Afflicted

This may be a short story, but I'm feeling all the pure untethered rage of someone who just read an entire novel full of offensive, insensitive drivel. But before I explain why, I need to make something clear.

MASSIVE TW: self-harm, shaming of self-harm by a loved one, emotional and physical abuse inflicted by the main character on their partner, forced clothing removal with non-sexual intent, demi-publicly forcing reveal of scars without consent, using sexual acts to manipulate one's partner, minimizing the role of mental illness (and mental health) in self-harm

Still here? Absolutely sure you can handle learning more about this atrocity? Okay, but just in case I'm hiding it behind a spoiler, anyway. I'm serious. This isn't one of my triggers, and I still feel sick even thinking about what I just read.

Also, I'm just going to leave a mostly-detached analysis of everything I hate about this story. This isn't because I'm lazy, but rather because I'm so furious that every attempt I made to discuss the story's events in my usual style led to massive amounts of swearing and excessive bolding and italicizing. I've chosen to spare the goodreads community - and myself - from that embarrassment.

The plot of this tale is that the narrating character has discovered his partner's self-harm scars and is overwhelmed with concern. That actually sounded like it had potential to be a heartbreaking story which brought awareness to a very real topic. I figured I'd read this to see how it went because, hey, whatever it's a handful of pages and potentially it could be a rare gem in the sea of utter garbage offered as freebies.Spoiler alert: it's just another chunk of plastic drifting in the ocean, slowly killing my will to keep trying free books.Here's a list of the egregious things the main character does, disturbingly not even all-inclusive:* Physically probing scars on his lover's abdomen and interrogating him about their origin... while mid-coitus.* Dragging his boyfriend over to a lamp to forcibly inspect scars that were being hidden, despite pleas to stop.* Demanding that his lover never self-harm again - as if it's a choice and not a sign of being mentally unwell.* Dragging his boyfriend into a public restroom and forcing him to strip - when he's saying no - to check for self-harm scars.* Intentionally squeezing fresh wounds tightly, causing pain while berating his boyfriend for making them.* Publicly interrogating and shaming his boyfriend.* Forcing promises that self-harm won't happen again then declaring "bullshit" and emotionally stonewalling his boyfriend when given them.* Using this absolute fucking bullshit instead of telling his boyfriend to seek help or even considering maybe forcing him to get help via contacting a counsellor: "If he couldn???t promise to at least give me warning that he wanted to hurt himself, if he couldn???t help me help him, then I would have to walk away."* Responding to his boyfriend expressing the depression-fueled thought that nobody would notice a suicide with, "I'd notice. Don't I count?"On top of those things, this tale portrays self-harm in a very sensationalized, fictionalized manner you'd expect from a "super goffik" livejournal fic in the early 2000s - the kind of ignorant crap kids used to think was cool and edgy, not anything grounded in reality. There's talk of "bleeding it out" - Linkin Park called; they want their lyrics back - and the boyfriend who cuts himself keeps boxes full of razor blades lying around in the open in his shared apartment, even when he's attempting to stop cutting himself. Is it possible someone out there with a mental illness that causes self-harm - or someone trying to stop - might do this or express their reasons in such a way? Sure, maybe. But does it seem even remotely realistic or believable as portrayed here? Hell no.I also have an intense issue with the notion that love can conquer deeply-rooted mental illness. It cannot. It can help, and it can give a person strength to keep fighting, but it doesn't magically cure the struggle. Knowing someone loves you and cares will not suddenly rebalance the chemicals in your brain and make it possible to stay strong forever - to give up an addiction or other harmful behaviour and never look back. The way this ends makes it seem like the implication given, that if a mentally ill person loves and respects their partner, they'll just... stop being mentally ill by force of willpower. It also seems to imply that abusing someone mentally and physically is okay if it's "for their own good."I'm too mentally exhausted to point out why that's not okay. We're all intelligent beings, here. Surely we can agree that "please get help from a professional, because this is very dangerous and I'm scared for you" is a better approach than "I demand you get better immediately or I'll leave you" ... right? I sincerely hope so.

In summary: Fuck the abusive main character. I absolutely hate this book story. And to hell with treating mental illness like it's a choice and not something which needs treatment.