(no subject)
I have epilepsy. Not as bad as some people do, thank god; it’s only triggered by lack of sleep, so if I get enough of that and take my meds, I don’t have to worry about it. Except for how I do still worry about it, because once I had taken my meds and gotten enough sleep and had a seizure in the morning anyway, and how do I know that won’t happen again? I can never take a red-eye flight. I can never do an all-nighter. I can never stay up late with my friends without sleeping well into the following afternoon. And that’s inconvenient and sometimes hard and all that but I am very glad to have those limitations if it means I don’t have seizures again.
Because most of the time, seizures mean you fall unconscious and wake up when they’re done. It’s scarier for the people around you than it is for you. You don’t feel anything.
Except when you do, and it’s the most horrifying experience I can imagine.
It feels like you’re dying. It feels like your brain is dwindling away and there’s nothing you can do about it. One time I had a seizure on a plane and I was convinced the people around me were trying to kill me. I don’t know if I can even describe this properly to people who haven’t experienced it themselves. It’s absolutely terrifying.
And Erica’s classmates make fun of her for having them.
So I can understand why she’d want the bite, because the bite means never having to feel that way again but it also means being more powerful than the people who didn’t understand. With the bite, she doesn’t have to worry about going through that sickening experience, and she doesn’t have to worry about people laughing at her pain because now she’s strong enough to laugh at their pain if they ever have any. No wonder she amps up the bitchiness. For the first time in her life, she can be the aggressor, not the victim.
Full disclosure: I didn’t like Erica at first. Okay, when she was human I thought she was interesting, and then when she wasn’t my interest in her promptly dropped because oh hey stereotypical sexy werewolf girl you are not interesting at all. But then she stopped being that, and I realized, hey, there genuinely is more to her. And, curiously, this becomes the case when she starts weakening again.
The first time around, I didn’t pay attention, but now I’ve realized that because of the kanima attack in the library she had another seizure. To her, that’s the ultimate form of weakness, and what kicks off her eventual desire to leave. When it happens, she wants to go to Derek, because Derek represents the bite and represents being strong, but she’s not strong if her seizures still happen, is she? And Derek, who tried to make her powerful, failed. And towards the end of the season, she decides that he can’t help her any more.
So she jumps at the chance to join another pack, another pack that might know more about how to keep her from being weak. And then once more she discovers that even there there’s no help, and she’s weaker than ever. So she runs again. And is trapped again. I honestly, truly hope the alpha pack isn’t going to kill her (or Boyd), because that’s a fucking depressing way for her awful story to end.
I can’t bring myself to hate someone who has felt the same thing I’ve felt. And I can’t handle the thought of someone dying because they wanted to never feel that again.
So those are my thoughts on Erica.