Redbud,

I loved that post...all of it. You made some excellent points: "a hurt animal is a dangerous animal". One of the few sensible things Rhonda has said is that unless you've lived it, you cannot understand what Kim has lived through. I'm not minimizing the pain of having a parent who is a substance abuser, negligent, promiscuous, or absent, but there is another dimension involved when the physical body becomes a target. The one thing Rhonda does understand is the horror of an abusive father. I think there are parts of Rhonda that will never be what they could have been because of her hellish experiences while growing up. She is exactly the same age as me (down to the month), and I shudder to think of her watching her father shoot her mother when she was in the eighth or ninth grade. I think some of Rhonda's coldness comes from those wounded places.

That being said, I watched each episode, and I remember the Jill/Kim problem growing. It was one of the things that caused me to rethink my positive feelings for Jill. I also remember thinking that Jill was proving that months of SO assignments and meetings apparently left her with precious few "tools" in dealing with someone who "triggered" her. Actually, aside from a comment that Kim made immediately before or after someone's graduation that Jill found insidious ("are you afraid you'll lose touch with each other after you leave?"), I don't know what the real problem was except that Kim was too talkative for Jill's taste. I remember, vividly, those little meetings with Jill and Christina. I remember Jill's disc-jockey like confessionals.

Kim NEVER said, on camera no less, that she would rather "stick needles in her eyes" than to have to listen to Jill. Jill said that about Kim. Kim NEVER said that Jill was sent to "torture" her. Jill said that about Kim. That's not awful enough? What Kim DID say, on camera, was, "I'm glad Jill's leaving". What would have been more appropriate? "Oh Jill, I'll miss you so much. You've become my sister from another mother, a wise grandmother speaking such wisdom, my friend, boo-hoo, sob, sniffle." It would have gone a long way in adding to that overblown Jill graduation montage, but it would have been fake.

Is anyone really surprised? Jill is loud and large; she's intimidating. She became incredibly insecure and territorial as the "sensational six" began to go their own ways (are they serious, the "sensational six"? - the whole house was put on probation, and they verbally sliced each other on a daily basis!). Jill began to see a facility as her home. If it was Jill's home, it was just as much Kim's home.

I think the initial friction did alot in side-tracking Kim's progress. Instead of focusing on her childhood issues, she was gauging a silent house war in which she was the enemy. Remember Rhonda's meeting with the HG's..."let's break Kim?" Unbelievable. So now Kim is a cold-hearted ##### because the woman who, in her eyes (and mine), started the anti-Kim sentiment is leaving. I think she's just a normal human being.

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