There were many reasons Leia could have offered in answer to Ben's unspoken question. Most of them centered around her own key mistake. Like many terrible ideas, sending Ben to Luke had made perfect sense to her at the time. But hindsight, as always, made things much clearer, and she now cursed her younger self.
She'd been so afraid and so hopeful at the same time. She'd wanted to protect Ben from the dark part of their family legacy at all costs. Surely, she'd thought, Luke would be able to do that better than she ever could. She knew she'd inherited their father's temper, and she feared that she'd inherited his potential for Darkness; the specter of Vader had haunted both her nightmares and her waking life. Leia knew the power that hate and anger could bring; it had sustained her after Alderaan's destruction, given her the strength to strangle the life out of Jabba the Hutt, and served her in lesser capacities on numerous other occasions.
And when the first stirrings of what must have been Snoke's power had made themselves known, she'd seen only Vader's black gloved hand reaching out of her past and making a grab for her son. And fear had become anger. Those hands that had tortured her to within a hairsbreadth of breaking, that had forced her to watch as everything she'd ever loved up to that point was destroyed, that were guilty of other crimes too numerous to mention would never touch her son. The Dark would never have him; not her little boy.
She'd used the reasoning of Ben needing to learn to control his burgeoning Force abilities as an excuse, but Han had seen right through it, right to the fear and anger at the heart of her decision. And they'd fought over it in a way that wasn't a playful verbal fencing match that both not so secretly enjoyed, but barbs hurled with the intent to strike home and hurt. She should have listened to him then.
But she hadn't, and Ben had paid the price. Instead of protecting him she'd only made things worse. Carrying on another family tradition, as she'd found out much later; acting rashly out of fear for a loved one's safety, and in the process helping to cause the very thing they sought to prevent.
She knew she wasn't wholly at fault; the whole thing could be called a comedy of errors, if it wasn't so tragic. So many mistakes and misinterpretations on all sides had led them to this point. Luke believed in the Jedi way with the same deep, earnest sincerity that he did most everything else. That sincerity was one of the few aspects of the Tatooine farm boy that had survived to the present day; when Luke told you something you believed it, because he believed it and you didn't need the Force to know he did. Luke would have never thought for a moment that his lessons about Jedi emotional control would prevent someone from reaching out if they genuinely needed help.
Leia certainly hadn't. They'd both been concerned about the nebulous something that was wrong with Ben, but had totally misinterpreted the cause. Leia had seen a troubled son, Luke a struggling student and a nephew wrestling with his own Dark side. 'We just need to be patient,' Luke had told her in one of his last communications to her before Ben's fall. 'He'll get there. He's stronger than even he knows, and as stubborn as you are. He just needs time to figure out his own path.'
And then Snoke had come into the picture in earnest and warped Luke's lessons about control that- however ineffective- had been meant to help into something dark and twisted meant to dominate and destroy. And for the second time in her life, Leia'd lost everything she loved in one day.
There was learning in that loss though. Some new lessons, and some she'd relearned, but as she began to put her family back together again, she took them all to heart. People really could change for the better. Light could overcome darkness, despite all odds. And there was always hope, if one knew where to look for it.
Changing the past was beyond any of them. But they could learn from it and make the future better.
And Doctor Kalonia was providing just the ray of hope Ben had needed it seemed. She nodded at his question. "Yes," she said. "And I'm beginning to have a very low opinion of First Order medical personnel given that none of them thought to do this sooner if there was no obvious physical cause preventing you from eating." Then again, who was to say they would have shared the results with Ben even if they had. The doctor wouldn't have put it past Snoke to want Ben as vulnerable as possible to his manipulations, even if they were more competent than she was giving them credit for.
"And what's wrong is an imbalance of several neurotransmitters that affect areas of the brain related to personal identity, your kinesthetic sense- that is, your sense of body awareness-, and the centers for voluntary muscle control. In a neurotypical person's brain, these neurotransmitters are produced at a steady rate that generally only some sort of severe trauma can unbalance. But in yours, they're typically produced at a much lower level than normal. When your brain detects that levels are too low, it vastly overproduces them to try to compensate, which triggers an episode; the greater the overproduction, the longer the episode. Adrenaline slows down the rate at which the levels drop; that's why extreme activities tend to increase the time between episodes. And starvation affects the brain in ways that- aside from causing various other issues- have a similar suppressing effect."
