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The affect Childhood Abuse Had on the Earp Sisters

WARNING: THIS IS THE LONGEST THING WRITTEN AND IS RIDDLED WITH SPOILERS. 

TW: CHILD ABUSE, TRAMUA, ALCHOLISM  

The underlying fear of being like Ward clearly runs deep in Wynonna. I can’t blame her, as someone with first hand experience, a kid who was raised by abusive guardians are scared of continuing the cycle. So in the 4x10, when Waverly brings up her concerns and compared her to Ward, it is going to fucking hurt but we will get to that later.

Lets start with Willa, we know that Ward not only abused them but he also, as seen in season one, he places an insane amount of pressure on these kids. If you don’t remember let me give you a refresher, in season 1 when Willa figures out she is the Earp Heir, we get a flashback of her training with Ward, in which he takes her out in the middle night while he is obviously drunk to shoot bottles. When she hesitates and complains he yells at her and tells her ‘that she is the only one preventing the revenants from killing everyone and and the blood is on her hands if she failed to do her job as Heir. Thus Ward created a paranoid solider much like himself, and Willa grew with the mindset that she is has to do whatever it takes to get the job done. With this mindset combined with years of no socialization, everything she does goes along the line of if the reward outweighs the cost, that is the option she is going to chose. Like when she shot Haught, she would get a reward of delaying her sister and having less hinderance to her goal while it costs her nothing, she has no emotional attachments to Nicole and while Waverly does, she made no secret of the fact that she hates her. Or when Willa sent Whiskey Jim back to hell, to her the reward is another one off her hit list, while the cost would be loss of information and possibly BBD help. Also the ‘cost’ were partnerships that to her generated more risk than reward, and thus the decision was easy profit. So, the training and abuse from Ward created a child  who knew only one purpose: To be the Earp Heir. 

Now onto our angel, Waverly, from the beginning of the show it is made abundantly clear that she was neglected at early childhood. Throughout the show a running gag is that no one remembers when Waverly’s birthday is, especially Wynonna, this alone tells us that she was overlooked by her family. (This also shows a character contrast between her and Wynonna seeing as in the very first episode Wynonna turns 27 and Waverly immediately sends the sister she hasn’t seen in years a birthday text. This has nothing to do with my point, I just thought it was interesting how we hadn’t met Waverly at that point but the show hints at what she is like, good job Andras). In her youth, she lived an environment where those around her either hated and ignored her, or loved and eventually left her. This is going to create abandonment issues and is what drives Waverly to hide her true self. She becomes what others want her to be to decrease the chance that she’ll be left again. In season 1, we see her playing the part of the town darling but in exchange she has to hide her interests (she literally hides her Earp curse research under her bed and behind a curtain) in order to maintain shitty friendships and her relationship with her ex Champ. She seeks validation from others, and when she falls short of what others want seem crumbles in on her self. We see it in the first season, when she has to come to terms that Wynonna is in fact the Heir and no matter how much she prepared and hoped, it will always be Wynonna in the end. She does gain confidence but the shit that Ward did to her not only created the problem but also caused friction between her and Wynonna. 

Speaking of which:

Wynonna, our beloved protag, she has been through so much shit hasn’t she. As the middle child she got a fascinating mix of what both Waverly and Willa had to deal with. She was subjected to both the monolog of how they are the only thing between the revenants and destruction of everything they love and was also neglected by her father as she just a spare, the second born. Not to mention she also feels abandoned by Mama Earp, as we see in season 3, and has to deal with the trauma of the attack on the homestead when she was twelve during which she accidently killed her father and her older sister was taken. And oh yeah, she had to deal with this trauma while she was in a mental hospital because she killed her father and truthfully said revenants attacked them. A mental hospital by the way whose chosen ‘treatment’ was shock therapy until she told them what they wanted to hear. So not only Wynonna have survivors guilt, she has abandonment issues, PTSD, a substance abuse problem. She also has spent years running from and denying her past only to be pulled back the curse she can’t escape. Her father instilled the mindset of being the Heir, is a responsibility you can’t afford to fail at. She also sees the consequences of failing first hand, people die, every death is just another person she failed. All the while she is dealing with her burden, she sees Waverly’s attempts to heal, she sees Waverly having the normalcy she desperately wanted but can’t have. Wynonna is protective of Waverly and just wants her safe, so seeing this brings up a weird mixture of happiness and jealously toward her sister. A mixture that anger is introduced in when Waverly share her concern in 4b, because Wynonna doesn’t see concern, she sees her sister for whom she gave up so much for so, she can be happy, asking for more. Waverly also compares her to Ward (as someone who has been abused and has been told the ways I act like said parent by my siblings, that shit cut deep), which hurts, as she has tried to be better and avoid being like him but no matter how hard they try to break away Ward still haunts them.

TLDR: Ward is an alcoholic abusive dick

Ward: I raised prefect war ready soilders

Me: You fucked up perfectly good children is what you did. Look at them they have trauma  

So, its my Mom's birthday, and now I am thinking about how at my age she was already married and I haven't even kissed a girl yet.......jeez I am a loser.