“Dean, you have every right to be disappointed in your father. There is no need to trivialize your feelings about that with me.”
“Dean thought about this for a moment. He had been pretending for so long
that all the shit he had to deal with was no big deal. Cas was the one
person with whom he could talk to about it and he knew that Cas would be
accepting of his feelings about his father. Cas would never tell him
that John did the best he could or that he should give the man a break
since he lost his wife. Cas just accepted his anger and validated it. It
was such a rare thing to find in someone and Dean felt an overwhelming
gratitude for this man in his arms.”
THIS! IS! EVERYTHING!
Being a child of abuse means pushing aside your feelings, protecting others who might get hurt, and, at the end of the day, surviving by whatever means necessary. It can be so fucking hard to own up to what’s happened to you in a lot of ways, especially when other people “justify” the abusive behavior with excuses. Yeah, it’s totally reasonable to point at a cause or identify a “this is where it started” point, but that does not make the abusive behavior acceptable. Ever. Furthermore, you as the person who is listening to an abuse survivor should be receptive to what they are telling you, not coming up with ways to “explain” what has happened to them. Finding someone who truly listens and validates the way you feel about your abuse is one of the most healing experiences in the world.
So this goes out to Dean and Sam Winchester, to any kid in an abusive home, to adults who are still working on this, including myself: You are more than your past. You did not deserve what has happened or what might still be happening to you. Whatever feelings you have about your parents/guardians/whoever was perpetrating your abuse is completely valid. You are not required to forgive and forget. You do not have to do or see or talk about anything to deserve healing, acceptance, and peace. Be selfish, be angry, be scared or vindictive or upset. You have every right to feel however you feel, to go somewhere or avoid something, to seek help or closure or not. Your journey is all yours, and I’m so fucking proud of you for being exactly where you are.
On the one hand, this quote is from an AU fic where John Winchester was a slimy, abusive, piece of shit father.
On the other hand, canon John Winchester was also a slimy, abusive, piece of shit father.
Your tags say “John Haters not welcome” well ok, no one invited you?
John was abusive. Regularly abandoning your children for days on end without money for food while they are both significantly under 16 is ABUSE. It’s neglect at the very least.
Not to mention all the ways he fucked them up emotionally. Until very recently, Dean believed his only purpose in life was to protect and look out for Sam. Dean bought into this whole hog, to the point where he thought selling his soul to resurrect his brother was an acceptable deal.
And Sam? “If you walk out that door, don’t you ever come back.”
Yeah. John was a great father.
the comment about tags is directed at ross-faer, not the OP.
I mean, I get that John WAS raising the boys in some pretty extreme circumstances (where he might not be able to trust the foster care system should the demons show up on some poor unsuspecting foster family) and that he was grieving the wife he lost to the supernatural and that money was often tight and that he lost his own father at a young age.
But you know who ELSE fit that bill?
Bobby.
Bobby was a hunter through and through to the point where he was the hunters’ coordinator; those qualify as “extreme circumstances.” Bobby lost his own wife (the night they had an awful fight, no less) when she got possessed… actually, iirc, he had to shoot her himself. Bobby had to run a business on the side just to keep food on the table (which he STILL shared freely with the boys). Bobby DID have to shoot his own father when said father was abusing his mother.
And Bobby still pulled through. He worried about the boys’ safety. He fed them. He looked after them when John was away.
Bobby is proof that John did not have to be the abusive jerk that he was.
Bobby is proof that John can be held accountable for the terrible parenting choices he made.
Bobby was literally shown to be verbally abusive and an actual alcoholic.
John literally left a 10-year-old and a six-year-old alone, overnight in a motel room with a loaded rifle.
Yes. How terrible that he taught him how to defend himself from things that were literally hunting his family down. Thats not abuse or neglect.
And I don’t mean the shtriga.
Yes, because handing his prepubescent son a firearm was John’s best option, right? It’s not like there is a country wide hunter network or anything. It’s not like John didn’t have other hunter friends like Caleb or Pastor Jim that he knew and trusted or other hunters who had children like the Harvelle’s. No, it was totally fucking imperative that John rely on his children to protect themselves while he left them alone for days and weeks at a time with rations of Lucky Charms and Chef Boyardee. Yeah. Totally.
By the way, the Shtriga was attacking children. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but Dean was also a child at the time and could have just as easily been attacked by it as Sam was.
And unlike the other hunters out there, THEY weren’t being hunted by something that wanted to use his kid as a means to bring about the apocalypse.
Oh, and speaking of other hunters, since you so kindly brought up the Harvelle’s, wasn’t Jo also “raised like warriors”, to quote Sam?
Oh, really? Hm. So good thing he knew how defend himself and his brother then, hm?
I’m not sure if you remember this, but John didn’t find Yellow Eyes or figure out his plot until Sam was 22. When Sam and Dean were children, he had no idea what killed Mary or why. None. That has absolutely no bearing on how he raised them.
Jo might have been raised as a hunter but she had a relatively stable home life, a roof over her head, and was able to college without getting disowned.
Also you keep bringing up that John taught his kids how to defend themselves. Sam and Dean should not have had to defend themselves.They’re father should have been looking after them. If it was so god damn important that he keep his children safe, maybe John should have kept watch over them?
This is what Sam looked like when he was first given a .45 to fight the “monster in his closet.” He still had baby teeth. But yes. He definitely needed a semi automatic hand gun. The recoil alone on a .45 semi automatic hand gun is enough to break a little kid’s fingers.
Look at that little baby face. Look at those little baby hands.
Now. Please remember that Sam was not brought into the hunting world until he was about 8. So here is this little adorable child who has only known about monsters for one year… and his dad gave him a .45 semiautomatic HAND GUN.
Think of any 9 year old you know. Would you expect them to keep a .45 semiautomatic HANDGUN under their pillow for the “monster in the closet?” I sure as hell wouldn’t.
This is just ONE example of John’s shitty shitty parenting.
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