oh i can feel this is gonna be a long one.
there's two things i want to be very clear about.
- the likelihood of katniss having the same mental illness as her mother is extremely high; they both present with near-identical symptoms. i think they definitely suffer from the same illness.
2. their situations are entirely different and deserve to be treated as such.
katniss' catatonic depression comes after losing her sister, the person who — in catching fire — she describes as the only person in the world that she's 100% certain that she loves.
asterid's first episode that we know of occurs directly after burdock's death.
while both of them have surviving loved ones after these deaths, there's a distinct difference in their support systems and availability of treatment.
in regards to asterid, it is extremely abnormal that she doesn't have any sort of support system. as someone who grew up in poverty myself, that's not really how impoverished communities work. typically, the only reason people wouldn't keep reaching out to help a family in need is if you are actively pushing them away, which we know to be a canon character trait for asterid.
(my dear friend and go-to expert on all things appalachia @loungemermaid does a great job of discussing the specifics of that within appalachian communities in this post, and asterid's role further down in this post.)
this likely results from her own issues with her parents, as she contextually appears to be disowned by them entirely, so she struggles to allow herself to grow close with others in her personal relationships because she herself has been abandoned and thereby developed an inherent fear that to grow close to someone is to put herself at risk for getting hurt.
from what we know, it seems as if asterid is that one girl who doesn't maintain her friendships once she finds her partner and essentially cuts herself off. i won't pretend to know if this is on purpose or not, but i will reiterate that poor communities tend to do a great job at reaching out to each other, so even if her town friends shunned her, there probably wasn't a lack of people willing to be in her network. keeping in mind she lived in the seam for at least 11 years before burdock died and had plenty of time to establish herself in the community. maybe this is because of her own trauma, maybe not, but regardless, it would make burdock's death all the more painful if he was really her only person (and based on the text, it seems like he is).
the issue is that she didn't exclusively have herself to think about. i'm not a parent myself so i won't pretend to be an expert on something i've never experienced, but i don't feel i need to give birth myself to know that the second you're planning on carrying a child to term, you don't get to be selfish anymore. you do what's best by your kid, even if it's intimidating for you.
i can understand that she couldn't "snap out of it" per say when she went catatonic. most people can't. additionally, i empathise with her in that she didn't have the proper medication to treat herself.
that being said, she had years to build a network for her family in the event that something drastic like this should happen (and based on what we know, it seems like a relatively common occurence) and didn't. whit put it best when they said "Asterid is still just a little girl, trapped in her own trauma, in her own head, where a single choice that her parents didn’t agree with means they didn’t love her anymore. It’s a cycle. It’s a shame. She could’ve broken the cycle. She could’ve called out for help, from someone. She didn’t."
when i studied nursing, one of the first things we learned was how impactful a patient's community and network can be on their outcomes and recovery. as a healer, asterid would know this. it's no secret in the medical community, no matter how high your education goes. it is one of the most basic aspects of patient history to take note of. but she doesn't develop that for herself or her girls. whether by hubris that they wouldn't need it, or apprehension at going out of her own comfort zone, i don't know.
and so her daughters are neglected. they nearly starve to death, and katniss is forced to assume the archetype of the parentified eldest daughter. from the time she is 11, she always has someone to take care of.
neglect does not have to be intentional to be neglect.
even after asterid gets better and begins medicating herself, she is still highly dependent on katniss for tessarae, hunting, gathering, etc. it's only after they're taken in by 13 and asterid is given a proper job that she's able to support herself, hence why it's so different when katniss falls into her depression following prim's death: katniss has nobody to take care of but herself. she's allowed to be selfish and wallow in her grief.
haymitch is drunk at home. peeta's in the capitol. finnick's dead. prim too. gale's in 2. and asterid . . . asterid has abandoned her for real this time.
there's no catatonia to blame it on either. yes, asterid's grieving. it's understandable why she doesn't want to return to 12. but she's fully medicated, and she has a minor daughter who's deeply traumatised and experiencing her own catatonia. she needs her mother now more than ever.
but she's not there for her.
she leaves without so much as a goodbye. doesn't even wait around to see to it that her only living daughter isn't going to be executed for murder. and she chooses to do this when everyone else who loves katniss is either in treatment themselves (peeta in therapy in the capitol, haymitch self-medicating, etc.) or dead. sae and buttercup are the only reasons katniss stays alive in the months before peeta returns to 12. but even then, we have no way of knowing if that was at asterid's request (personally, i think it's haymitch's).
she pushes katniss away one final time. maybe it's because she reminds her too much of burdock with her looks and her voice. reminds her too much of prim as her only surviving daughter. then again, maybe not. the amount of canon information we have on her is abysmal. either way, she projects her abandonment on her daughter and katniss once again nearly dies as a result.
basically this is all a very long-winded for me to say that while i think they have the same illness, their situations aren't particularly comparable, and their relationship is complicated, to say the very least.
