Willow wrote:

I'm pretty sure that your head canon is right about John being invalided out on mental health grounds, and Sholto as his mentor and senior officer, knows precisely what those grounds were. We don't, but judging from the fact that Sholto is asking whether he's getting psychiatric treatment several years later those grounds may have been somewhat spectacular. 

I would fully expect them to be spectacular. Army will bend over backwards to keep their doctors becouse of a chronic recruitment crisis. Army medical corps look after their own and they would have bent over backwards to get John on the mend. I would imagine that normally he would be treated by a millitary psychiatrist with a full intention of returning him to active service. If he can be a civilian GP he could just as well be a millitary one. Unless his mental health problems proved to severe or he asked for discharge.

Willow wrote:

I can see where you are coming from about Sholto's question as a marker for Sholtos own problems; my one reservation about your Sholto hypothesis is one of rank. I don't have personal experience of the army; my father served for 35 years in the RAF, and perhaps it's different, but a senior officer could ask a junior officer about the junior officer's mental health. He wouldn't seek a junior officer's help about his own mental health; it's one of those things which is just not done. He might talk to someone of his own rank or above; rank has its privileges but it also has obligations.  

That's a good pint. I suppose what can come into play is that John was a doctor. He wasn't seen just as a junior officer, he was a medic and with that comes a different kind of relationship and different privilages. It's likely that he had established the doctor-patient relationshi with Sholto and it created a precedence. Medical officers are a bit removed from the usual hierarchy. For example if they happen to be the most senior officer around they are expected to delegate command to the next person. More senior officers will usually go by what they say when it comes to medical matters becouse they are there to provide this sort of expertise. So the relationship between John and Sholto would be slightly different than what you would expect from junior-senior officer.



 

Morton wrote:

My head canon is on the lines of John spent time being bored while recuperating which contributed to the onset of PTSD like symptoms - the hand tremor vanished as soon as Mycroft put him under stress, as in 'not haunted by the war...you miss it....welcome back' from Mycroft. If he'd had PTSD John would be avoiding 'danger' not going 'Oh God, yes.' to Sherlock's invititation 'wanna see some more' surely?

But then we are left with the question of why John left the army. Military doctors are gold dust; they are desperate to keep them, and would take John back in a heartbeat.

So if John is creating a psychosomatic limp and a hand tremor, both of which disappear when he is faced with something interesting and exciting, the question of why he's out of the army becomes even more important, and Sholto's question about whether he's still seeing the psychiatrist becomes even more explosive...
 

Willow wrote:

So if John is creating a psychosomatic limp and a hand tremor, both of which disappear when he is faced with something interesting and exciting, the question of why he's out of the army becomes even more important, and Sholto's question about whether he's still seeing the psychiatrist becomes even more explosive...
 

I guess he hasn't quite realised that his limp and hand tremor are going to disappear in face of excitement. Before he met Sherlock he wasn't particularly on board with an idea that his limp was psychosomatic. That all fits with him having quite poor insight regarding his own emotions.

I agree with RavenMorganLeigh that anger management issues were more likely to contribute to his discharge from the army than psychosomatic limp. You can have army GP with a limp sitting on base, behind a desk. You can't really have an army GP who can fly off the handle at any minute. Combined with poor sleep, low mood, possibly flashbacks there is a good chance that at a time of discharge he wasn't fit to practice medicine.

Willow wrote:

belis wrote:

Willow wrote:

So if John is creating a psychosomatic limp and a hand tremor, both of which disappear when he is faced with something interesting and exciting, the question of why he's out of the army becomes even more important, and Sholto's question about whether he's still seeing the psychiatrist becomes even more explosive...
 

I guess he hasn't quite realised that his limp and hand tremor are going to disappear in face of excitement. Before he met Sherlock he wasn't particularly on board with an idea that his limp was psychosomatic. That all fits with him having quite poor insight regarding his own emotions.

I agree with RavenMorganLeigh that anger management issues were more likely to contribute to his discharge from the army than psychosomatic limp. You can have army GP with a limp sitting on base, behind a desk. You can't really have an army GP who can fly off the handle at any minute. Combined with poor sleep, low mood, possibly flashbacks there is a good chance that at a time of discharge he wasn't fit to practice medicine.

This certainly provides all sorts of opportunities for fanfic writers, including Moftiss since there may be a chance for resolution; Sherlock has grown up and no longer has quite the same reliance on John as his 'this is what a normal adult does' model, which leaves the writers free to emphasise the fact that John never was normal in the first place.

If we recognise that John needed Sherlock, just as much and possibly more than Sherlock needed John, at the very beginning of their friendship, then it becomes a far more equal relationship than that portrayed in vast amounts of fanfic during the hiatus.

It may be that John's 'I don't want to know' attitude is going to be torn apart at the seams in S4, indeed I think it has to be if John is going to be a partner in Sherlock's adventures; perhaps John's past is as important as whatever was on the memory stick in predicting the future...
 

Willow, it's a good thing I'm a carnivore, since you keep feeding me Plot Bunnies! :-)

Honestly-- I think any epiphany John has is going to have needs to be internal, catalyzed by him. We've seen him bury his head in the sand even further, *or* lash out in a defensive rage, when reality smacks him in the face.  With every person on this earth, there comes a time when you realize that yes, we make choices that put us in the situations that we are in for better or worse. The knee jerk reaction to that statement is , "Why! Is everything! Always!! My Fault!?!", while lashing out in the aformentioned defensive rage. What I'm waiting for John to get, really get-- is this-- acknowledging responsibility for his choices *empowers* him. It's not about blame. If he can do that, he can stop being so impulsive, violent, etc, . Therapy might actually work on him. IF he wants it to. Not if he sees himself as always having something done TO him. 

So, maybe in the next series we see him take a long and very honest look at himself, and come out stronger and happier for it. 

I'm rambling, sorry. 

Last edited by RavenMorganLeigh (March 16, 2014 3:16 am)

belis wrote:

RavenMorganLeigh wrote:

What I'm waiting for John to get, really get-- is this-- acknowledging responsibility for his choices *empowers* him. It's not about blame. If he can do that, he can stop being so impulsive, violent, etc, . Therapy might actually work on him. IF he wants it to. Not if he sees himself as always having something done TO him. 

I couldn't agree more. Therapy isn't like surgery. You can't do it to someone. You can only do it with them. I hope in next season John will become ready for change.

I have been wondering about the 'why is everything always my fault' line; I'm not sure it's confined to the post meeting Sherlock era, in fact it may have something to do with why he was invalided out in the first place. The willingness to accept responsibility for your own choices is something which you need if you are going to make better choices in the future; the surgeon who takes credit for the successes but blames failures on other people isn't a good surgeon, and won't be a good surgeon until s/he accepts that s/he has to work harder...