I've Seen A Lot Of People Hating On Ray, And It's Honestly Baffling To Me.

I've seen a lot of people hating on Ray, and it's honestly baffling to me.

As someone who has loved, and been loved by addicts -- someone who was raised by an addict -- it's honestly infuriating and painful to see so many people write Ray off as just a selfish drunk.

At first, it was clear that most people have never met or loved an addict. But it's become more and more about just straight up dehumanizing addicts, as though Ray's alcoholism makes him a bad person who doesn't deserve to be happy.

And like, fuck. If people can't see a character as sympathetic as Ray as a whole person, Ray, whose motivations and hurt are so clear and easy to understand, then what about the people in your lives who are addicts or otherwise struggling with mental illness? What do you think about strangers you might encounter who have fucked up their lives or relationships because of addiction? What about the addicts who aren't so easy to understand and want better for? What hope and care is there for them in your eyes?

Do they not deserve to recover and make amends with those they've hurt and be met with understanding -- not even necessarily forgiveness! Just acknowledgement of their struggle and their attempt to get and be better!

What about the addicts that never really make it out of their addiction? Do they not deserve basic compassion? Yes, even the ones who are mean in their inebriation. Even the ones that can't see or can't care about what they're doing to the people around them.

Ray is easy to understand, and he's easy to love, and some of y'all are holding him to standards the rest of the characters don't have to meet, and it is 100% because he chooses alcohol to cope with and avoid his pain. And I just think you should take a few to really think about why that is.

(it's interesting that Ray's friends and his dad all do this to some degree, this dismissing his worth because of his addiction and reducing him to an inconvenience. That they all dismiss his feelings and his ability to feel, and even tease him about his need to be loved. They all refuse to see when he's trying to be better and making progress, because they've all decided that he can't change, that he can't get sober, and that means they don't have to stop encouraging and enabling his drinking; they don't have to care about him.

Mew gets a pass for his drinking and drug use and assholishness, because they can blame Ray for it.

Sand has been the only person to see Ray as a whole person, and to love him anyway.

It isn't easy, loving someone so deep in their addiction. But Sand knows who Ray is, he sees Ray, and has let himself love him anyway. And some of y'all have decided this means Sand is being stupid, or that Ray has manipulated him into it, and this means they're terrible and toxic for each other.

It's interesting that some people find so little likeable about Ray in particular when the whole lot of them are such a mess.

They're all selfish and destructive in their own ways, but Ray is the one who gets talked about like he doesn't deserve to be happy or redeemed. Because people can't understand why an addict behaves like an addict, and doesn't just choose to stop.)

Anyways, this got away from me.

The way this show is portraying young people living with addiction is so real and accurate, and it's difficult and painful to see Ray and his addiction be treated like he is by the people in his life, and in discussions about him.

I sincerely hope that the people stuck on characterizing Ray as less than never know the pain of addiction, but I really really hope that any addicts in their lives/ who may come into their lives get better from them than they're giving this character who is so clearly good, who is trying, who is so easy to understand; because those people deserve better.