onderon:

notastupidbird:

onderon:

the force is like anxiety

explain

with me, always

Seriously though the Dark Side can so easily be used as an allegory for mental illness it’s all about emotions like Yoda telling a young Anakin that he’s experiencing Fear when he says he’s cold (honestly though of course Anakin is cold he spent all his life on a desert planet and suddenly he’s in a totally new climate of course he’s cold Ugh that’s so stupid) and Qui-Gon especially cites Anxiety and there’s this whole thing where in the prequels the Jedi kind of suppress all their bad emotions which doesn’t really work and Anakin’s trauma and paranoia and Fears are what leads to his downfall but then in the EU books Luke teaches how emotions are only dark when not understood and you need to embrace negative emotions somewhat to properly move past them.
And every major character in the films have differing views of which emotions to trust if any and how to balance Thoughts and Feelings (Vader’s dialogue implies both will ultimately betray you) and like obviously the concept of The Force is vague and nebulous enough to be used as an allegory for just about anything but I think this is the most helpful way to think about it.