know how to have relationships or how to properly exist.
It is one of the reasons why autistic people are a) almost always traumatized to some degree and b) do not know how to socialize. No one ever works with our brains, and the resulting neglect is very similar to not receiving any help at all.
If you are now curious what happens if you're both autistic and were completely socially neglected, the result is uh. me. Hi! Not nice, but at least I am very sure I win the award for being my therapist's most fucked up client, so that's something.
Yet the angels are not solely emotionally neglected, the system/household they live in demands a low self-esteem, a lack of individual identity, and complete adherence to a defined ideology and behavioural pattern. In short, you are told how to be a useless, tiny part in a bigger machine, that your only purpose is to succeed at your tasks, and any opportunity for individual development is removed or destroyed.
If you are now once again curious what that might be like, uh, yeah, hi once more. Obviously my childhood was not exactly like an angels life, but the core characteristics were the same, just realized differently. Again, not pretty, really, really fucks you over.
Take that and the neglect, combine it into one person, and then drop them in the Garden of Eden—hello Aziraphale! Crowley got dropped into hell first, experienced more abuse, and then dug his way up into Eden before joining him.
Aziraphale experienced everything Muriel (and Crowley, and every other celestial being) also experienced, with one main difference: He is the one who got away.
We have to remember that out of every single celestial being, Aziraphale got the best deal. He did not fall, he got out of heaven (more or less) permanently, and was then largely left alone.
Does that erase anything I laid out above? No, of course not!
It simply provided him with the opportunity to heal, to take his cPTSD and who knows what other disorders he developed as a result, and start recovering.
Canonically, heaven did not bother him, like, ever, except for the odd note about 'frivolous miracles' or ten minutes of catching up every millennia. They only started monitoring him once they started to suspect he was involved with Crowley and trying to stop the apocalypse from happening.
Aziraphale worked on some things, he got better in many regards, especially with Crowley there to support him, but after six thousand years, many aspects have stayed the same or regressed back to the start over and over.
I will tell you a hard pill to swallow now: If you refuse to acknowledge your issues to instead live in a world of nicer denial and compartmentalization even when you have been offered the chance to change it, that is partly on YOU.
Is it fair? Fuck no! It's not fair at all, and I have had so many breakdowns over that fact. I did not break it, this is not my FAULT so why should I have to fix it all on my own? Why do I have to do the work, not them? How come they get away with it while I am going to have to carry this for the rest of my life?
I still have to do it though. I have to do the work, no matter how uncomfortable and exhausting, because I want to get better.
This conversation has so many facets and is a lot more complex, but this is already long enough, so if you have any questions or want to know something specific (while asking politely and in good faith) just send me an ask; I will do my best to answer it.
We are now only missing the last part of question 2, and that one is also so fucking complicated reducing it to the main points almost feels wrong, but I will do it anyway. Again, just ask if you have questions.
Abusive households are horrible, and you want to get out and away, but they are also the only thing you know. The world is scary, too big, too open, where did all the rules go that were previously defining your life?
Surviving in an abusive environment means you establish routine after routine after routine for every possible horrible scenario, you write a mental rule book to try and reduce the abuse (don't make them angry, don't cry when they're already shouting, don't do this, don't do that, do x but not y), and THAT is your socialization. THAT is everything you know, everything you are, everything you know relationships to be like.
Once you are away from that, you are completely and utterly lost. Even breathing feels like making a mistake, you feel watched, judged, rated, berated, you have them stuck in your fucking head. So you keep sticking to what you know, your behavioural patterns that have kept you safe your entire life.
The problem is that they kept you safe, past tense. In a healthy environment, all of those coping mechanisms are now maladaptive and harm you instead of keeping you safe.
However, breaking out of them and starting from scratch is terrifying. So, so, so terrifying. I live in constant fear, I feel judged and unsafe in my own flat with the curtains shut and the lights on. I feel like I am about to get subjected to another one of his fits for daring to use the stove.
No matter what you do, your body and brain are SCREAMING at you that diverging from what you know will kill you—and then you have to do it anyway.
Do it alone and afraid and awkwardly but DO IT. Otherwise you will always find a way to recreate the environment you grew up in, whether that is people getting into unhealthy relationships and replicating the patterns they know (which Aziraphale does with Crowley, e.g. the push-pull of his affection) or eventually even returning to it because they ruined you, but a part of you is so, so attached to them you just have to try and change them.
Some people can move on from it without going back, but sometimes you need to try and experience that failure for yourself before being able to move on, and that's where Aziraphale is at.
He needs to try and fail to be capable of finally committing to recovering.
So, to summarize this entire shitshow: Yes, Aziraphale experienced emotional neglect and abuse, and while it is different to what Crowley went through and objectively less intense and physical, it is still just as valid and horrid.
Just because a car accident is objectively worse than falling off a bike doesn't mean the biker's pain is unimportant. Both can kill you, both can hurt you, and both deserve to get their injuries treated.
