First paragraph is my background, skip it if you want to hear my extended John thoughts. Long as SHIT because i have STRONG feelings on the subject and I am a rambler
My job included occasionally interacting with Vets in-person and make scheduling phone calls if staff was tight, but about 95% of my work was reading therapy notes, nightmare diaries, letters, incident reports, and the confidential stuff even the patients don’t get to see. Things like ‘find every single page in this 7,000 page file about their mental state as related to the X incident in X’ so i would have to ACTUALLY READ all of it, it was heavy, i had a breakdown after 3 years, etc, another worker committed suicide doing it, another went gun crazy in the building. HARD job. After all that, my level of empathy here is VERY HIGH, especially since i would follow peoples life-long recovery, so WARNING I GUESS for strong opinions about stuff
In my opinion, John has a form of PTSD that is lifelong, changes the way you see the world so you have to judge everything on the basis of ‘threat’ and ‘not a threat’ and ‘potential threat’. I think he needed help, and while John hadn’t opened up to Ella after a few months home, many vets dont open up for YEARS but they still need the support system. They need to find stability and safety, and as much as i believe he loves Sherlock, sherlock’s life could only exacerbate the problem. His house might be blown up at any minute, he might be thrown in a fire, his friend might shoot guns at the wall.
So John ALWAYS had a near-guarantee of eventually having an ‘episode’
The Fall was traumatizing, Mary turning out to be a Secret Threat was traumatizing, forcing himself to trust her at Sherlock’s reassurances (sherlock telling him that he’s SAFE with her, shes not a threat, shes a comrade-in-arms) and then to have her bleed out? INCREDIBLY traumatic.
I know people dont like the phrase ‘trigger’ but thats the REAL WORD and it doesnt always mean ‘break into sobs’ and it doesnt always mean ‘right now’.
So John, not sleeping, recently in a shoot-out again, had another comrade-in-arms die on him, Sherlock didnt come for him (he said he thought sherlock would but hadnt been interested), John is having auditory and visual hallucinations. He knows he cant trust what he’s seeing or doing, isnt safe, sends Rosie away to somewhere SAFE because he doesn’t know what he will (or wont) do.
Tries to go to therapy, only for the world to crash in on him and tell him he needs to be responsible, sherlock is his responsibility. Sherlock appears to be in an altered, untrustworthy state, John trusts him anyways.
Smith is taunting him, threatening, threatening women and children and doctors and nurses, mocking them, takes them to the morgue, plays with the dead body of a woman in front of him, suddenly Sherlock appears to snap and go into his own episode, wielding a knife, no longer trustworthy
John tries to disarm him, goes too far, locks into fighting, locks into his feelings of not being safe, of being surrounded by threat, having no one trust, not trusting himself, thinking ever since ghost-mary arrived that hes Not Safe
I know yall think that it was ‘a beating’ and ‘abusive’ but from what i’ve seen (and ive seen a LOT) ptsd vets can do some wild shit that only barely makes sense to them, even afterwards. Thats usually the sort of thing that makes them admit they need help and go to get medication and finally submit themselves to therapy, the therapy John has needed for YEARS. And they almost ALWAYS improve with it, or at least do better, even if thye never get back to ‘normal’
JOhn was left completely adrift with no support system, and honestly beating up a friend that was ALSO having a breakdown while brandishing a knife???? that shit happens so often in active warzones that John probably wouldnt even go off-duty for it.
Tensions are high and John has been taught to treat London as a war zone.
Then afterwards he doesnt beg forgiveness, because he doesnt think he deserves it, doesnt say he wont ever do it again because he didnt intend to do it in the first place. He just tries to push himself away from sherlock (just like rosie, who he also doesnt feel safe with) and get help.
I think when sherlock said ‘maybe we are human– even you’ i think he meant that JOhn had done well trying to hold himself together without any support for so long, and that cracks were inevitable. It is, quite literally, impossible for John to not have ptsd after all that he went through, and the fact that he held together this long is AMAZING and i do NOT judge him for losing control. His control is ALWAYS on, 100% all the time, CONCIOUS control, in martins voice ,eyes, stance, hands, and overall mannerisms. Hes HOLDING himself together. Since Day 1.
HOLDING himself together, CONTROLLED, active effort, not passively ‘fine’ without trying.
He goes right back to therapy days afterwards, too, he doesnt CANCEL his appointment despite ghost-mary going away and sherlocks forgiving him for irrational delusions, he still knows he needs help.
