sigh... All this misunderstanding of mental illness, it's effects and how to handle situations like this make me cringe. And quite honestly, it's giving me panic attacks and making me want to run from the boards. And my psychological scarring is nowhere near as bad as Faye's. That is exactly what I am seeing in Faye right now. Her words, her body language. She wants to, she needs to GET THE HECK OUT OF HERE NOW! She looks maybe 1-2 steps away from a full on break point. She doesn't need a hug from Angus. She doesn't need to talk it out right now. She needs him to go away so she can complete her emotional and possibly physical collapse, and then hopefully with the help of friend pull herself back together enough to talk with Angus. But right now he is the source of a MASSIVE amount of stress for her. An actually physical representation of everything she's feared about relationships since her father's suicide. At this moment she is very much in danger of regressing back to where she was shortly after that happened, and if she does pull back from that edge, it's going to be with the help of her friends, not Angus.
Everyone around her except Angus knows how badly his getting the job was going to affect her, except Angus. A little bit because he's been blind with giddyness about his career dreams maybe coming true and part because he doesn't understand Faye's mental illness and how bad it affects her. Most of that fault lays right at Faye's feet since she hasn't been telling him how she really feels. She's been trying so very hard to be the supportive girlfriend even though the thought of him moving away just makes her want to scream and go run and hide in a bottle again. Faye doesn't want things to change. Change terrifies her. People leaving terrifies her. She's on the verge of breaking down and has been heading that way for a while now. Angus actually getting the job is the last bit that kicked her over the edge.
It's not Angus' fault, really. He's being a little insensitive and lacking some knowledge. But he's not to blame for any of this. It's not Faye's fault either, really. She can't control her reactions. She should have been more honest. She should have told him before it exploded into a full blown panic how this was going to work out, that she couldn't do the LDR thing. But she was doing what society says a good partner should do. Be supportive of your mate. Even if your heart is breaking, even if you're about to snap. Smile, put on a happy face and don't let them know how bad you are. Suck it up, pack it down and hope it doesn't explode on you. While we don't know the reasons why. I'm willing to bet this was at the very least in part this is what drove Faye's father to committing suicide and her not thinking it was so sudden and unexpected. People just don't wake up one day and think "Well, I'll go kill myself now". It's a lot of stress, over a long time, often building up in suffered silence until it feels you can't escape anymore and you need to escape.
I can't blame either of them in this. As I've said.. I've seen this coming since the whole thing started. In some ways, I've been there myself. Either Angus wasn't going to get the job and things would go back to the way they were. Or he would get the job and they would have a stress and mental illness fueled break up, either right away, or a short time after Angus moved. It's not nice, it's not fair to either of the and both are going to hurt like hell. But there is no real blame here. I can't even blame Faye's father for causing all of her psychological wounds because I have no idea what was going on in his life that was bad enough to drive him to take his own life in order to escape it. The only hope now is that people around them won't freak out and start playing the blame game, but instead are supportive friends who help them to gather up their emotional pieces and stand by them while Faye and Angus try to put themselves partly back together.
Now, I'm going to go look at cute animals or something and try to get my heart rate and panic levels down.