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Neo was once told she was mature for her age.
"She's so quiet and reserved; she never bothers anybody with her feelings. If only she'd stop bottling them up so much."
"She never tells us she's sick until she's bedridden. When Neo say's she's not feeling good, she's not feeling good."
Maybe she was a little mature for her age. She wishes she got a better chance to be a child.
So, Neo took this as a chance to be less uptight; more open with her feelings.
"Why are you pouting? Get over it. Don't be so upset; it's not a good look.
"Are you sure you're sick? You've been sick a lot recently. Are you sure you just don't want to get out of bed? You're just being lazy."
"I miss when you didn't complain so much."
Neo didn't get it.
She grew up a well-behaved and reserved child. She never spoke out, never yelled or screamed while playing like her peers. She preferred the quiet. She preferred to watch others play instead of playing herself. She liked to observe. Neo was a little distant and detached from the people around her. When she overhead the workers around her- she was roughly 12- talking about how she always bottled her feelings up and how she never spoke up when she was sick, she took it as a chance to live out her lost days as a child.
All that got her was a slap on the wrist for being upset. Even if she was doing nothing but sitting by herself, silently mulling over the bad events of the day, a caretaker would pull her aside and scold her for having these feelings. She never directed them at anybody; she didn't get why she got in trouble for having bad emotion. It made her feel invalidated. It made her feel like she wasn't allowed to show anything but good feelings. The caretakers were allowed to be upset- they were allowed to pout and ignore Neo. But when Neo took after them, she was scolded and hit.
Disregarding her feelings, then came her illness. Maybe it was because she was skimped on her past few vaccines. As she grew to become sick more often, the caretakers came to take it less seriously and more as just an annoyance. They disregarded her chronic everyday headaches and weak, sore muscles as dehydration. Drink more; it'll go away (but it didn't). She got used to the headaches. She'd complain about her sore throat and nasty cough that was going on for days on end. It's the seasons changing, they would argue (but it wasn't).
It took nine days of coughing to the point of her chest growing too sore to take a half-full breath; nine days of waking up in the middle of the night to coughing fits, only able to cure it with a bottle of water before returning to sleep before she was admitted to the doctor because of how much she was complaining and then got the results of her having a growing pneumonia in her left lung. It took another three days of a nasty rash growing over her entire body, blooming at her elbows and the backs of her thighs and spreading up to her face, sealing an eye shut. It turns out she was allergic to the medicine. If they had waited another day, her throat would have been the next victim to be sealed shut.
Neo learned to keep her sickness to herself after that. Even though she tried, she grew paranoid at every sore throat, every weak muscle, every headache that would loom over her when she finished up with school. Was she sick again? She used to have a throat infection every year in the winter; those disappeared. She wished they would come back just so she could feel the validation of her caretakers believing her for being sick once again.
But she couldn't complain. She didn't have a bad life.
Maybe the NSBS finding her after she got lost was a good thing. They didn't slap her wrists when she was upset or tired. They would insist she'd rest at any hint of exhaustion or sickness. They didn't accuse her of being lazy, accuse her of being an annoyance. She was allowed to be upset.
That's all she really wanted.
Sitting in her bed, she stared up at the ceiling wondering what her life would have been like back in the orphanage. Would the caretakers have started to take her more seriously if she started bottling up her emotions again, stopped telling them when she was sick? Or would they have never seen her the same again?
The affects that it all had on her were still present. She was still paranoid whenever she felt sick. Sometimes she'd google her symptoms, but it's not like she'd ever believe the results she got. Usually. She was still paranoid over every sore muscle, every aching joint, every time she got a sore throat and a headache for the third time that week. Was she getting sick again? Were Captain and Eight going to believe her if she did get sick? She was still the smallest bit afraid of being upset around others. Usually she'd just hide in her room and mope in peace but she still wasn't used to Captain or Eight coming in and asking her what was wrong instead of punishing her for the crime of simply feeling.
Neo's in a better place now but she can't help the lasting affects the old place had on her.