Jon and Martin both have childhood trauma but people seem to talk about Martin’s quite a lot more. Probably because his symptoms are much more socially acceptable.
It’s easy to be sympathetic when trauma manifests as helpfulness, isn’t it? Oh sweet Martin, he thinks he has to put everyone else before himself to be loved. It’s easy to romanticize.
But when Jon is distrustful or paranoid, when he pushes away people who care about him, well that’s just him being an asshole, right? But the fact is, those are just as much trauma symptoms as Martin’s helpfulness, people just don’t like to acknowledge them cause they’re not as pretty.
Jon doesn’t push away people who care about him just because he’s a bastard. He pushes them away because he was traumatized in the first place by someone who was supposed to care. Jon isn’t paranoid for no reason. He’s paranoid because he’s already been hurt over and over again.
Jon’s trauma symptoms aren’t fun. They’re not pretty or romantic or convenient. But they’re still trauma symptoms and they deserve to be acknowledged.
(and martins trauma symptoms also get reduced to just ‘caretaking’ a lot which neglects the other parts such as unwavering loyalty to people who really do treat him badly, probably specifically because they treat him badly, and lashing out at people, and being quite vicious and quick to stand up for himself if the person hes talking to ISNT someone hes fawning over. he has very specific trauma that manifests as a very deep, many dimensional complicated responses to other people and making connections with others. he was easy for the lonely to take because he has only a few important connections to others and they are with people that do not like him. he keeps everyone else at an arms length because hes terrified of genuine human connection just like jon is. he wants love but being loved back is scary, and he wants it so badly but he seeks it from people he perceives to be authority figures who dont like him. its safe.)
and jon also puts himself into situations where he’s, not really caretaking, but furiously self sacrificing. he wants to be loved but its scary to try to do so via like, normal human communication ig? and every time he tries it ends up badly. he thought basira was friends with him. then he finds out she was manipulating him the whole time. he became friends with basira and then lost her again. daisy was HORRIBLE to him and he threw himself into the coffin to drag her out anyway, and when she tells him she was going to kill him, again, he thinks he wouldve deserved it. he does things for people because he thinks its right. he thinks theres nothing he can do thatd be enough to redeem himself.
i think some of these symptoms are easier and SAFER to publicly relate to. its safer to say on the internet ‘ha i also take care of people compulsively :’)’ than it is to say ‘i dont know how to draw boundaries and snap at people and wont let them get close to me’ or ‘im paranoid and isolate and push people away in ways that sometimes actively hurt them’ or ‘my codependent tendencies hurt me and i dont know how to relate to people if its not in the context of making someone that dislikes me love me back.’
sorry to steal ur post (again) but idk. most of what i see in my circle of tma friends is very conscious of all this but sometimes i wander into the bigger fandom and some of the stuff people say about both martin and jon comes across as very idk. romanticizing of martin. he has his issues that come from his trauma beyond his compulsive need to be liked. theres a reason people think he might be web aligned, because he also has very trauma typical manipulative tendencies and a chronic inability to figure out appropriate boundaries with anyone, including in ways where other people will get hurt. martin wasnt made into a sweet, gentle, and complete pushover by his trauma, and sometimes people discuss jm’s dynamic in terms where the tone is very much ‘martin should force jon to heal (= become an acceptable survivor like what some of the fandom pretends martin is).