soft-pedaled, page 12

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okay... what to say about this page... basically all that's left after this, conversationally, is for them to touch on the difficulties of making decisions as adults when confronted with scenarios similar to their own childhoods and the same sense of helplessness, and understanding that caring for themselves when they are triggered is caring for abused kids, just ones who have grown up and still need help.

so let's address izzi first. i think a lot of people would interpret izzi as a character who doesn't cry like this. to me, izzi is similar to carmilla in personality, but only on the surface; i consider izzi more flexible because she wasn't able to solidify as only one persona like carmilla did.
izzi, as an individual alter, is comprised of several integrated alters, which i have written down, and some of them i've drawn, some of them i haven't. when i have to conceptualize what integration means, i have to bring my understanding of dissociation into it. everyone has different "modes" and mental states, but major dissociative disorders present a lack of voluntary control over freely moving between states, difficulty cognitively recognizing states as their own, and an exaggerated separation of states due to the previous two symptoms.
that's a mouthful, but it means there's a possibility that someone can imitate or grow into a relatively healthy amount of dissociation through reduction of these symptoms without "getting rid of" the personalities of integrated alters. moreover, even passing study of this disorder will inform you that integrated alters can fragment from retraumatization or periods of acute and chronic stress -- this confirms that personality elements inherent to alters remain constant whether integrated or not, and the symptoms are what can flare and go into remission.
with that said, i tend to conceptualize izzi as mostly headed by the first alter who intended to integrate the rest into her -- 5150, the little green parasite thing. she was able to integrate due to a willingness to be flexible and an ability to understand what motivated other alters; so, frequently, there is no "subswitching" within the integrated izzi... but it's POSSIBLE when necessary. and this is one of the cases where i'd consider it a voluntary subswitch, just because it's such a drastic departure from her own personality and affect. this is because being able to say "yeah, that's technically ME" is not good enough to brush away symptoms; being able to voluntarily let go of control and take it back is half of her skill here. this makes her a really interesting character to me.
anyway, the alter who subswitched is this one:

...the concept design itself probably makes it evident why izzi's so capable of bawling like this, lol.

as for felix, i think he is just regressing heavily and appeasing through self-flagellation here. it's a pretty common panic reaction abuse victims develop. this is also why he apologizes at the end of this page, i think it's more of a comfort thing for him than actually admitting fault in this case.
i wanted him to say "it's my fault for not saying anything" because it could mean not saying anything to izzi earlier, or not saying anything at his job, which are both applicable.

i think that's all i can think of to say for this page. love how i wrote an entire novel about izzi and then like 3 sentences for felix here.