"To curb it on a permanent basis, though, we need to even out the levels of those neurotransmitters so that your brain doesn't panic and over-produce them," she said. "Which we can do with medication. It won't be as simple as flipping a switch; as you said, medicine isn't magic. There'll be a lot of fine tuning dosages and potentially trying several different medications to get the best effect possible, if need be. Under optimal circumstances, I'd also refer you to a psychotherapist, but that's not possible currently; I will be giving both you and your mother some information on basic techniques that can be used to help things along, though. It will take some time and effort, but yes, it can be mended, and then maintained."
no subject
She'd been so afraid and so hopeful at the same time. She'd wanted to protect Ben from the dark part of their family legacy at all costs. Surely, she'd thought, Luke would be able to do that better than she ever could. She knew she'd inherited their father's temper, and she feared that she'd inherited his potential for Darkness; the specter of Vader had haunted both her nightmares and her waking life. Leia knew the power that hate and anger could bring; it had sustained her after Alderaan's destruction, given her the strength to strangle the life out of Jabba the Hutt, and served her in lesser capacities on numerous other occasions.
And when the first stirrings of what must have been Snoke's power had made themselves known, she'd seen only Vader's black gloved hand reaching out of her past and making a grab for her son. And fear had become anger. Those hands that had tortured her to within a hairsbreadth of breaking, that had forced her to watch as everything she'd ever loved up to that point was destroyed, that were guilty of other crimes too numerous to mention would never touch her son. The Dark would never have him; not her little boy.
She'd used the reasoning of Ben needing to learn to control his burgeoning Force abilities as an excuse, but Han had seen right through it, right to the fear and anger at the heart of her decision. And they'd fought over it in a way that wasn't a playful verbal fencing match that both not so secretly enjoyed, but barbs hurled with the intent to strike home and hurt. She should have listened to him then.
But she hadn't, and Ben had paid the price. Instead of protecting him she'd only made things worse. Carrying on another family tradition, as she'd found out much later; acting rashly out of fear for a loved one's safety, and in the process helping to cause the very thing they sought to prevent.
She knew she wasn't wholly at fault; the whole thing could be called a comedy of errors, if it wasn't so tragic. So many mistakes and misinterpretations on all sides had led them to this point. Luke believed in the Jedi way with the same deep, earnest sincerity that he did most everything else. That sincerity was one of the few aspects of the Tatooine farm boy that had survived to the present day; when Luke told you something you believed it, because he believed it and you didn't need the Force to know he did. Luke would have never thought for a moment that his lessons about Jedi emotional control would prevent someone from reaching out if they genuinely needed help.
Leia certainly hadn't. They'd both been concerned about the nebulous something that was wrong with Ben, but had totally misinterpreted the cause. Leia had seen a troubled son, Luke a struggling student and a nephew wrestling with his own Dark side. 'We just need to be patient,' Luke had told her in one of his last communications to her before Ben's fall. 'He'll get there. He's stronger than even he knows, and as stubborn as you are. He just needs time to figure out his own path.'
And then Snoke had come into the picture in earnest and warped Luke's lessons about control that- however ineffective- had been meant to help into something dark and twisted meant to dominate and destroy. And for the second time in her life, Leia'd lost everything she loved in one day.
There was learning in that loss though. Some new lessons, and some she'd relearned, but as she began to put her family back together again, she took them all to heart. People really could change for the better. Light could overcome darkness, despite all odds. And there was always hope, if one knew where to look for it.
Changing the past was beyond any of them. But they could learn from it and make the future better.
And Doctor Kalonia was providing just the ray of hope Ben had needed it seemed. She nodded at his question. "Yes," she said. "And I'm beginning to have a very low opinion of First Order medical personnel given that none of them thought to do this sooner if there was no obvious physical cause preventing you from eating." Then again, who was to say they would have shared the results with Ben even if they had. The doctor wouldn't have put it past Snoke to want Ben as vulnerable as possible to his manipulations, even if they were more competent than she was giving them credit for.
"And what's wrong is an imbalance of several neurotransmitters that affect areas of the brain related to personal identity, your kinesthetic sense- that is, your sense of body awareness-, and the centers for voluntary muscle control. In a neurotypical person's brain, these neurotransmitters are produced at a steady rate that generally only some sort of severe trauma can unbalance. But in yours, they're typically produced at a much lower level than normal. When your brain detects that levels are too low, it vastly overproduces them to try to compensate, which triggers an episode; the greater the overproduction, the longer the episode. Adrenaline slows down the rate at which the levels drop; that's why extreme activities tend to increase the time between episodes. And starvation affects the brain in ways that- aside from causing various other issues- have a similar suppressing effect."
"To curb it on a permanent basis, though, we need to even out the levels of those neurotransmitters so that your brain doesn't panic and over-produce them," she said. "Which we can do with medication. It won't be as simple as flipping a switch; as you said, medicine isn't magic. There'll be a lot of fine tuning dosages and potentially trying several different medications to get the best effect possible, if need be. Under optimal circumstances, I'd also refer you to a psychotherapist, but that's not possible currently; I will be giving both you and your mother some information on basic techniques that can be used to help things along, though. It will take some time and effort, but yes, it can be mended, and then maintained."