There’s a post about how we need more female characters who genuinely care about people but are really bad at caregiving, and honestly that fits Kira Nerys really well. I’m thinking of Starship Down where she’s tasked with looking after Sisko and keeping him conscious when he has a head injury, and she just starts visibly flailing despite making an effort to hold it together. “Listen up…. because there’s going to be a test later” and then trying to keep him alert by droning on about duty rosters because she gets Task-Oriented when things are in dire straits and does not know how to scale things to a more personal level with someone she has a working relationship with.
Like, so much of how she deals with emotionally fraught situations is by getting up and doing something about them (even so far as traveling back in time) or just keeping busy to avoid dwelling on the matter at hand. When her father was dying, her response was to go out and kill some Cardassians about it, and then order another attack upon his death, rather than sit by his bedside. When Bareil died (pre-resurrection via mad scientist noodling) she went right back to work despite Bashir telling her she didn’t have to. It is a trauma mindset from someone who witnessed a lot of death and suffering and had no choice but to pick up and keep moving and keep fighting. And when she has to sit down and really focus on someone else’s vulnerability, it’s very uncomfortable for her. She cares very deeply about the people around her but she’s clumsy about it.