Sherlock’s emotional abuse of John

 (Sherlock meta by violethuntress)

I agree with ALL of this; I just feel compelled to add Sherlock’s emotional abuse of John to this equation.

Not because it evens it out. Not because it excuses John’s physical abuse. But because it shouldn’t be overlooked because emotional abuse can be just as psychologically damaging as physical abuse and shouldn’t be seen as less significant.

I don’t actually think that instances of Sherlock drugging John, either seen (HoB) or reported (TSoT) was really a case of two co-dependent people being shitty to each other; John was the one with post-combat PTSD and Sherlock was squandering away his un-earned riches by being moody in a flat in central London. I actually reacted (and remember fandom reaction) to the end of HoB in horror, where the only saving grace was that it hadn’t actually worked. As this theme continued into S3 it started to become unforgivable to me. While Sherlock may have faked his death to “save John’s life” (how? that really wasn’t explained), at no point was it explained why he couldn’t have told John about his plans to spare him the deepest agony he experienced since the war zone (or his own suicidal ideation upon returning to London). At no point was it explained why he would have not gotten messages back to him for two whole years explaining that his death was faked. The depth of this cruelty really should not be forgotten.

I also had long conversations on this website after the infamous train-car scene because that was yet another breaking point for me; convincing someone there’s a live bomb and they are about to die in less than 5 minutes is considered torture according the terms of the Geneva convention. 

Moving into S4 and TLD, we watch as Sherlock emotionally manipulates John by basically pulling an elaborate version of “if you don’t come back now I’m going to kill myself!” and hems in John’s life from every angle, refusing to let him out of his orbit. Is this really to save him? Really?? (See Aja Romano’s tweet thread on this; sorry don’t have the link.)

Tl;dr I don’t disagree with this post at all, I just think that if we acknowledge John’s physical abuse, we should also acknowledge Sherlock’s mental and emotional abuse. They both need a lot of therapy and new interpersonal skills. They also don’t even come close to resembling the Holmes or Watson I know from ACD canon. (Holmes might come a little closer, but I’ve argued many times before that Holmes’ emotional manipulation of Watson pales in comparison to BBC Sherlock’s.)