Yuuri’s Mental Illness and Indepence

seeingteacupsindragons:

One of the things I truly love about Yuri!!! On ICE is that Yuuri can handle his mental illnesses all on
his own.

It’s not perfect, of course. No mental health management is.
But his family? Not much help there. He’s an adult and they leave him to his
own devices. Minako? Well, she lets him dance out his anxieties, but she also
pressures him a lot. Viktor actively makes
things worse.

There’s a weird trend in fanfiction where Viktor is amazing at managing Yuuri’s anxiety, and
sometimes all I can think is, “What show you been watching?” because honestly.
Viktor has the EQ of a rock and didn’t realize intentionally “Breaking Yuuri’s glass heart” would make Yuuri cry.
Viktor, I love you, but no.

Just no.

Maybe he gets better post-canon, but we have no evidence of
this in the show itself. He didn’t seem to notice any of Yuuri’s anxieties
leading up to the GPF, given how blindsided by Yuuri’s decision he was, and
then he was too hurt to really deal with Yuuri’s problems (which is valid, but
it does leave Yuuri on his own here).

And the AUs where Viktor is amazing with anxiety before he
even meets Yuuri? I guess some people have difficulties seeing why Yuuri would
fall for someone who messed up so bad, but that’s the thing.

That’s the thing.

One of the many things I love about YoI.

Yuuri’s mental illness
does not define him.

Viktor has the EQ of a rock and Yuuri loves him anyway, because
mentally ill people have personalities outside of their mental illnesses, and
they care about people for reasons unrelated to people being fantastic at
handling their mental illnesses.

And this is also part of the reason that everyone who says
that YoI is a story about falling in love “fixing” mental illness bothers me:
it’s not. Viktor doesn’t fix Yuuri. Yuuri takes care of himself.

In fact, Viktor makes the problems worse in real, tangible
ways. On accident, sure, but he still does it.

But Yuuri? Don’t worry about Yuuri. Yuuri’s got it handled, and
wouldn’t appreciate your concern anyway. He’s 23 (24, now), and he’s been
living like this for a long time. He knows what helps. He goes skating alone,
he dances with Minako, he goes for a run with a cute dog. He turns his phone
off and takes a nap.

He…gets bored of being depressed, so he…stops being
depressed? Yuuri, teach me your secrets.

And sometimes, he slips up and stalks new articles about his
failures and spirals, because no mental health management is perfect.

But he pulls himself back out again, always. Always. He’s so
strong. So accomplished. He functions. He more than functions.

To me, that’s hope. That’s the light at the end of the
tunnel.

Never take Yuuri’s strength and independence and autonomy
from him.

 

In fact, here’s something to consider: Celestino is seen
telling Yuuri to put his phone away and ignore the news about himself. That’s
great advice for anxiety, actually (it didn’t work, but that’s not the point).
And part of Yuuri’s complaints about Viktor’s coaching is that he’s too
inexperienced to deal with something like anxiety in a skater.

Ergo, Celestino is probably great at handling mental
illnesses like anxiety disorders.

But Yuuri didn’t start reaching for his potential until he
left Celestino and partnered with Viktor, who, again, stresses Yuuri’s mental
health in new and unique ways.

There’s a theory to be drawn here that Yuuri couldn’t have achieved
what he did without having to handle
his mental health on his own.

It’s not a hill I’d die on, but it’s there to be read if
someone wants to take it that way.